Competencies are defined as an individual’s demonstrated skills and abilities. Demonstrating ability and excellence in any profession requires the mastery of different competencies related to the role. Teaching competencies include concepts, practices, and knowledge that practitioners must know and be able to demonstrate in order to be effective in facilitating children’s learning. Coaches can provide targeted support around the teaching competencies using a variety of mentoring strategies. One strategy coaches can use is to guide reflection and provide feedback on practice. Through a series of prompts, coaches can provide teachers with opportunities to reflect on their practice.
Conversations between the coach and teachers can also include specific feedback and support around continuous improvement related to the skills and knowledge needed for effective teaching and instruction. Oftentimes, teachers use the same strategies repeatedly based on their previous experiences and comfort levels. With this strategy, coaches build upon what the teacher already knows about skill development and pedagogy for growth in specific teaching areas. Then, by providing actionable feedback, the coach pushes for more skilled practice and supports the teacher in more complex, sophisticated implementation of the evidence-based practice.
You may consider using the following competencies to facilitate reflection and feedback conversations:
- The coach provides content-focused feedback that references and builds upon what the practitioner already knows about skill development, pedagogy, and evidence-based practice
- The coach builds on what the practitioner is already doing by providing actionable feedback that pushes for more skilled practice and supports more complex, sophisticated implementation of evidence-based practice
- The coach uses a variety of prompts as needed until the practitioner provides objective description of events; this would occur prior to making judgments or moving on to solutions or next steps (i.e., describing what happened without the “why” it happened)
Mentoring Prompts
- “Describe to me what happened when you started the lesson today?”
- “What was your learning objective for this activity or lesson?”
- “What teaching strategies were you using to accomplish this objective?”
- “How were children engaging with you and with each other during the lesson?”
- “What worked? Where else could you apply these strategies?”
- “Did you notice in the video that (x-describe event) …, what would you do differently to address this?”
- “Why do you think that happened? Why else?”
- “Is there anything you could have done differently?”
- “What were you doing at that time?”
- “I noticed here there was an opportunity to do [x] (providing actionable feedback). Is that something you can practice next time?”