Coaching Teachers-in-Training.

In this study, the implementation effects of a program for teaching coaching skills to Dutch primary school teachers acting as supervising or cooperating teachers for teachers-in-training are described. Coaching is a form of in-class support intended to provide teachers-in-training with feedback on their functioning and, thereby, stimulate self-reflection and self-analysis to improve instructional effectiveness. Based on pre- and post-training ratings of coaching conferences with the teachers-in-training, a significant treatment effect was found for coaching skills concerned with the development of autonomy (empowerment), feedback, and encouragement of self-reflection. The untrained supervising teachers were rated more effective by their teachers-in-training than the trained supervising teachers for coaching skills concerned with the development of improvement plans and the use of observational data. These differences in favor of the untrained supervising teachers can be attributed to the prior training of supervisory skills, however, and explicit preparation of the teachers-in-training for the Independent Final Teaching Period. (Contains 32 references.) (Author/SM)