Two year project, 2007-2008
Dr Elaine Mayo, Dr Lindsey Conner, the University of Canterbury’s College of Education
  

Project aim

This research project investigates how teachers who are using a peer coaching model to help each teacher to gain a deeper understanding of teaching and learning, can distil and share their emerging experiential knowledge of learning and teaching and how this influences future praxis (thinking and acting) in teaching. The school aims to build a reflective learning community where teachers collaborate deliberately to support improved outcomes for students.

  
Project plan

The project involves four cycles of activity, each lasting one semester, in which the learning stories emerging from the peer coaching programme at Avonside Girls’ High School are documented, shared within the emerging community of learners, and used to promote fresh questions about individual and collective learning.
The learning stories form the data for ongoing inquiry and development. Learning stories will be gathered related to learning within four domains: learning about student learning and the curriculum; learning about teaching and pedagogy; learning about researching and investigating practice, and learning about methodology.
  

Partnerships involved

• Avonside Girls’High School
• University of Canterbury College of Education
    

Expected outcomes

The research will:

• Foster discussion about student learning and teaching practice within peer coaching groups.
• Develop strategies for sharing emerging understandings about learning and teaching (learning stories) within the learning community.
• Investigate and report on the use of a coaching within professional development.
• Investigate and report on the use learning stories as tools for professional development.
• Investigate and report on the use of learning stories as a means of gathering data to inform ongoing school development and site-based research.
• Report on its findings in a ways that are accessible to varied audiences including students, teachers, advisors, researchers, and policy makers.
• The lead research team will present reports to professional and academic audiences through conferences and journals
  

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