Peer coaching is a collaborative process designed to improve faculty performance in the classroom. Peer coaching occurs when a faculty member who wants to improve his or her facilitation skills invites another faculty member (or members) to observe and give assessment feedback related to specific criteria. This module reviews the benefits of peer coaching to the assessor as well as the assessee; it discusses best practices and introduces a tool that supports data collection and reporting.

Mutual Benefits

Peer coaching is a form of assessment (4.1.1 Overview of Assessment). It is designed to be both a personal development process and a community-building process (Schön, 1990). Ideally, both the assessor (person providing feedback) and the assessee (person receiving feedback) benefit from this practice. The assessor is given the opportunity to view the performance of other faculty in the classroom, to examine the effectiveness of different teaching/learning strategies, and to formulate ideas about how these might be transferred. As such, peer coaching is a great method of propagating “best practices” throughout a community of educators (Wenger, 1998). The assessee receives feedback on selected criteria of interest from an external observer who is free of classroom responsibilities.

Setting the Stage (Relationship Forming)

Selecting a peer coach is an important part of the process. Ideally, a peer coach will have been coached on several occasions and will be well rooted in his or her understanding of assessment principles. It is not necessary to select someone from within the same discipline. Your first peer coaching sessions may prove more comfortable if your peer coach is external to your department. As you become more comfortable with this process, introducing qualified coaches from within your discipline will allow deeper assessment of learning outcomes in the classroom

The benefits and roles of peer coaching should be shared between the people doing peer coaching. When talking with others about being a peer coach, there should be a plan for exchanging visits with one another. Being a peer coach and being peer coached will spread the mutual benefits of the process among all those involved. It is highly recommended in the beginning to set aside time after the debriefing to do a peer assessment of the peer coach, if he or she so desires, as a means of elevating future performances.

It is also important for the parties involved to understand the ground rules for peer coaching. Peer coaching is not the same as mentoring; a mentoring relationship is one in which a person is sought out for his or her abilities/experience in a particular area and is asked to aid the mentee’s growth in that area (4.2.1 Overview of Mentoring). Mentor relationships are typically one-directional in terms of skill growth. People involved with peer coaching should have the opportunity to play both roles in the process (assessor and assessee). A peer coach is not chosen for his or her discipline expertise, but rather for his or her desire to be involved with mutual improvement in the classroom.

The instructor and peer coach should meet just prior to the coaching session. The instructor should give some background on what will be going on in the classroom, and specify the criteria on which he or she wants to be assessed (3.2.5 Creating a Facilitation Plan). The assessee should already have these criteria in mind before this meeting. Criteria may range from assessing the level of student learning, to the instructor’s facilitation skills during constructive intervention (4.1.4 Assessment Methodology). Beginners at peer coaching should be given no more than two areas for assessment. More advanced coaches can be given as many as four. Often it is helpful to focus on faculty or student performance related to a skill cluster from the cognitive, social, or affective domain (2.3.3 Classification of Learning Skills). The instructor and coach should also discuss the time and format of the debriefing meeting, and whether the peer coach would like assessment feedback from the instructor as well. Ideally this meeting takes place immediately after class.

In the classroom, the instructor should take some time to introduce the students to the process that will be taking place. Students should be instructed to ignore the presence of the coach(es) and be informed of the purpose of the peer coaching: to have an external person give assessment feedback on how to improve the instructor’s future classroom performance. Students should not alter their behavior or performance and should know that the coaches will not be evaluating or assessing them.

The debriefing meeting should take place immediately after the classroom setting is over but provide enough time for the assessor to finish documentation and synthesis. The SII Method for Assessment Reporting (4.1.9) provides an efficient and effective framework for debriefing. The peer coach should verbally present his or her feedback to the instructor from his or her written notes. At the end of the meeting, the peer coach should give the notes to the instructor for future use. If desired, the coach can request an assessment of his or her peer coaching performance.

Table 1 outlines eight tips for being an effective peer coach (assessor role). Because peer coaching is a form of assessment, many of these principles are closely aligned with principles of assessment (4.1.3 Mindset for Assessment).

Table 1 Tips for Peer Coaches
  1. Stay focused in the areas chosen by the assessee.
  2. Focus on quality over quantity.
  3. Adopt an assessment mindset.
  4. Feedback from the assessor should be given interactively, not just as a written report.
  5. Written documentation should be turned over to the assessee after the verbal feedback is given.
  6. Do not intervene in the classroom.
  7. Take the perspective of the assessee.
  8. In no way should any of these peer coaching sessions be used in an evaluation process by the peer coach or by others who evaluate the instructor.

