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.