Coaching for staff professional development in education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Coaching for staff professional development in education

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Cooperation between educational institutions and business

Project Summary

The diversity and complexity of students and classrooms in the 21st century place increasing demands on the teacher to provide effective pedagogy and instruction. To meet these demands teachers have to adopt new professional practices, skills, competences and knowledge. Individual and team coaching is increasingly being seen as the tool through which to address these challenges and support teachers.

Research confirms that teachers who have been coached are more “likely than non-coached peers to transfer newly acquired teaching practices into classroom use” (Cornett and Knight, “Research on Coaching”, 2009). Several studies demonstrate coaching’s potential for increasing student achievement (Norton, 2001; Blachowicz, Obrochta & Fogelberg, 2005; Schwarz & McCarthy, 2003; Lyons & Pinnell, 2001). The role of the coach is to improve student achievement by building teachers’ capacity and understanding of instructional practices.

Coaching is widely used in business organisations to strengthen individual and team capacity and productivity. In educational settings there are some good examples of how teachers coach teachers, but coaching is not widely used in schools in project partner countries. Our long-term goal outside the scope of this project is to increase schools in which coaching is used as a systematic approach. The goal for CoDe project is to explore the experience and best practices of partner countries in using coaching as a tool for more effective change management and creation of a supportive and growth-oriented environment, and to identify the opportunities that coaching provides for staff development and collaboration.

To reach the goal we have set the following objectives:
1. To develop a description of current state of coaching in staff development both in business and educational settings.
2. To organize 6 learning visits in partner countries to explore how coaching techniques, both individual and group, have helped to create growth-oriented environments through more effective cooperation and well-being that lead to change in practice, reflection and school-wide collective efficacy that promote student achievement.
The experience will be sought not only in schools but in institutions from various sectors, i.e. higher education institutions, state/public institutions, local authorities, businesses, NGOs, etc., to identify how experience from other sectors can be transferred to education sector. The collected techniques and methods will be tried out in the follow-up workshops.
3. To create a digital Resource book of individual and group coaching techniques, methods and examples of best practices from different settings in partner countries.
4. To disseminate the best coaching practice and to introduce and try out various coaching techniques and elements in all partner countries.

Direct target groups of CoDe project are educators (school leadership and teachers) and staff of partner institutions (policy makers, consultants, educators, trainers, lecturers, project managers, etc) who directly or indirectly work with schools. Indirect target groups are students, staff of public and local authorities, business organisations, NGO’s and other stakeholders.

During the project we aim to reach the following results:
– A completed desk research of current state of coaching in staff development both in business and educational settings
– Raised awareness on coaching techniques and methods to improve staff development through learning visits, follow-up workshops, dissemination and multiplier events
– Developed digital resource book for educators and schools to use for building supportive and growth-oriented environments
– Built capacity of school educators in using coaching techniques and methods through workshops and multiplier events using the developed digital resource book
– Informed public and local education authorities of the value of using coaching techniques and methods to lay the foundation for introduction of coaching in school plans

The expected impact is deeper understanding and better knowledge of using coaching techniques to improve school achievement. The digital Resource book of coaching techniques, methods and examples of best practices from different settings will foster schools to use coaching techniques and elements for effective change management, collaboration, mutual understanding, problem identification, decision making, reducing of burn-out syndrome, individual and team development and growth, as well as improvement of socioemotional competence.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 233295 Eur

Project Coordinator

VALSTS IZGLITIBAS SATURA CENTRS & Country: LV

Project Partners

• Inspectoratul scolar judetean Iasi
• CENTRE FOR ADVANCEMENT OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY LTD-CARDET
• Agencija za odgoj i obrazovanje
• Masarykova univerzita
• Rigas Izglitibas un informativi metodiskais centrs
• Learn Sheffield