Pam Robbins

If peer coaching is being disussed in your school, then this is a book to acquire and read. Many instructional specialists in the school see their job as the observation of teaching practices in the classroom followed by sessions in which they critique what went on and then offer suggestions for improvement. Some are forbidden to take part in the actual classroom experience because it is evaluative in nature. This author takes a different approach. She advocates participating alongside a classroom teacher in the planning, teaching, and evaluation of learning and teaching each other as adult learners better techniques along the way. This stance is very attractive to teacher librarians who can learn from Pamela the strategies she uses so that gently and by example, both partners in a cooperative venture are getting better and better. We see this is not only a better approach, but it would be interesting to do some research comparing it to a more directive approach to try to understand which is more effective and why. We think we already can predict the outcome teacher by teacher, unit by unit, but that is for every pair to discover on their own. Strategies will vary with the expertise of each partner, but the combined skill set is, we belive, the essential element of school improvement. Principals and curriculum folks in the school ought to know about this book.… (altro)