Two Heads Are Better than One: Peer Coaching as a Technique to Improve Teaching and Learning

How often do you discuss new teaching ideas with your colleagues? How often do you work in groups or watch one another work with students? How often do you think together about the impact of your behavior on students?

Have you ever heard about peer coaching?

Peer coaching is a powerful tool for professional development, which is mainly used in the fields of education and human resources management. It is defined as a process by which professionals get together and form collaborating team for providing personal and professional support to each other.
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In contrast to performance coaching, which is focused on achieving goals, improving skills and providing feedback, peer coaching doesn’t include evaluation of your performance and giving advice. It is based on the assumption that professionals benefit more from discussing new ideas together, building trust, providing support and observing each other than from just simply following advice. In the peer coaching process, professionals often switch between the role of a peer coach and the role of a peer client.
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Benefits of peer coaching:

• Faster learning of new teaching skills
• Share of successful practices
• Higher motivation and job satisfaction
• Better relationships with colleges  and improved school climate
• Professional and emotional support

Peer Coaching and the GROW Model
GROW is a simple and very effective coaching model, that is used to structure peer coaching sessions.
The model includes 4 different phases:
Goal: setting a specific, measurable attainable, realistic and timely goal
Reality: describing and examining the current reality
Options: exploring and discussing options, identifying possible obstacles
Way forward: committing the actions, reviewing the progress

Interested in peer coaching?
​Check out our Peer coaching training course!
In the course you will learn:

• how to professionally lead a coaching session in the context of peer coaching
• how to implement GROW model of coaching
• basic coaching skills, including active listening, rapport, building trust, empathy, summarizing, paraphrasing, reflecting and raising awareness