Digital Wisdom for Work Course Portfolio Undergraduate Teaching and Instructional Design I co-taught a grant-funded undergraduate course in 2014-2015 (face-to-face) and 2015-2016 (online) called Digital Wisdom for Work. I created the course and managed it in Blackboard for the face-to-face course. For the 2015-2016 course, which was fully online, I designed the course in Canvas. The items in the portfolio are a… Read more →
Untethered Teaching Portfolio Faculty Development I co-facilitated four communities of practice (CoP) over the past two years. The first year (2014-2015) consisted of a year-long cohort of 24 faculty divided up into three separate CoPs that met monthly. We built the course using Google+ Communities and used Google Drive with shared documents (e.g., shared agendas). The second year (2015-2016) was… Read more →
Tech Desk Portfolio Student & Faculty Support and Employee Management I directed the development and launch of this student educational technology center housed in the library at SPU. The Tech Desk provides technology tools, assistance, and space for students to discover, create, and share. The Tech Desk is open during regular library hours and staffed by trained peer mentors ready… Read more →
As part of my studies with the Digital Education Leadership program at Seattle Pacific University, I recently engaged in and completed an exercise in peer coaching with a new teacher. I considered the additional challenges that face new teachers in the first few months of school and transitioned from an advocate to a collaborative partner, capable of […]
While the entire Digital Education Leadership program at Seattle Pacific University is designed to be a hands-on experience which embeds learning opportunities into students’ current workplace, this course, in particular, provided students with a meaningful opportunity to practice our newfound skills in a professional environment. Under the tutelage of Dr. David Wicks, Associate Professor and Chair of the Digital Education Leadership program and Dr. Les Foltos, Director of Educational Innovation at Peer-Ed and author of Peer Coaching: Unlocking the Power of Collaboration, students were trained as peer coaches and we worked with a collaborating teacher from our respective schools. I chronicled that learned and the skills I obtained in posts throughout the quarter and now, as this course comes to a close, I’m reflecting on the work that was done and thinking about how to sustain my skills as a peer coach in the future.
The importance of peer coaching practice in schools became evident to me very quickly into the quarter. Teachers that are supported create students that are successful. Well-renowned researchers of teaching methods and staff development, Bruce Joyce and Beverly Showers, have found that teachers that have been coached generally demonstrate the following:
This quarter during the Digital Education Leadership program at Seattle Pacific University, the focus has been to develop peer coaching skills, to understand the role of a peer coach, to incorporate 21st century learning, to define effective learning, and to collaborate with a colleague to improve on a lesson (Wicks and Foltos, 2015). Aligned … Read More
This quarter, through the Digital Education Leadership program at Seattle Pacific University, my classmates and I are building skills towards becoming peer coaches in our respective schools. As I describe in an earlier post, peer coaches work with a collaborating teacher to help them to recognize their amazing abilities through questions and periods of reflection, allowing the collaborative teacher to solve their own challenges with the help of a safe, supportive cheerleader on the side. One essential aspect of the peer coaching role is exploring the lesson improvement process, where the collaborating teacher and the peer coach examine a current lesson plan and find ways to enhance what is already being taught. As I move forward with the idea of lesson improvement, I am left wondering how to balance the role of coach without crossing into the position of “expert.” In Peer Coaching: Unlocking the Power of Collaboration, author, Les Foltos, warns readers that “teachers want a coach to be a peer, not an expert” (Foltos, 2013, pg. 19). Teachers don’t want someone to telling them what to do, they want a friend and a colleague to talk though a lesson and share ideas that could enhance … Read More
Introduction This is the final post reflecting on EDTC 6105 and peer coaching. Over the past 10 weeks we’ve learned about peer coaching and explored in-depth how to integrate technology and pedagogy while providing a collaborative and inquiry-based environment for our peer teacher. This blog post will share my reflections on a number of questions posed by the professors and… Read more →
ISTE Standards for Coaches This is my final blog post for the quarter based on the ISTE standards. In this module, the fourth, I integrate the ISTE Standards for Coaches 1D & 2F. Triggering Event What skills, resources and processes will you use to help peers co-plan learning activities they want to improve? Triggering Question How might Process Oriented Guided… Read more →
During the quarter for the Digital Education Leadership program at Seattle Pacific University, the focus has been to develop coaching skills, to understand the role of a peer coach, to define effective learning, and to incorporate 21st century learning. And now module four probes further into coaches collaborating with peers to improve learning activities (Wicks … Read More
