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Promoting Student–Teacher Interactions: Exploring a Peer Coaching Model for Teachers in a Preschool Setting

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Abstract

Peer coaching provides an attractive alternative to traditional professional development for promoting classroom quality in a sustainable, cost-effective manner by creating a collaborative teaching community. This exploratory study describes the development and evaluation of the Colleague Observation And CoacHing (COACH) program, a peer coaching program designed to increase teachers’ effectiveness in enhancing classroom quality in a preschool Head Start setting. The COACH program consists of a training workshop on coaching skills and student-teacher interactions, six peer coaching sessions, and three center meetings. Pre-post observations of emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System of twelve classrooms assigned to peer coaching were compared to twelve control classrooms at baseline and following the intervention. Findings provide preliminary support that the peer coaching program is perceived as acceptable and feasible by the participating preschool teachers and that it may strengthen student–teacher interactions. Further program refinement and evaluation with larger samples is needed to enhance student–teacher interactions and, ultimately, children’s adaptive development.

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Acknowledgments

We are deeply grateful to the collaborating Head Start system for their cooperation. We thank the administrators and teachers of the Head Start system for their invaluable contributions. Fran Haskins, Adina Seidenfeld, and Sarahfaye Heckler helped with many aspects of the research.

Funding

Support for this work comes from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH080909).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Stacy R. Johnson

    Present address: Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 N. Broadway, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA

  2. Kristy J. Finlon

    Present address: Department of Human Development and Family Studies, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, 19716, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, 108 Wolf Hall, Newark, DE, 19716, USA

    Stacy R. Johnson, Kristy J. Finlon, Roger Kobak & Carroll E. Izard

Authors
  1. Stacy R. Johnson
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Correspondence to Stacy R. Johnson.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

The Institutional Review Board at the researchers’ institution approved this study.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Johnson, S.R., Finlon, K.J., Kobak, R. et al. Promoting Student–Teacher Interactions: Exploring a Peer Coaching Model for Teachers in a Preschool Setting. Early Childhood Educ J 45, 461–470 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-016-0790-1

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