Recap

Coaching and Mentoring Teachers

Coaching and mentoring teachers

Importance of coaching and mentoring.

Training provides new knowledge. However, in addition to knowledge, teachers also need the motivation and support to make a change in their day-to-day teaching practice.

When a teacher tries to implement something new for the first time, most likely they won’t succeed in their first attempt. They will also need support in implementation.

So coaching and mentoring support help the teacher to cross the bridge between knowledge and the actions they need to take inside the class.

Things to keep in mind during classroom observation

First of all, inform the teacher in advance that you would like to visit their class
Decide the date and time of classroom observation in consultation with the teacher.
Arrive 10-15 min early in school. Make the teacher comfortable and share the objective of the observation with the teacher.
During the observation, sit on the last bench so that students are not distracted by your presence.
Make sure that you do not interrupt the teacher or student during the class.
Take detailed notes of student actions and teacher actions.

Areas of observation

Do students know their user ID, password, and how to log in to Khan Academy?
What implementation model has been chosen by the teacher?
Does the teacher have a routine and process set to review the teacher dashboard, celebrate student effort, and for assigning content?
Are all students getting an opportunity to use Khan Academy?
What additional steps can teachers take to ensure that all students practice at least 30 min per week at Khan Academy?

Feedback Discussion

After you complete the class observation, we recommend that you take at least 20-30 min to go through your notes. Reflect on your observations and think about 3 important questions.

What are the top 1-2 actions of the teachers that you would like to appreciate the teacher for?
What are the top 1-2 actions of the teacher that would like a teacher to improve upon?
Based on the observation of the class, what are 1-2 areas in which you could support the teacher? This could be about helping them with devices, and the internet, or it could be supporting them with the school timetable or leveraging parent support.

Strategies to support Teachers

1. Leveraging parent support to enhance student learning

a) Encourage your teachers to conduct regular Parent Teacher meetings

b) The teachers need to clearly discuss the role parents have to play and set clear expectations along with timelines. You can have two specific requests for the parents:

First is that the parents need to provide a device to a student for 10-15 min 2-3 times in a week
Second, the parent needs to supervise the student while they practice on Khan Academy at home

c) Provide opportunities for discussing success stories as well as challenges faced by the parents.

2. “Three before me” strategy for resolving Teacher Queries

In this strategy, you will first have to listen to the teacher and understand the nature of their query. If the query is technical in nature and is related to the Khan Academy platform then ask teachers these 3 questions.

The first question is - Have you gone through the Khan for Educators course and were you able to find the answer to this question in one of the course videos or articles? Our course provides an in-depth explanation of how a teacher can use Khan Academy in the classroom.

The second question is - Have you gone through the Frequently Asked Questions document within the course? The FAQ document has been shared with the teachers in the Khan For Educators Beginner course. You will find these FAQs in the upcoming article.

The third question is - Have you checked the ‘Help’ section in the Khan Academy platform? You will find this section when you click on your name, in the right-hand corner after logging in to the account. This help section takes you to a variety of support topics. All queries related to the Khan Academy platform are explained here.

This strategy is an effective way to develop ownership and problem-solving among teachers.

In addition to this, if you are from one of the partner states of Khan Academy, then you can also share the Teacher support number of Khan Academy. Our teacher support team members would be happy to help resolve these technical queries.

Want to join the conversation?

Sort by:

No posts yet.