It’s good to talk: professional development through dialogic co-coaching in the primary school classroom in England

ABSTRACT

The article reports a two-year qualitative investigation of peer co-coaching triads introduced into primary school classrooms In England to develop teachers’ skills in the pedagogies of dialogic teaching. Post-project interviews with teacher and senior leader Data analysis of post-project interviews with teachers and senior leaders revealed that teachers reported using dialogic teaching approaches more frequently and valued opportunities to systematically re-analyse received practices. However, participants felt that video co-coaching exposed professional vulnerabilities about customary interactional practices in classrooms and that senior leadership ‘drive’ for this intervention was key to its success. School leaders should seek ways of facilitating co-coaching in support of fostering cultures of confidence in experimenting with the craft skills of dialogic teaching.

KEYWORDS:

• Dyadic
• classroom
• socio-cultural
• coaching
• Vygotsky

Introduction

Sociocultural theory assumes a symbiotic relationship between language and thinking capacity (Adams 2006). Seminal studies of student-teacher discourse in nineteen-seventies classrooms in the US emphasised its role in the formulation of productive arguments grounded in evidence, including the invocation of counterfactual evidence (Mehan and Cazden 2015). Intelligence was socialised through dialogue. Vygotsky (1978) argued learners construct knowledge through social interactions, enhancing cognitive and social capability. Bakhtin (1981) discussed the ways that, through dialogic interaction, speakers shape and reshape the meaning of language thereby becoming knowledge producers. So, discourse, language in time, is structured by conversants, each factoring in the intentions of the other (Nystrand et al. 2003, 139). Enabling teachers to adapt discourse to an appropriate habitus that fosters an inquiring learning environment is a challenge to the power dynamic of transactional models of teaching. Dialogic learning classroom discourse takes place when participants expand or modify the contributions of others, as one voice ‘refracts’ the other.

Sociocultural traditions see language as a cultural and a psychological tool for the development of thought (Cook and Warwick 2023). Dialogic pedagogies sit comfortably with a socio-cultural model. By contrast, they are in tension with classrooms where practitioners dominate and control interaction (Alexander 2005 and 2006). Allan et al. (2021, 730), writing about a primary school in England, identified the empowerment of children through dialogic engagement, noting the classroom context has become an area for collaborative pedagogical development. Wilkinson et al. (2017), analysing video-taped discussions, were successful in altering primary school teachers’ pedagogies in the United States towards dialogic teaching through interventions that improved ‘inquiry dialogue’ in arts-based classrooms.

Cook and Warwick (2023, 157), in their study of dialogic engagement in English primary schools, remark that ‘A dialogic pedagogy encourages the development of educationally productive forms of talk in groups’ with effects impacting attainment, reasoning and problem-solving, findings confirmed by work in Cambridge on primary school pupil oracy dialogics (Nichol and Andrews 2018; Eriksson 2023). Video-based scaffolded interventions on pedagogy with pre-service teachers in German secondary schools uncovered improvements in their self-reflection and understanding of the relevance of theory (Kleinknecht and Groschner 2016). It would be remiss, therefore, not to explore ways to foster a more dialogic pedagogy in classrooms.

Coaching is a notable mechanism for fostering a receptive professional milieu. Increasingly, coaching is a key facilitator of teacher professional development (Haneda, Teemant, and Sherman 2017; Jacobs et al. 2018; Knight et al. 2018; Lofthouse 2018a). In educational leadership, group coaching accompanies interventions about leadership but research into group coaching in the wider school context is minimal (Fluckiger et al. 2016). Furthermore, whilst teacher professional development (PD) through coaching has the potential to positively impact student outcomes, Robertson (2009) acknowledges that educational leaders do not necessarily have the skills, theoretical knowledge, or time to coach staff on innovative instructional practices. A school’s leadership is nevertheless important as it influences the professional activities of the group, as reported by Pham et al. (2023) in their research based on a socio-cultural model of professional development in primary schools in Vietnam. Video feedback is an effective method for improving professional interactional skills, especially when supported by scaffolding (Fukkink, Trienekens, and Kramer 2011). Classroom videos are a notable technology for teacher education, especially as tools for enhancing situated learning, capacities to notice, analyse and see alternatives. Nevertheless, video-based analysis provokes cognitive and emotional challenges for teachers’ analyses of their practices that do not emerge normally, masked by the habitual nature of teaching behaviour (Kleinknecht and Groschner 2016).

