Applied Coaching Research Journal Research Journal 3 | Page 30

APPLIED COACHING RESEARCH JOURNAL 2019, Vol. 3 30 Coaches were split into four groups and a coach facilitator for each group was identified beforehand and primed. Their role was to ask questions to try to initiate more in-depth conversations. The facilitators were challenged to lead discussion, which helped with their development. Similarly, the conversation framework helped staff to have more detailed conversations about the topics and share ideas, although it was unclear whether anyone would take forward any actions. The structure also moved away from the true nature of a CoP. Thus, the decision for the third CoP was to revert back to a more traditional CoP setup. For the third CoP, three coach facilitators were selected and asked to come up with a topic for discussion (medium-term planning, creativity in teaching, behaviour management). The topics were then advertised along with the location and time of the meeting for other coaches to sign up to. The aim of this was to encourage the coaches to take responsibility for their own learning by providing them with the autonomy to select the topic and CoP to attend. Three coaches met in a fast food restaurant to discuss medium-term planning, five coaches met in a coffee shop to discuss creativity in teaching and nine coaches met at their local village to discuss behaviour management. Feedback for this setup was very positive and a similar format will be used again at the next CoP. Those who facilitated CoP 3 passed the responsibility to another coach in attendance for them to set up and facilitate CoP 4 on a topic of their choice. Observing in the real world We have had to be flexible in the way that we have tried to capture insight on the CoP. For example, it did not feel appropriate to attend the CoP sessions and record notes of our observations in front of the coaches. Instead, we immersed ourselves in the CoP as listeners, and where appropriate, got involved in the conversations. Following the meetings, we have then relied on recall and reflections to record information about the CoP. Similarly, the coaches have not engaged in discussion or shared reflections on Hive in the way that we hoped. Therefore, we have tried to encourage coaches to share their reflections of the CoP in any format they wanted, which has led to us receiving blogs, voice memos and vlogs from some coaches.