Taking action and reflecting on your experience – using the GROW model of coaching

Taking action

Experimentation, or ‘deliberate practice’, plays an important part in helping teachers to hone their skills and to develop new techniques. Petty (2004) advocates the use of ‘supported experiments’ to encourage teachers to try out new approaches in a supported environment.

This is backed up by research evidence which led Joyce and Showers (2002) to conclude that for training to be truly effective, it needs to include five components or stages.

•	Theory – where the new approach is explained and justified.
•	Demonstration – to give a model of how this can be put into practice.
•	Practice – so that the teacher can try out the new approach.
•	Feedback on how well the new approach is working.
•	Coaching – to help the teacher to discuss the teaching in a supportive environment and to consider how it might be improved.

The research shows that, without the opportunity to receive feedback and coaching, there is no measurable impact on classroom practice. However, once these components are added, in particular, the final coaching stage, there is a large and measurable impact on practice.

Feedback may be provided by a colleague who observes the session. Alternatively, after trying out a new approach, you might describe to colleagues what you did and what happened as a result, including things that went well and things that did not. 

Coaching goes one step further. It provides an opportunity for the teacher to reflect on the session and to consider, in a supportive climate, why an approach did not work and how it might be changed or refined.

Reflecting on your experience

You will get the most out of every professional development opportunity if you adopt the reflective learning cycle (Figure 1: Reflecting on experience) as a structure for working with recalled events. It provides an opportunity to reflect and work in a systemic manner and is best used in the context of a coaching conversation where you have the support of a colleague.

Figure 1

From: National Teaching and Learning Change Programme: Engineering (2006).

The GROW model of coaching

GROW is a non-directive model of coaching. It stands for:

•	Goals 	– what you want to achieve
•	Reality 	– where are you right now in relation to your goals?
•	Options 	– how you might try to achieve your goals
•	Will 	– what it will take to implement the options.

When you and your colleagues use this approach, it is not up to the coach to give advice or provide answers to the person they are coaching. Instead the coach’s role is to ask questions that stimulate a colleague to think more deeply about the challenges and issues they are facing and to help them work out their own way forward.

Figure 2: The GROW model of coaching gives some examples of powerful, thought-provoking questions to stimulate reflective thought as you work through the reflective learning cycle with a colleague.

Figure 2 

From: National Teaching and Learning Change Programme: Engineering (2006).

Reference
Joyce, B.R. and Showers, B., (2002). Student Achievement through Staff Development, 3rd edition. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Petty, G. (2004) Teaching Today: a practical guide. 3rd edition. Nelson Thornes
Whitmore, J. (1992) Coaching for Performance. Nicholas Brealey Publishing.