As educators are moving away from ineffective “sit-and-get� professional development, more schools are turning to peer-to-peer coaching for 21st century professional development. The Peer Coaching Program at the Puget Sound Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology is making an impact around the world. I sat down with Les Foltos , director of the program, to learn more about it.

Maureen Cain: It looks like your peer coaches are focusing on technology in the classroom. Are you training technology coaches?

Les Foltos: We train the coaches to teach strong learning that integrates technology. The learning comes first, the technology second. The coaches help their peers identify ways that technology can strengthen classroom curriculum and enhance student academic achievement.

MC: How is coaching different than mentoring?

LF: Typically in the US the term mentor means a very senior teacher working with a brand new teacher. But this coaching program is open to all teachers, regardless of tenure, with a focus on increasing student achievement.

MC: What kind of person makes a good peer coach?

LF: Time after time, we find that a good coach is a leader respected by the colleagues in their building. He or she might be a junior teacher, but more often than not it’s a person who’s been in the field for years that other teachers naturally turn to for support.

MC: What are the benefits of being a coach?

LF: The majority of our coaches are in it for the personal professional growth opportunities. In most countries where we work coaches don’t get any extra pay. They want the communication and collaboration skills, and they want to be better at the craft of teaching. Some think about their careers after the classroom — they might want to go into professional development or administration.

MC: With facilitators training a coach and then that new coach training the next, and so on and so on, how can you ensure that the program doesn’t get too watered down? After a few years aren’t you getting a copy of a copy of a copy?

LF: There are some things that are core to the program and cannot change. Training coaches to be good communicators and good collaborators is a mandatory part of the program. Still, we have to be flexible and allow countries to make modifications to suit their needs. We’ve brought this program to forty-six countries outside of the US. This year there will be 100,000 coaches trained around the world. In Argentina alone there have been 22,000 coaches trained over the last two years.

MC: How do you know peer coaching works?

LF: Each country sets up its own program evaluation system. Most programs look for changed teacher behavior because they know that this is a precursor to improved student academic performance.

We can see in Washington State, for example, that after a teacher has worked with a coach for 20 hours, they integrate technology into their teaching. After 30 hours of time with the coach, the teacher begins to change his or her instruction in ways that increase problem solving, critical thinking and strategies to actively engage students.

In addition to answering my questions about peer coaching, Les invited me to observe a peer coach training and a coach-teacher session in person. Watch for my report on those events later in the fall.