Research focus

This article reports research in England focused on developing teachers’ skills in using peer group video coaching to encourage dialogic approaches to teaching. Author (2018) argues academics ought to develop models of professional development which empower teachers and implement dialogic teaching. The researchers selected a model of group (triadic) video coaching to enable the development of teacher competency in processes of dialogic teaching. In seeking to give voice to the teacher participant experience, the research incorporates pre- and post-project questionnaires and post-project interviews. In interviews, the teachers, Deputy Headteacher (DH) and Headteacher (HT) reflected upon their experiences of group coaching and its impact on professional development. This 2-year project was undertaken in a large inner-city primary and nursery school in a southern English area where most pupils are domiciled in low socio-economic neighbourhoods. The research questions addressed in the article are:

1. Does teacher video co-coaching support the development of dialogic teaching skills?

2. What are the advantages of a using group video co-coaching to foster dialogic pedagogies?

Alexander (2010, 30) defines dialogue within teaching as achieving mutual understanding through structured, cumulative questioning and discussion that guide and prompt, reduce choices, minimise risk and error, and expedite the ‘handover’ of concepts and principles. Sedova (2017) proposes that dialogic teaching consists of principles, indicators and methods. The principles that underpin dialogic teaching in the classroom assume teacher-pupil and pupil-pupil dialogue that is collective and supportive: framed by reciprocity and steered purposefully by the teacher (Alexander 2010). Subsequent research has explicated interactional indicators of dialogic teaching: Hennessy et al. (2016) offer a comprehensive system of codes to describe such indicators. Dialogic teaching competences are susceptible to growth through developing a teacher’s linguistic awareness of dialogic indicators promoted within the milieu of classrooms (Bignell 2018).

Lefstein (2010) argues that if the dialogic space in the classroom is available then the teacher will be able to assume the role of a guiding adult scaffolding peer learning. However, Sedova et al. (2014) propose that neither principles of dialogic teaching nor recognition of indicators necessarily facilitate change in mainstream practice. They suggest that principles of dialogic teaching are superior to indicators, since ‘if teaching diverts away from them, it cannot be labelled as dialogic regardless of the levels of individual indicators’ and that the indicators might ‘explain some of the specifics in the trajectories of individual teacher changes’ (Sedova et al. 2014, 38). Sedova et al. conclude challenges remain around introducing socio-constructivist models of learning into classrooms despite evidence that dialogic pedagogy positively impacts student learning.

This conundrum raises the question of why dialogic methods are still not a key part of a teacher’s repertoire of teaching methods (Sedova et al. 2014, 14). One factor may relate to cultural barriers: entrenched transmissive pedagogic cultures impede engagement with the give-and-take characterising dialogic teaching (Alexander 2010). Corden (2009) proposes that teachers have insufficient support to change pedagogies away from conservative transmissive paradigms. Sedova et al. (2014) argue that models of professional development that situate dialogic teaching in the environment of the classroom must address barriers latent in inherited professional norms. Bignell (2018) research with NQTs using dyadic video coaching for dialogic teaching discovered promising ways out of this impasse, noting that professional dialogue framed around linguistic descriptors of dialogic teaching facilitated dialogic pedagogy.

Professional development (PD) through coaching

Interest in teacher continuous professional development (PD) has intensified as teachers are increasingly recognised as significant contributors to educational reform, including improved student learning outcomes (Taddese and Rao 2022). Taddese and Rao (2022, 1062) describe a PD conceptual framework where focus lies with teachers’ learning experiences rather than the structure of PD activities. Fluckiger et al. (2016), whilst acknowledging the lack of widespread consensus about the term coaching, define it as a structured process aimed at developing a specific aspect of professionals’ practices, undertaken in one-to-one or group contexts. Acknowledged benefits of coaching for teachers include improved awareness of one’s abilities (Allan 2007), improved educational practices, enhanced individual and collective efficacy, and an increased sense of collective responsibility (Lofthouse 2018a). Coaching can also engender increased levels of professional confidence and agency especially when, following a sociocultural perspective, it focusses upon ‘job embedded’ responsibilities (Pham et al. 2023, 2; Fluckiger et al. 2016).

