Negros Oriental State University

This article has been written by four authors. Madeleine Gregg is professor at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. Marcia L. Rock is associate professor in the department of Specialized Education Services, University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Naomi P. Zigmond is distinguished professor in the Department of Instruction and Learning, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Robert A. Gable is Constance F. and Colgate W. Darden professor at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia. The audiences targeted are the virtual coaches and teachers. The article technically focuses on introducing, explaining and encouraging the use of “Bug-In-Ear” (virtual coaching) as a method of coaching teachers. It describes a virtual coach as a supportive companion who inspires and builds up teachers and should offer more encouraging, supporting statements than corrective or instructive ones. The article clearly outlines good qualities and skills required for a good coach-teacher relationship. It can be a good reference material for those who would like to know more about virtual coaching and its advantages over the traditional side-by-side coaching.

The author of the article is a research associate at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning and the president of the Instructional Coaching Group. He is also the author of Unmistakable Impact: A Partnership Approach for Dramatically Improving Instruction (Corwin, 2010). In his work, he targets coaches as his audience, with an aim of illustrating what good coaches are expected to do. The author emphasizes on the benefits of a good interaction between the coach and the teacher. It also explains seven partnership principles of coaching and the actions of good coaches. It outlines partnership as an act of shared learning as much as it is about shared power. The article also explains the activities in which coaches who act on the partnership principles should engage in. It depicts a coach as a thinking partner for teachers, and coaching as a meeting of minds. Generally, the article is useful and forms a good advice for coaches hence helps improve their performance.

The site deals with designing a professional development program for a school or district. It explains the characteristics of an effective professional development. It notes that the content of professional development programs is based on organizational needs. The site also gives the categories and connections that schools should focus on so as to ensure continuous improvement. An option for taking a survey is also granted so as to collect opinion, views and facts. Its audiences are administrators of a school, district or both. It is purposely gives appropriate advice and guidance to them. It provides the tips that ensure that schools and districts remain on an improvement plane. It mainly stresses on directly helping the students achieve their goals and supporting student learning needs. Furthermore, it states that cooperation is needed between teachers and the administrators in planning and implementation process to ensure the smooth running of the institution. This website can form a good reference for administrators, though it does not provide clear management skills.

EDC Science Foundation. Resources for Teacher Leadership: Mentoring and Coaching

The site avails resources that help to improve teacher leadership. It contains a list of links to other resourceful sites which elaborates deeper about mentoring and coaching. The links gives more detailed and clearer notes about the various issues related to mentoring and coaching. In addition to that it offers resources for assisting a colleague who may be new to teaching, the school, the discipline, or to a change in the practices or curriculum recently instituted by the district, school, or department. The site describes the components of a high-quality mentor program. The site targets mentors especially those who are new to teaching, a school, department, or curriculum change. The site may also be a source of references to coaching staffs. The site provides very useful information to the targeted audiences. It adequately enables them to deal with crucial issues at hand satisfactorily and with great skill.