Can virtual coaching increase teacher collaboration in your school? A virtual coaching cycle guided by artificial intelligence can help enhance teacher self-reflection and collaboration. In today’s blog post, we’ll look at Edthena and their AI Coach platform designed to support teachers throughout the school year.
AI Coach by Edthena uses AI (artificial intelligence) to guide teachers through self-observation of their lessons. It helps them action plan for their classrooms based on the coaching support built into the platform. Let’s dive into AI Coach by Edthena, how virtual coaching works, and what it can do to support teacher collaboration.
Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Coaching
You might use the term “artificial intelligence” in your life outside the classroom to talk about smart home devices that follow instructions to play a favorite song or turn on or off the lights. Or you might use AI in your classroom for adaptive learning software or to help review student work submissions. Artificial intelligence can also play a role in virtual coaching to support professional goals.
Artificial intelligence can create a more personalized experience for educators. Inside the AI Coach platform, this personalized experience begins the minute teachers sign up. They get to identify their personal learning goals right from the start. The goals they establish help customize the entire experience for them. I love how personalization is such a core component of AI Coach.
How does AI Coach by Edthena work? Teachers using AI Coach interact with a virtual coach named Edie. They share their learning priorities and what they want to do to enact change in their classroom. The action items teachers take are chosen based on what needs to happen to make progress on their goals for student outcomes. Edie guides teachers in a self-paced reflection process that follows four distinct phases.
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Virtual Coaching Cycle
With the AI Coach platform, teachers work through four phases of the coaching cycle. The first phase is Analyze. The virtual coach provides observation tips that are personalized for each teacher. As an educator, you know how meaningful it can be to have one-on-one time with students and offer a feedback and support that is tailored to each student. The same principles apply here, too. Teachers then review and analyze videos of their own teaching with comments that are time stamped throughout the video.
After teachers go through the Analyze phase, they reach phase 2 — Reflect. At this phase, the virtual coach prompts teachers to reflect on their self-observations. During this phase, teachers develop a near-term goal in their professional growth priority area. One thing I appreciate about this phase is the emphasis on a short-term goal. You can decide what the best next step is while connecting back to the areas you’d like to grow in during the school year.
Once they set their goal, the third phase of the virtual coaching cycle is to take action. Phase 3 is called Enact, where teachers develop an action plan to enact in the classroom. To help make the plan a reality, they can use curated resources suggested by the virtual coach. These suggestions can help teachers put ideas into action, making feedback actionable for participants.
The final phase of the virtual coaching cycle is Impact. During this phase, the virtual coach helps teachers identify the impact of their action plan. It also helps determine areas for future professional growth. Throughout the cycle, teachers can earn clock hour certificates, too.
Teacher Collaboration in Action
When teachers engage in the AI coaching cycle, it can prepare them for stronger peer and coach collaboration. AI Coach by Edthena pairs with existing coaching work already taking place with a principal, mentor, or professional learning community. For example, suppose a teacher is working on a professional growth area like checking for student understanding, providing feedback to students, or building classroom routines and procedures. In that case, they might start with an in-person coaching cycle.
With the AI Coach platform from Edthena, teachers can keep working on their professional growth goals between observations with their in-person coach. They can watch videos of their progress and come to meetings with their principal, mentor, or PLC with experiences to speak about and the next steps for their professional goals. This blog post from Edthena unpacks the idea of teacher collaboration in more detail.
Want to try it out? Teachers can sign up for trial access with a special Class Tech Tips code for readers you can find on this page for a limited time. And if you’re leading a school building and want it for your whole school, use the discount code “Class Tech Tips” for a special discount. If you are looking for a new way to boost collaboration among colleagues, you’ll certainly want to try out AI Coach!