Peer coaching amongst teachers enhances reflectivity, enabling professionals to ‘shift their ways of seeing’ (Lord, Atkinson, and Mitchell 2008, 31). So coaching stands in relief to traditional models of teacher PD. With an emphasis on teachers as active learners, shared reflection on day-to-day practices enables teachers to collaboratively construct knowledge about practice. Thus, coaching models engage professionals in ‘authentic enquiry around the teacher’s beliefs and practices’ (Haneda, Teemant, and Sherman 2017, 49) enabling teachers to take ownership of practice and responsibility for its development. Coaching reflects assumptions about learning that underpin dialogic pedagogy in the classroom. Such an approach to professional development seeks inter-subjectivity – a meaningful engagement between participants resulting in perspectives that are co-created (De Jaegher et al. 2017). Co-coaching represents ‘a structured, sustained process between two or more professional learners to enable them to embed new knowledge and skills from specialist sources in day-to-day practice’ (Lofthouse, Leat, and Towler 2010, 7). Fluckiger et al. (2016) highlight the way co-coaching interlocks with social capital, commitment to PD and acknowledging accountability to colleagues and institution. Goodnough et al. (2009) recognise an inclusive environment is important for PD, where teachers collaborate with peers to explore the relationship between theories and practice. The impact of coaching increases when it is aligned with other aspects of PD and understood by teachers to be valued by school leaders (Lofthouse 2018b).

Research design

In the first year of the project, there were six teacher participants. Triad 1 consisted of teachers A, B, C, and triad two consisted of teachers D, E and F. Teacher C moved to another school at the end of the first year and was replaced by another teacher – Teacher G. At the end of the second year, 1:1 interviews were conducted with teachers A, B, D, E, G, the headteacher and the deputy headteacher. Teacher F unable to attend this final interview. The material in Table 1 was used in the initial training to aid teachers to identify potential dialogic bid/talk moves and to provide a common or shared language to examine these when exploring the videoed extracts. The teachers kept possession of this Table 1 as an aide memoire to focus their triad discussions of the videoed extracts.

Table 1. Instructional map for videoed extract exchange.

Pupil Dialogic Bids	Explanation	Example
Pupil linking phrase To signal cumulation	Pupils use phrases to demonstrate that they are aware of and intend to comment on previous contributions to the discussion.	‘I agree/disagree with … because … ’ ‘That’s right/wrong because … ’ ‘Yes/No, because … ’ ‘I’m not sure about that because … ’ ‘And … ’ ‘But … ’
Pupil thinking phrase To signal reasoning	Pupils not only share their view but also offer reasoning to justify the viewpoint and make this explicit to the group.	‘I think … because … ’ ‘When X said … it made me think … ’ ‘I’ve been thinking that … ’ ‘What confuses me is … ’
Teacher Dialogic Bids
Prompt To cue pupil ‘uptake’ – cumulation or reciprocity	The teacher makes explicit connections between ideas before encouraging pupils to comment upon these.	‘So, who agrees/disagrees with … ’ ‘Would anybody like to add to that.’ ‘Does anybody want to build on?’ ‘Any different ideas?’ ‘Who disagrees with … ?’
Probe To cue an extended response/shared reasoning	The teacher returns to the pupil who has just spoken to ask for a more extended response or to seek
justification, clarification, or reasoning.	‘Go on.’ ‘Can you tell me more about … ?’ ‘What were you thinking when you said … ?’ ‘Can you explain what you mean by … ?’ ‘Talk a bit more about that.’
Low control acknowledging move Teacher withholds evaluation	Moves such as ‘ok,’ ‘go on,’ ‘uh hu’ or non-verbal moves (such as a look directed to the student who has just spoken) that encourage that pupil to continue/extend his/her contribution.	Non-verbal (nod, neutral look, quizzical look, gesture) ‘Ok’ ‘Um’ ‘Interesting

