What Experts Are Saying About Instructor Based Coaching

It was said by Atul Gawande(Personal Best, the New Yorker) that Coaching done well may be the most effective intervention designed for human performance.

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It was said by Atul Gawande(Personal Best, the New Yorker) that Coaching done well may be the most effective intervention designed for human performance. This can’t be less agreed with has it has been said by experts that, Coaching is a fantastic opportunity to give new teachers the confidence, skills and self-awareness needed for a long and successful teaching career and to give experienced teachers the chance to develop themselves further. The importance of this has been emphasized by experts for decades, describing it as an essential component of effective continuous professional development.

Instructor based coaching provides teachers with the theory underlying the new strategies they’re learning, demonstrations of the strategy, and the opportunity to practice them in their own classrooms, making provision for the teachers with all the skills they need to improve.
Research shows that a third of all teachers in the maintained sector leave the profession within 5 years of qualifying. This clearly shows the importance of providing effective support to help develop teachers in their first few years. The loss of a new teacher is an inconvenience, as much as, it’s also a serious drain on the school’s important financial resources. Instructor based coaching is more like sports coaching, where the teacher is helped to focus on one aspect of their technique that can be isolated and practiced. It shows what makes high-quality professional development for teachers. It is a continuous process, not a one-off workshop but job-embedded, addressing issues teachers face daily in their classrooms. As it can be aligned to curriculum and assessment, it further makes the goal twofold: i.e improved teaching practice and improved student learning.

Furthermore, it can be seen that, the coaching process is characterized as one where the experts work with teachers to discuss classroom practice in a way that is (a) individualized, that is, the coaching sessions are one-on-one; (b) intensive, that is the coaches and teachers interact at least every couple of weeks; (c) extended – teachers receive coaching over a sustained period of time; (d) context-specific – teachers are coached on their practices within the context of their own classroom; and (e) focused – coaches work with teachers to engage in intentional practice of specific skills.”
Experts have seen how instructor based coaching makes teachers focused, and encourages self-reflection. According to experts, Lucy Steiner and Julie Kowal from the Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, it was said that, “For an instructor based coaching to be effective, the leaders of the school need to play an active role in selecting trained coaches, developing a targeted coaching strategy, and evaluating whether coaches are having the desired impact on teaching and learning.”
An expert, Garet et al, said that professional development programs like instructor based coaching are more effective than the traditional professional development workshop model because they respond better to the active way the teachers learn best and are integrated in a teachers’ day-to-day activities at the school. It also provides flexibility as it can be video based and cost effective, according  to the school selecting what works best for them.  
Of a truth, it can be agreed that, instructor based coaching has become an attractive and effective alternative to greater generic teacher professional development and one of the most effective of all educational interventions.