I was asked to provide the entire faculty with a personal experience to demonstate the value of reflection generated by coaching conversations.

Note Dale Vidmar’s (Southern Oregon University) thoughts on reflection and coaching:

As instructors reflect upon their experience in the classroom with a colleague, they discover important information about the intended results in comparison with the actual lesson. They share both accomplishments and frustrations. By making the collegial conversations part of instruction, instructors build upon the everyday classroom experiences, complementing class time with the conversations before and after teaching. They learn to be conscious in the classroom, using the thinking that goes along with performance to manage their actions. They address and self-monitor their teaching practice on a continual basis, ultimately learning not by experience alone, but through critical reflection upon their experiences.
“Reflective Peer Coaching: Crafting Collaborative Self-Assessment in Teaching.” Research Strategies. 20 (3). 2005. 135-148.

In Quality Teaching in a Culture of Coaching , I outline the value of coaches asking open-ended questions to generate teacher thinking and reflection. Questions that contain no sense of right/wrong…allowing the coach to understand the teacher’s thinking and create and atmosphere of trust. Since this was an initial experience for the staff, I provided a list of questions to guide their conversations. After one model where I conferenced with a member of the LIT team, teacher pairs conferenced with each other about a lesson plan they’d be using the next day. (Teachers were asked to bring plans to the meeting and were assigned partners)