ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on improving performance in the classroom through coaching. Mentor teachers can enhance the process of recursive learning by coaching teacher candidates to a high level of performance. Mentoring is often attributed to the personal learning style of the mentor. Hennissen, Crasborn, Brouwer, Korthagen, and Bergen classified mentoring styles as either directive or nondirective and active or reactive. There are three important opportunities during coaching for providing teacher candidates with feedback: during planning, immediately after observing, or at a later time after they have had an opportunity to examine student performance data and reflect more deeply. The planning conference occurs before teacher candidates engage in an event, such as tutoring a student or conducting a class. The observation conference occurs immediately or shortly after observing teacher candidates engage with students or parents. The reflecting conference offers teacher candidates an opportunity to reflect more deeply on the evidence of student learning to determine the effectiveness of instructional strategies.
