Teaching Walkthrus: The ideal coaching toolkit to drive professional learning

Published 04/02/2021

Educators across the globe widely recognise that high quality professional learning programs are essential to raise the quality of teaching in schools and colleges and this is vital if we’re going to improve outcomes for learners.

The question is how best to do it? Research into teacher development suggests that one of the best bets is to develop programs of instructional coaching where teachers engage in sustained periods of practice, focusing on specific teaching techniques supported by an expert coach who can guide, support and model effective practice.

“In less than a year 1,000 schools and colleges have joined our community in the UK and in 20 countries worldwide”

Crucial to the success of this process is that teachers, leaders and coaches have a strong shared understanding of the most effective strategies and why they work.

All too often programs are unsuccessful because ideas are not sustained, are not sufficiently well defined and the focus dissipates such that teachers fall back on old habits. Strong instructional coaching programs have the power to change all that.

Teaching Walkthrus, written by Tom Sherrington and Oliver Caviglioli, was developed with precisely this purpose in mind.

Using the best evidence from cognitive science and teacher development research, they have curated a superb set of five-step visual guides for teachers, covering all the key aspects of teacher practice:

  • behaviour management
  • curriculum design,
  • questioning and feedback
  • explaining and modelling
  • guiding practice.

The first volume has been a huge success selling over 50,000 copies worldwide with volume 2 due for publication in March.

In contrast to many other resources which are overlong and hard to navigate, teachers love how the visual format and clear structure of Walkthrus supports them to form a shared understanding of the key ideas in a direct and engaging manner.

The Walkthrus Professional Development package has now been developed to enable subscribing schools and colleges to deliver first-class professional learning programs using the walkthrus strategies. Each walkthru is supported by:

  • a video explaining the strategies in detail
  • slidedecks and trainer notes to support in-house workshops
  • Interactive multi-media teacher workbooks for individual professional reflection

There’s nothing quite like it out there. All the material can be adapted for different contexts including online training as well as small and large group sessions.

Leaders often still want additional support to get started. So, in addition to providing the materials, monthly webinars are held with Tom and Oliver in person to provide ongoing support and guidance.

In less than a year 1,000 schools and colleges have joined our community in the UK and in 20 countries worldwide, including international schools and state schools across the K-12 age range. The feedback we’ve had is fabulous. It’s all very exciting.

If you would like to find out more, please visit our website and contact Alex at [email protected] for further discussion. If you want to develop the very best professional learning process possible, this is the place to start. We’ll look forward to hearing from you.

Sponsored content in partnership with John Catt Educational.

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