Pam Robbins

Peer Coaching to Enrich Professional Practice, School Culture, and Student Learning Pam Robbins

Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Jacket Description/Flap: How can educators work together more effectively to improve professional practice in a way that enhances student performance? The answer, says author Pam Robbins, involves combining collaborative activities and peer coaching - teachers supporting teachers. This book describes how any school can implement these proven practices and experience positive changes in teaching, school culture, and learning. Robbins explains how to develop a collaborative, learning-focused culture and build trust among colleagues; offers strategies for participating in difficult conversations that yield useful feedback; clarifies how to develop, sustain, and evaluate peer coaching efforts; and showcases exemplary peer coaching practices used in real schools. She also includes coaching tools, scenarios, process guidelines, and reflection questions that make it easier to transfer these ideas into a school setting. Peer coaching offers a job-embedded learning strategy; it's a valuable structure for supporting schoolwide and districtwide priorities such as analyzing data, improving instruction, integrating technology, and implementing standards. In short, it creates an effective way to support the growth of every teacher and enrich learning processes in any school.

Contributor Bio:  Robbins, Pamela Pam Robbins earned her doctorate in educational administration from the University of California, Berkeley. Currently, she consults with school systems, professional organizations, State Departments of Education, leadership academies, and corporations throughout the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Europe, Asia, and South America. Her presentation topics include professional learning communities, effective teaching, how the brain learns, emotional intelligence, leadership, teaching in the block schedule, peer coaching, school culture, and presentation skills. Pam has served as a teacher, high school basketball coach, administrator, director of special projects and research, and director of training for the North Bay California Leadership Academy. She has lectured at several universities, authored and co-authored books, and developed training materials for several principals academies. Contributor Bio:  Robbins, Pam Pam Robbins' professional interests include leadership development, supervision, developing learning communities, brain research and brain-compatible instruction, teaching in the block schedule, peer coaching, mentoring, promoting quality teaching, and presentation skills. Her teaching career began in 1971 in special education. She later taught intermediate grades and coached high school basketball. As an administrator, she served as director of special projects and research for Napa County (CA) Office of Education and director of training for the North Bay California Leadership Academy. She has lectured at several universities, authored and coauthored books, developed videotapes, and consulted with principals' academies in Alaska, California, Kentucky, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Utah, Pennsylvania, Europe, Great Britain, the Far East, and South America. In addition, she has provided national and international training sessions for the Department of Defense Education Equity Division, the Ford Motor Company, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), the Wisconsin Academy Staff Development Initiative (WASDI), the National Staff Development Council (NSDe, Phi Delta Kappa (PDK), the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP), and the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP). Currently, she is consulting with school districts, state departments of education, educational service centers, and corporations throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Great Britain, and the Far East. She earned her doctorate in educational administration from the University of California, Berkeley.