Videoed interactions focus teacher attention on aspects of their pedagogy (Hawkins and Rogers 2016). In line with the socio-cultural perspective, reflection on practice is effective when teachers examine specific behaviours captured within actual frames of specific video clips (La Paro et al. 2012). Fukkink and Tavecchio (2010, 1653) argue that video technology gives teachers opportunities to ‘watch themselves from a distance’ and such interventions are a catalyst for critical reflection (Borko, Whitcomb, and Liston 2009, 5). Teachers report that reviewing videos of their practice enables them to recognise otherwise hidden tacit behaviours (Cherrington and Loveridge 2014). Coupling video within co-coaching foregrounds interactional dialogue which encourages teachers to experiment with their pedagogy (Lofthouse, Leat, and Towler 2010; Renshaw 2008, 11). The quotations presented (later in the article under the rubric ‘Thematic Findings’) were derived from focussed coding designed to identify the phenomenology of the teachers’ experiences, in the field of the article. Focussed coding is appropriate when the researcher seeks to identify a concept or concepts that bind a narrative about a social phenomenon (Creswell 2007). The coding entailed clustering raw data into meaningful thematic patterns in line with the interpretative paradigm’s orientation towards the interpretation of meaning in qualitative research approaches (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2018).

Our choice of the teacher reflective triad model meant we could achieve insights into the teachers’ experiences of developing dialogic teaching practices within the context of a co-coaching model. In the study the teacher triad meetings used teachers’ videos of their classroom teaching as the focus for reflection and group discussion. The pedagogic intervention began by providing teachers with an initial training workshop focused on classroom interaction and dialogic teaching. Teachers were provided with a linguistic framework of dialogic indicators/talk moves developed through collating the scholarship examined. It was harnessed to scaffold teacher-pupil interactions with a view to modifying traditional interactional pedagogic behaviours (Alexander 2010). Their training was followed by six termly delivered co-coaching cycles. A sample of seven teachers participated in the co-coaching sessions. The tables below list the sample, intervention and data collected during the research journey lasting two years (Tables 2 and 3).

Table 2. Year one: technology intervention and sample.

Data	Medium	Frequency	Participants (Yrs of experience)	Pupil age ranges	Context
Recording of episode of teaching (and ‘loose’ transcript)	Video	Termly	Triad 1 Teacher A (5) Teacher B (2) Teacher C* (6) Triad 2 Teacher D (30+) Teacher E (4) Teacher F (6)	YR Y2 Y2 Y6 Y5 Various	Class setting Class setting Reading recovery groups. Class setting Class setting Numbers Counts intervention group
Recording of teacher coaching triad	Audio	Termly	Triad 1 Teacher A Teacher B Teacher C* Triad 2 Teacher D Teacher E Teacher F Researcher as participant observer	As above	As above
Group (triad) interview undertaken. by researcher	Audio	End of first year	Teachers A, B & C Teachers C, D & E	As above	As above

Table 3. Year two: technology intervention and sample.

Data	Medium	Frequency	Participants	Pupil age ranges	Context
Recording of episode of teaching (and ‘loose’ transcript)	Video	Termly	Triad 1 Teacher A Teacher B Teacher G (8) Triad 2 Teacher D Teacher E Teacher F (Absent for final two sessions)	YR Y2 Y2 Y3 Y5 Various	Class setting Class setting Class setting Class setting Class setting Numbers Counts intervention group
Recording of teacher coaching triad	Audio	Termly	Triad 1 Teacher A Teacher B Teacher G Triad 2 Teacher D Teacher E Teacher F (Absent for final two sessions) Researcher as participant observer	As above	As above
Individual interviews undertaken. by researcher	Audio	End of second year	Teachers A, B, D, E, G, HT & DH Teacher F unable to attend interview.	As above	As above

Triad coaching meeting practices

Having previously undertaken whole school training on the use of the GROW coaching model the school leaders were keen to see this approach used within the co-coaching context of this project (Whitmore 2009). The GROW model assumes four stages of coaching: goal setting; reality checking; consideration of options, alternative strategies, and action planning. The researcher assumed the role of facilitator within the group/co-coaching triads. In this role, she introduced co-coaching sessions (reminding teachers of the video review and coaching protocols) and managed group interaction, intervening only to refocus the group when necessary (Fluckiger et al. 2016). Her positionality was that of the expert coach. In the initial stages of the triad meetings, she engaged more than during the second year of the project, as fitted the socio-cultural learning that took place over time.

The length of videoed teaching varied between five and twenty-five minutes and, in most sessions, the teacher who was sharing their practice focussed in detail on short extract of their teaching (normally ranging between two and five minutes). At each triad meeting, a video extract from each participant teacher was examined energetically. The meeting protocols (aligned to the GROW model) for reviewing each video extract were:

1. Goal – each teacher reminded the group of the dialogic teaching goal (s)he had been focussing on in the previous term.

