What is Cognitive Coaching?

Cognitive Coaching℠ from Thinking Collaborative, is a form of mediation that can be applied to professional interactions in a variety of settings and situations with the intention of enhancing self-directed learning. It is a composite of skills, strategies, maps, and tools as well as mental models and beliefs. It is also a model for classroom mediation to enhance students’ self-directed learning. Research on Cognitive Coaching℠ has linked its implementation to increased student achievement, greater teacher efficacy and satisfaction, higher levels of teacher cognition, and professional, collaborative cultures. 

Foundations Training

Cognitive Coaching℠ Foundation Seminars are an eight-day training generally conducted over an 18–24 month period of time. At OVEC, training is offered in semester-based cohorts during both the fall and spring. Agendas for Days 1–4 include the Planning Conversation Map, the Reflecting Conversation Map, as well as the tools of Cognitive Coaching℠. Days 5–8 provide for skill refinement and understanding of the Problem-Resolving Map.

In the eight-day Seminars, participants learn how to:

• develop trust and rapport

• develop an identity as a mediator of thinking

• utilize conversation structures for planning, reflecting and problem resolving

• develop teachers’ autonomy and sense of community

• develop higher levels of efficacy, consciousness, craftsmanship, flexibility and interdependence

• apply four support functions: coaching, evaluating, consulting, collaborating

• utilize the coaching tools of pausing, paraphrasing, and posing questions

• distinguish among the five forms of feedback

• use data to mediate thinking