Reflecting on the past and looking ahead: An exploration of coach–teacher talk during reflection meetings

Abstract

AbstractThe coaching cycle has been identified as a productive activity in which coaches can engage teachers to support teacher learning. Previous research has primarily focused on exploring teachers' learning opportunities during the planning meetings and enacted lessons, while reflection meetings have been left relatively unexplored. In the current study, I partnered with two coach‐teacher dyads to explore teachers' learning opportunities during six reflection meetings. In particular, I explore the substance, or topic, of coach‐teacher conversations, as well as the depth of reasoning that was achieved for these dyads. Overall, results indicate that dyads toggled back and forth between reflecting on previous instruction and discussing future instruction, while maintaining a focus on discussing students, pedagogy, and content. Furthermore, most of the coach‐teacher reflection talk was categorized at the high‐depth level as the dyads consistently provided evidence and reasoning to support claims made, which points to the generative nature of coach‐teacher reflection conversations. Implications for practice as well as future research are provided.