2. Reality checking – the triad teachers first watched the extract in full without comment. They then watched the same extract for a second time. On second viewing teachers were prompted ‘stop the tape’ to ask a question, make a comment, request clarification or replay an extract. The coaches sought not to evaluate practice, but to instead promoting reflection on the interactional behaviours of teachers and pupils present within the video clip. Teachers were encouraged to refer to the framework of linguistic descriptors of dialogic teaching (see Appendix A) when discussing interaction.

3. Options – both teacher coaches encouraged the coachee to explore options for development in dialogic teaching practices. One coach noted the possibilities discussed.

4. What next – the coachee and teacher coaches discussed feasibility and practicality of options (considered in Step 3) and the challenges that might be encountered and support that might be needed. Thereafter, goals and agreed actions were recorded for the forthcoming term. Teachers brought their action plan to the next coaching session being prepared to talk through any developments or challenges in dialogic teaching practices since previous coaching session. In the first year of the project, teachers used the ‘loose’ video transcripts that each had prepared before the triad meeting to ‘label’ the interactions using the interactional framework provided by the researcher, before undertaking a simple frequency analysis of the types of dialogic bids used. This labelling provided a springboard for later coaching conversations. In the second year of the project teachers rarely felt the need to label transcripts; instead, they used the ‘language of the bids’ routinely within the coaching conversations.

Thematic findings

Video-co-coaching

As part of their interviews, the teachers considered the role of video co-coaching in developing their linguistic awareness of dialogic teaching within their teaching practices. Teacher reflections revealed the video triads had facilitated their awareness of practices they overlooked (Cherrington and Loveridge 2014). Teacher B focussed first upon the contribution of video recording commenting:

I really like the idea of everybody watching the full video first so that you can get the full picture. You can go back and pause the video and then the questions and the coaching come from there. Then you really talk about why you made the interactional decision you made and what you might have decided to do next.

Her experience highlights the value of ‘freezing’ classrooms interactions for purposes of close analysis (Hawkins and Rogers 2016). Teacher D discovered video coaching enabled teachers to explore spaces between ‘preferred’ interactional behaviour and their actual or de facto pedagogical interactions:

When reviewing the videos, I think sometimes teachers may have had the talk moves without being dialogic. But I think that is a necessary stage of development from very traditional IRF [initiation-response-feedback] teaching to a more dialogic form of classroom interaction.

Her recognition of the need to enact and practise the indicators of dialogic teaching, initially without the support of the accompanying principles (Sedova 2017), offers insight into this teacher’s understanding of her incremental learning and development. The extract foregrounds her understanding of the peer triad as a context of support (and supported others) that made possible viewing ‘habitual ideas and practices, as it were, from outside’ (Alexander 2010, 10). A notion of viewing teaching practices critically ‘from outside’ is amplified by Teacher A who ruminated:

I remember at the beginning when we were learning, we sat and looked at the transcripts and videos and identified the bids and that was really helpful … In the very first instance identifying and recognising the bids is absolutely the way to start. That is like the training stage – the very first bit – and then you go on to consider the children’s responses to the bids and how that is moving the dialogue on. But in the first instance recognising the bids is something for a teacher to hold onto so that they can then say, ‘Oh, I’ve used that bid let’s have a look and see what happens next’ to see how that changed the talk or opened up the dialogue.

Here, the teacher first explores the value of video and transcript as a tool for capturing teaching/pupil interactions for subsequent analysis (Borko, Whitcomb, and Liston 2009), acknowledging the ‘naming’ of dialogic bids as ‘absolutely the way to start’. She then concludes that the co-coaching experience is strengthened by a focus on ‘immediate micro issues’ (Renshaw 2008, 11); in this case the naming of dialogic bids. Furthermore, her comments support La Paro et al.’s (2012) suggestion that reflection on practice is more powerful when teachers are encouraged to reflect upon specific behaviours. She then connects her understanding of dialogic indicators with dialogic principles (Sedova 2017), reminding herself to consider the extent to which the use of a dialogic bid changes the talk or opens up the dialogue in the classroom.

DH acknowledged the place of the dialogic bids (displayed on classroom walls) as a scaffold that supported teacher-pupil development towards more genuine and principled dialogic interactions:

The sentence starters [bids] gave the children a framework to ‘fake it until you make it.’ It was almost like they were pretending at it before it later became natural in the classroom.

