Pedagogical Coaching

Miquel Àngel AlabartLAMAP Spain

P.A.U. Education

International School of Science Teaching. Sicily, July 2005Workshop on Pedagogical Coaching

P.A.U. Education

P.A.U. Education is a private company dedicated to participative educational projects.

We work for both private and public organizations in several social and school topics (i.e. road safety, health education, adolescence, e-learning, etc.).

Science teaching is becoming one of our main interests, developed through projects Pollen (a community based project submitted to EC) and LAMAP.

Why pedagogical coaching?

Any new thing that comes from outside the school needs to be accompanied.

Many of our projects are short-term ones so teachers haven’t got the time to get used to them.

Others (like LAMAP) imply complex changes that need a close follow-up.

Coaching is coherent with our participative approach.

In-service training approaches

From Baumgartner, P. (2004). “The Zen Art of Teaching”

Contents of pedagogical coaching

Emotional support as main objective: satisfying needs

First one and more important: to feel listened To feel confident (by having contents and technique knowledge

but also by having experienced success). To get a positive children’s answer. To have own work recognized. …

Active revision of practice: self-inquiry approach

Our projects’ usual tools for teachers coaching:

Big scale projects (on road safety, democracy…). Phone E-mail

Small scale projects (environment awareness, LAMAP). Personal E-mail

Context conditions

Spanish educational system is descentralized. LAMAP has been experimented in Catalonia and, in less grade, in Extremadura.

Catalonia schools had an important advance about 25 years ago, coinciding with democracy and autonomy.

Science teaching in Catalonia

During the last 15 years two complementary iniciatives with many aspects in common with LAMAP have been generalised in many schools (mostly public ones but not only):

Ciència 3-6 and 6-12 (by Catalan Government) Projectes de treball (by universities and

schools).

Charachteristics of both projects

Ciència 3-6 and 6-12

Importance of hands on activities but not always inquiry.

Network of resources centers with material.

Initial training with no follow-up.

Funding stopped about last 90’s.

Now very voluntary.

Projectes de treball

Work supported by constructivist approach.

Children choose the topic they want to learn.

Investigation process similar to inquiry.

In practice, more centered in information search than in real observations.

Consequences

Some interest on science. Some inquiry experience.

But Some “vices”:

Not always real connexion children – inquiry activities Demonstrative experiments by teacher (with anecdotic

participation of children that answer questions previous designed).

Too centered in information search and in children wide range of interests (lots of questions that later they will try to answer by looking for in written documents and consulting experts).

In-service training

There are two kinds of in-service training:

Courses (during the year or in summer schools).

“Assessorament a centres” (advisor visits).

LAMAP - Spain in-service training

We combined both modalities: course and advisor visits.

25 teachers participated in first training sessions.

14 implemented some activities in 5 schools.

12 received advisor visits as three coaching sessions (individual and small groups).

Means used

Individual and small group meetings.Direct observations.Video recordings.Questionnaires.E-mail.

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Before coaching After starting coaching

Teachers working with Lamap

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Before coaching After starting coaching

Schools working with Lamap

Some comments by teachers:

“I didn’t know how to start. When you told me you would come to a class session, I decided just to start and see”. Neus

“After a couple of sessions, I realized that hypothesis making was the main difference between LAMAP and other methodologies”. Francesc

“We need to share what we are doing, so that we could feel more secure”. Neus

“Sometimes I don’t know weather I’m doing well or not, and in these sessions I feel better ”. Núria

Some conclusions

Coaching enhances the implementation of the project.

Coaching is a necessary condition for the quality of the project.

Coaching allows a qualitative process assessment.

Short-term perspectives for LAMAP in Spain

Enlarge the experimental phase to more schools throuhg a big scale invitation.

Develop e-learning and by phone coaching tools for participant schools.

Combine deep initial training courses with e-learning completation.

Develop a resources metadata bank through EC’s e-contents-plus funding.

Case 1

A teacher is interested in inquiry activities, she has participated in some training sessions and has started to implement some activities in class, but she is a bit disappointed with her colleagues. They don’t show any interest with her work and she is not sure of going on.

Case 2

A teacher is very proud of his inquiry activities. She says she’s been working about trees with 6-7 year olds. When he shows you her work, you see many of the activities are not-inquiry: a drawing of a tree in wich children must complete empty labels, questions about other drawings, only one real observation where questions are already made…

Case 3

You visit a rural class of 8 to 12 years old. They have worked well, making hypothesis and comproving them, but make some observations: the teacher tries to make the experiment is successful, even when other circumstances interfere; and in addiction, when taking out conclusions, this is not mentioned.