Peer Coaching on the Transferability of Staff Development

The purpose of this study was to examine the implementaton of peer coaching as compared to no coaching in the effective transfer of staff development into classroom practice in grades one through eight in two Chicago Public Elementary Schools. This study is landmark research as the first published study on peer coaching in the Chicago Public Schools. Quantitiative and qualitative data were collected by classroom observations by trained inter-raters in three areas: low profile interventions, cooperative learning, and higher order thinking. The Gottesman-Jennings Model Peer Coaching in three phases: Peer Watching, Peer Feedback, and True Peer Coaching was used. The peer coaching and standard presentation participants reported qualitative data in journals, semi-monthly interviews focusing on strategic attitude and evaluation relating to the three key areas. Quantitiative data pre-test to post-test showed statistically significant difference between the standard presentation group and peer coaching group at the 0.1 level. My work is published in Ch.4 " Peer Coaching for Problem Solving What Works " by Dr. Barbara Gottesman.