He then reflects upon the impact of the co-coaching model in the participant teachers’ classrooms, noting that ‘in these classrooms we have seen children coherently justifying their ideas, respectfully agreeing and disagreeing as well as building upon other children’s thinking.’ Socio-cultural processes are evident in these voices.

Video co-coaching: pedagogy of dialogic teaching

The participant teachers were asked to consider the advantages and limitations of co-coaching model in supporting their PD development around dialogic teaching. Both Teachers D and A highlighted the opportunity for close analysis of their classroom interactions as a strength of this co-coaching model. Teacher A reflected, ‘without this deep analysis of your teaching, the learning is lost,’ Teacher D considered the dialogism of the analysis:

The model is dialogic in its nature. People ask you questions about your teaching and after a while you feel like it is not your teaching anymore. It becomes a body of material that can enhance and develop your teaching process.

Her insight is that pedagogic analysis transforms practice into ‘a body of material,’ knowledge that can become a pedagogic repertoire component. Fukkink and Tavecchio (2010, 1653) conclude that video gives teachers the opportunity to ‘watch themselves from a distance’, acting as a ‘catalyst for critical reflection’.

Their claim is endorsed by HT who comments on the quality of critical reflection in the triads:

In the triads the conversation between staff is fantastic professional development, great professional dialogue. The teachers have developed trust, they trust each other, and when there is that discussion of professional practice and staff trust each other, they are open to criticism, open to the voice of a critical friend.

Reflecting on the advantages of the triad coaching experience, Teacher B focussed on the value of the time dedicated to critical reflection and analysis. In addition, she ruminated on the value of the coaching context as a ‘safe space’ within which as a teacher she could genuinely ‘unpick’ her teaching interactions suggesting an evaluative schema offering critical distancing had developed through coaching:

One of the affordances of the triads is that it is a time to be reflective but also a time to be non-judgemental. You can come and you can say, ‘this video just went terribly.’ But you can sit and can really unpick why it did not go the way you wanted it to go and what you would do to improve it. And you can come out and know that nothing is going to be shared. It is confidential; people respect each other’s videos and move on. You do not feel like it is being held against you.

Teacher A illuminated this schema, adding coaching fostered the opportunity to share and make sense of our ‘car crash videos without fear.’ Teacher E consistent with these data, thought coaching provided opportunities for reflection: a PD strength of the co-coaching model was being ‘able to just step back and watch yourself teaching,’ noting, ‘you see more than you would normally see if you were on your own and understand your teaching more fully.’

Teacher G’s analysis of the video co-coaching model contrasted it against other forms of professional development he experienced and the benefits of his own learning for his pupils:

I think teachers need to do a deep dive looking at their teaching … The coaching triad has qualities to it, I’ve not seen other professional development tools show. It really encourages you to think about what you are saying … [in the triad] we talk, at times in some of these reflections, about the very wording you use, the words you choose with children, which can have a profound impact on their understanding.

He went on to reflect upon the ‘deep dive’ as facilitating clear target setting and the way in which targets were negotiated with a group of colleagues to whom you felt accountable.

These qualitative data suggest the coaching intervention empowered these teachers with a proclivity towards dialogic instruction (Lofthouse 2018a). By implication it appeared to have inculcated a schema that helped to objectify professional evaluations. As Teacher G’s reflections acknowledged, this PD was culturally impactful, positioning the study’s research participant community as active learners in the mould of agentic socio-cultural embedded learners (Haneda, Teemant, and Sherman 2017).

Generalising the impact of videoed co-coaching

When focusing on the limitations of a co-coaching approach to developing dialogic teaching, the participant teachers differentiated between the limitations of the research triads and those of the wider school triads that they had gone on to lead in the second year of the project. The wider school triads were established by the school’s senior leaders in response to their belief that the participation of the six teachers in the first year of the research triads was positive in terms of the dialogic learning ethos in the classroom. The research participant teachers had been asked to lead another ‘wider school triad’ with a focus on promoting dialogic teaching, cascading their PD expertise from six to eighteen teachers. In this vein the teacher sample were to become ‘triad leads’ across the wider school triads. These wider school triads were organised and run independently of the research project processes.

