Learn more about Head Start Coaching Companion

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The Head Start Coaching Companion is a video-sharing and coaching-feedback application for early care and education staff and providers. It helps coaches, coachees, and peer-coaching teams work together, even between coach visits or from a distance. Share video files, ask questions, exchange feedback, and develop individualized coaching plans that support quality teaching and positive outcomes for young children.

Teachers, family child care providers, home visitors, and coaches can use the Coaching Companion's video library to view examples of teaching practices. They can also share their own classroom or home-based videos and track progress through the three major components of Practice-Based Coaching (PBC): Shared Goals and Action Planning, Focused Observation, and Reflection and Feedback. PBC is a coaching model designed with Head Start programs in mind; however, its components align well with a variety of coaching models used across states and territories.

Here are some different ways you can use Coaching Companion:

Coaches or those serving in the role of a coach can complete all or portions of a coaching cycle.

Teachers and home visitors can watch exemplar videos of best practices.

Educational leaders can create their own library of resources to share with colleagues.

Disability service coordinators can share videos of a child with an IFSP or IEP to a remote IDEA specialist to show progress toward goals.

Download an overview flyer to share with staff and managers.

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[MP4, 29MB]

Head Start Coaching Companion Overview

[Upbeat music plays]

Narrator: The Coaching Companion is a video-sharing and coaching feedback application that allows a teacher, a family child care provider, or home visitor to share their classroom or home-visiting practice with their coach and to view the videos to make comments and reflect on their practice. With the Coaching Companion, current and prospective teachers, family child care providers, and home visitors are able to see effective teaching and home-visiting practices and refine their own practices.

Katie Eide: We're not telling them how to do it. We're showing them, "Oh, I see that you're really great at that. Let's build on that.”

Narrator: The Coaching Companion is built around the practice-based coaching model. Coaching occurs within a collaborative partnership. Shared goals and action plans are established. Focused observations occur. Feedback and reflection lead to enhanced use of effective teaching and home-visiting practices, and the cycle of refinement and improvement continues.

Donna Johnson: I wanted to see it in the different ways.

Video is like that extra pair of eyes. When a teacher is implementing a lesson, we've got one perspective. The video provides that other lens. For teachers who are reflective and who are open to change, it is a tremendous opportunity for them to see how what they do or don't do impacts children's learning.

Teacher: You were right. Awesome job.

Debbie Roberts: And then you get a baseline video. You can share that on Coaching Companion. And then if the provider looks at that video, they can develop their goals based on the data and what they see in their own practice – powerful.

Debra Walter: Powerful, yeah.

Debbie: Right?

Narrator: The Coaching Companion's web-based platform allows for individualized and collaborative coaching to enhance teaching and home-visiting practices and, in turn, child outcomes.

Katie: As a coach, I love to see the teachers just realize things on their own, and I'm really there to support them in their professional development and to help them get to the next point of their teaching and their practice.

Debra: I had this huge "a-ha," because it's one thing to be told that you're doing something well, but to see yourself, it's powerful in building the confidence. And, you know, if you feel good about what you're doing, you're more ready to embrace the challenges.

[Children laughing]

Narrator: The Coaching Companion is a tool to help you organize and engage in coaching. It helps to eliminate barriers of distance and time with a flexible framework that allows coaches and education staff to engage in meaningful coaching interactions when they're not together in person. It also supports self-reflection, a critical skill for professionals to develop as they seek to improve their own practices. The Coaching Companion supports the systems that programs develop in response to the Head Start Program Performance Standards around coaching. For more information, contact us at coachingcompanion@eclkc.info.

For more information, contact coachingcompanion@eclkc.info .

Practice-Based Coaching

Workforce Learning and Development

Professional Development

Resource Type:

National Centers:

Early Childhood Development, Teaching and Learning