The Learning Centre provides support and supplementary resources for TeachingHOW2s. For further help or feedback email support@teachinghow2s.com.
Coaching
- Learning Centre
- Put Into Practice
- Coaching
Coaching has not proved to be the panacea for rapid teacher improvement. Expensive, time-consuming and distracted by its life-coaching origins, coaching significantly gains in focus and impact when the expertise of the HOW2s are added to the mix.
Identify Target
Explore the target: As the coach, establish with your coachee teacher, the source of the target. Discover if the target was set for the teacher by someone else, with the teacher or by the teacher himself.
Match to HOW2s
Find your HOW2s: With your coachee, find a few HOW2s that best support the target.
One option is to go to the Barriers to Progress Collection in the Library, select the Personalise your library option, and, with your coachee, run through the questions to identify which ones resonate most with them. When your coachee has selected the sets that they see as most relevant click the ‘Update Preferences’ button. See the three screen grabs below.
Your coachee’s selected sets will then be pinned, and you can click through to explore the teaching techniques within each set.
Click through to any techniques the coachee would like to explore further. Remind the teacher to mark his Status as Considering It.
Create a Set of selected HOW2s: Put the selected HOW2s into a Set.
Every set you create will be available in the main library. Note that you can also create sets from the library.
Then create a Nudge for the coachee, attaching your Set and outlining the dates you’ve agreed by when he will attain the next two Statuses.
Nudge received: After the meeting, the coachee looks at his Home page where the Set and Nudge have arrived.
Learn HOW2 Steps
Study the HOW2s: The teacher now studies the HOW2s. He views them with an eye to any potential problems if the HOW2 were used with no adaptations made for his class.
He captures his thoughts in the Notes.
The Notes feature is on every technique page beneath the main viewing area, below AI Insights. You can scroll there or use the toggle to the right of the viewing area.
Change status: The teacher changes his status to Working On It.
Adapt to Context
Tweak the HOW2: Your coachee can use the AI Assistant to explore how best to adapt the technique they are working on to their context.
Every technique has an AI Assistant located above the main viewing area. Its job is to help the coachee imagine how to adapt the technique to their context.
Click on the AI Assistant tab, and the Assistant temporarily adopts the viewing space.
The Subject, Lesson Focus, and Environment fields help the AI Assistant provide contextualised output, enabling the coachee (and you if you are working with them) to adapt the technique to their context. When selected, additional ‘Areas of Interest’, such as ‘Employability Skills’ or ‘Adapting for SEN’, will be added to the output.
Some tips:
Subject: Include the qualification the students are working towards.
Lesson Focus: Be concise — include the Aims and Objective of the Lesson.
Environment: Left empty, the AI will likely default to the most likely teaching environment. We strongly recommend filling this field, especially if the coachee is teaching away from their usual environment. For example, a theory lesson for a lorry driver or welding instructor trainer or a field trip for a geography lecturer.
All outputs can be copied and will automatically be filed in the user’s profile.
The teacher can again capture any ideas or further adaptations in their Notes.
Apply to Teaching
Try out the HOW2: Observe the teacher use the adapted HOW2 either at this first attempt or later after a few trials, as agreed.
Alternatively, if your organization supports video hosting, the teacher can record the lesson and upload a link to the video just for you using the Notes.
Use the Nudge feature to capture the ongoing dialogue between you and your coachees.
Review Impact
Feedback Time: If you did observe the teacher, display the technique on your PC, tablet or phone so that you can give the teacher more precise feedback relating to each step of your observation, comparing yours with his evaluation of the effectiveness of the adaptations.
Additionally or alternatively, add your comments to his Notes or the Nudge you set up.
Next:
Instructional Rounds
Instructional Rounds centres around observing teaching, not teachers. It brings a new level of rigour to observations from its medical origins. HOW2s assist in providing teachers with choices for their theories of action: the plans to address the learning needs of their students.
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