the work plan: the path to growth
The coaching work plan is what separates a successful coaching experience from those that fail to offer the promised growth. All too often, observers come into teachers' classrooms and offer little beyond a basic feedback conversation focused on what ever evaluation rubric the district happens to use. The coaching aspect of the relationship is left to the side and the teacher wonders exactly how this experience was even helpful to her. In The Art of Coaching: Effective Strategies for School Transformation, Elena Aguilar lays out a model for creating the kinds of coaching experiences that pay huge dividends for both the teacher and the coach. Instead of the aimless conversation with no follow-up, Aguilar argues for coaching to be just as intentional as teaching and that “coaching is an ongoing effort focused on developing a specific and agreed-on set of skills or practices . . . [where] the coach is consciously working within a structure and toward an end” (2013). The Coaching Work Plan is the document where this intentionality becomes manifest.