Collecting and Interpreting Data

A tool for the peer coach is given at the end of this module. This can be photocopied for use in the classroom. The information on the top should be filled out during the pre-class meeting with the instructor. While collecting data, if the class is working in groups, the assessor should be free to wander around the room. The closer the coach is to the groups, the easier it is to capture observations. Focus only on observations that align with the assessment criteria requested by the instructor. Once an observation has been identified, the peer coach should withdraw to a place where he or she can process it. Do not worry about missing other observations: take the time to completely process one before looking for more.

Strengths: Observations should show evidence of increased value in the selected focus area. The coach should identify how this occurred, or what actions/prompts from the instructor may have caused this, and why this would be considered a strength. Once this is collected, the strength can be written. The assessment should be generalized in such a way that it can be applied to future circumstances.

Areas for Improvement: Observations in this category likely fall under missed opportunities: these are not things done “wrong,” but things that, if changed, might elevate learning in the classroom. The coach should capture the situation around the missed opportunity and make a suggestion (or suggestions) for how the instructor might have capitalized on it to improve the situation. When one writes the assessment, these comments should be generalized in such a way so that in the future, similar situations will be easier to identify, and the recommendations can be applied.

Insights: Insights are usually a side effect of processing earlier parts of the assessment. They often arise in the form of observations or “ah-ha moments” experienced by the peer coach. It is amazing how many opportunities there are for experiencing insightful moments when one acts as a peer coach in the classroom. Once an observation has been made, there is great benefit in identifying the implications of this new information, and further generalizing them to contexts outside the one in which the observation was experienced.

Case Study

The following is an example of how each of the boxes was filled in on a peer coaching form. In this case, the course content was concerned with fluid mechanics, and the instructor had a team activity set up for part of the class. The assessment focus area was the team learning environment that the instructor had created.

Each of the following tables shows how data is assembled into an assessment about a strength (Table 2), an area for improvement (Table 3), and an insight (Table 4) that was reported by a peer coach.

Table 2  Formulation of a Strength

Area Feedback
Value

Setting of time (not content) limits for the activity.
Practice

During the introduction, a defined start and end time were given to students.
Significance

This puts responsibility on the student teams to work efficiently and manage their time in the activity. Teams that didn’t finish in the required time had extra motivation to pay attention to the post-activity wrap-up.
Assessment

Having predetermined time limits for the activity ensured adequate time and greater student involvement in the post-activity wrap-up.

Table 3  Formulation of an Area for Improvement

Area Feedback
Opportunity

Students who completed the activity or had the “right answer” were less engaged in group discussion.
Surrounding Situation

Calculations associated with the activity were difficult for some teams, but rudimentary for others. Teams that finished early did not feel challenged.
Action Plan

Have extra credit questions about the “why” and “what if” surrounding the main concepts in the activity.
Assessment

Because teams progress at different rates, adding critical thinking questions to the end of an activity will add challenge and will increase understanding in teams that work at a faster rate. Addressing some of these questions as part of the post-activity discussion would allow these teams to share their discoveries with the rest of the class leading to better engagement of all teams, regardless of their work rate.

Table 4  Formulation of an Insight

Area Feedback
Observation

Students do not yet have an engineering mindset.
Implication

Junior-level students are applying course concepts, but not in the methodical and adaptive manner expected of graduating seniors.
Generalization

Content knowledge of all students was similar, but those with better problem-solving skills performed better in the activity.
Assessment

In the past, traditional engineering curriculum has been content driven, not process driven. Students should be exposed to skill-developing activities throughout the curriculum to balance Level 2 knowledge (comprehension), Level 3 knowledge (application), and Level 4 knowledge (working expertise).

Concluding Thoughts

There is great potential for improving future instructor performance when a second set of eyes captures and interprets classroom observations and produces assessment feedback (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000). By playing the role of peer coach one is also introduced to teaching methods that can be tuned and applied to one’s own course, thus peer coaching is a great means of propagating best practices (Wenger, 1998). Having a core group of peers that share assessor and assessee responsibilities provides a safe, nonjudgmental environment in which risk-taking and innovation can prosper. By having peer coaches observing in your classroom, you demonstrate to students that you are interested in improving your own performance. In this way you model the kind of continuous improvement and lifelong learning that you hope to instill in them.

References

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Schön, D. A. (1990). Educating the reflective practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. UK: Cambridge University Press.

Peer Coaching Form