Reimagining Teachers as Learning Coaches

Imagine a learning world where one or two learning coaches work with a group of 40-50 young learners, building learning plans that are personalized and customized for each individual learner.

You might think we are lightyears away from this type of adult learning leader/young learner relationship, but maybe not.

EducationWeek online published an article last week that asks the question, “Could reimagining teaching help teachers love their jobs more?” The article begins,

“The traditional model of teaching – one or two teachers in front of a classroom of students – is practically ubiquitous in schools. But is there a better way?”

“A new report form the Center on Reinventing Public Education examines efforts to reconceptualize teaching roles to see whether those models can make the profession more sustainable and fulfilling.”

“’The teaching profession in not doing particularly well right now,’ said Steven Weiner, a research analyst at CRPE and the author of the report. ‘There are huge issues – some are long-standing, some have been exacerbated by the pandemic.’”

“Teachers report being stressed at work and experiencing burnout more often than other working adults, according to a RAND Corp. study. Just 20 percent of teachers say they’re ‘very satisfied’ with their jobs, a nationally representative EdWeek Research Center poll found at the start of this year.”

“Perhaps as a result, fewer people are considering becoming teachers and enrolling in preparation programs, and many of those currently in classrooms are eyeing the exit.”

“Policymakers and district leaders are trying a variety of strategies to help repair the teacher pipeline, including raising salaries. But Weiner said these efforts don’t address the root of the problem – the teaching job itself.”

“’There are feasible, practical ways for systems to help educators love their jobs more,’ Weiner said. ‘And if the North Star on that is, how do we get teachers more freedom and more autonomy, but also more social connection to their students, their peers, their administration, and families in the school [community] – there are ways to do that.’”

“Weiner found nine school systems that have reconfigured the teaching role and interviewed 32 teachers from those systems about the benefits and drawbacks of their jobs.”

“Those teachers were still primarily responsible for students’ core learning experiences, and they were supported by a larger system, Weiner said.”

“’We didn’t want to find rogue teachers who were going off and doing something on their own,’” he said. ‘We were looking for wide-scale or potentially scalable programs.’”

“Weiner identified several kinds of unconventional roles:

Lead teacher, who serves as a mentor, curriculum developer, and co-teacher for a small team of teachers in the same content area or grade level

Empowered teacher, who helps determine school-level policies, such as the academic calendar or the dress code, and sets student learning targets

Team teacher, who teaches as part of an integrated team with two to four other educators who are responsible for between 50 and 80 students

Community learning guide, who works alongside two to four other educators and 20 to 40 students to create learning experiences connected to the natural environment, the community, or students’ cultural backgrounds

Solo learning guide, who teaches five to 15 students independently, often out of their home; and

Technical guide, who leverages expertise in technical subjects, like architecture or robotics, to design curriculum and work with cohorts of 10 to 20 students, often with another guide.”

“A lead, empowered, or team teacher can be found in charter or regular public schools, while the community learning guide, solo learning guide, and technical guide typically work in small private schools or microschools. Microschools, and some of these more intimate teaching roles, have grown in popularity since the pandemic. Other reimagined teaching roles have been around for a while.”

My experience in our public school system suggests that all these titles described above are extremely limited because they all exist inside a system that is not designed to give authoring to the adult learning leader responsible for youngster’s academic success.

Instead, our public schools have created positions like principal, curriculum director, human resource specialist, budget analyst, and a host of other support personnel initially designed to support the teacher, but instead has taken power away from the classroom leader.

Learning coaches, an adult learning leader working outside of the traditional school setting, focus on learning growth, building relationships with young learners and their families, empowering themselves and their young learners by building learning plans (including goal-setting, budgeting, identifying learning resources, and establishing learning strategies), committing to learning anytime and anywhere, and using technology to make learning easier and more enjoyable.

It’s doubtful schools can provide this type of assistance to their students anytime soon. Traditional schools are bureaucracies, and bureaucracies don’t change. So creating a system where learning coaches work with a cohort of young learners, creating learning plans together, probably needs to occur outside of traditional school.

But there’s no reason why this type of learning can’t be see as public schooling too.

Til tomorrow. SVB