Suggestive of a distinctive sample ‘buy in,’ whilst the research participant teachers agreed that the research co-coaching triads had had a significant impact upon their development of dialogic teaching skills, they hesitated to assert this impact had generalised across the wider school triad phenomena. Why this dichotomy existed is unclear: explanations could include the shorter duration of the wider school triads: they ran for only one year prior to the termination of the research project intervention. The busyness of school teaching might why a whole-school impact was attenuated, as might differences in individual vulnerability to public evaluations of teaching. The involvement of the school’s management team may have altered perceptions both about the value of commitment to the dialogic teaching intervention and about whether exposure to this process was as much a surrogate appraisal as a PD opportunity. Time and vulnerability are themes that emerged in our data analysis. These two factors assist our understanding of an apparent limited generalizability of the intervention impact school wide.

Jacobs et al. (2018) found when introducing coaching to the school context, that teachers felt unable to commit the time required, adding that school leaders should acknowledge that some teachers are unenthusiastic about ‘buying in’ into practices promoted by coaches outside the school community. Teacher B noted: ‘Time is a real challenge. When we branched out to our wider triads across the school it was quite difficult to fit them in. If you want to do it well, you need to set the time aside. I absolutely think it is worth the time. But you need to have a shared belief. You can’t all move forward with it unless you have the same belief that dialogic teaching works.’

Differences in teaching pedagogies emerged as another factor perceived to limit the appeal of the intervention. Teacher E noted:

I’ve noticed some teachers who are not so willing to give this [co-coaching] a go – it’s about attitudes. If you do not have a dialogic attitude towards the way in which you are teaching and allowing children to learn, I think children can tell that it is something you do not really believe in and want to promote.

She went on to reflect that an apparent lack of commitment to dialogic teaching and to a co-coaching (dialogic) model might well come ‘hand-in-hand.’ Cultures of professional autonomy, estimations around innovation effectiveness and class relations add complexity to the deliverability of the dialogic intervention. Fear also played a role in decisions to engage or not engage: Teacher D, an experienced and respected teacher, communicated her emotional response to coaching at the project’s outset:

In my case, first … I was very defensive. Teachers will be defensive about their teaching, especially older teachers I think. In my case, I was teaching for an exceptionally long time. I had been Ofsteded. I have had outstanding. And then you think, ‘was my teaching wrong all this time?’ So initially it was difficult to accept, but as the time went on and I worked with the same triad for over a year, I felt more comfortable. It was worth feeling defensive at the beginning, because now what I have learned is so much more. My teaching is really going in the right direction, fitting the curriculum of today. A lot of the curriculum now is framed around collaborative problem solving, so I think the way we are going with dialogic teaching will help.

Her extensive experience combined with positive inspectorate appraisal coloured her motivation, but once engaged with the triad culture she developed confidence to learn and re-learn her professional craft. The re-working of her teacher identity paralleled her preparedness to open her craft to fresh ideas, suggesting personal dimensions can impact PD orientation, a conclusion that coalesces with the next extract.

A teacher with only two years of experience theorised a relationship between teacher vulnerability in video co-coaching processes and a view of the teacher mindset:

When sharing videos, some teachers feel vulnerable. They have got themselves in such a fixed mindset with it. You can say, ‘it’s ok, we are here to help you move on professionally and think about dialogic teaching,’ but I still think there is sometimes a barrier of being videoed.

This explanation provides insight into the presence of a mental schema indicating issues of trust, insecurity or school ethos. Teacher A, with five years’ experience, explained a personal willingness to ‘expose’ his professionalism to new encounters:

I loved the coaching model. My only health warning with it is that I would say I am quite resilient, happy for someone to have those discussions around even some of those ‘car crash’ videos I brought the triad – we had some great conversations because of those … But I think it does depend on you being willing to put yourself forward. Because I know for many teachers in our school it was not a problem, but there might have been a few who were a nervous or anxious to share their teaching.

Conservativism or insecurity within a school’s teaching community impacted beliefs and attitudes to innovation. HT said the most successful triads were those where staff were ‘willing to make themselves vulnerable in order to further their professional understanding.’ The head’s positionality as leader in a hierarchy may reflect in his critical assessment of staff who were less enthusiastic about this model of PD. Among the affordances of the intervention lie potential risks of divisions that might potentially extend beyond the ‘buy in’ among staff.

School leadership

When reflecting on the role of the senior leadership team participants offered perspectives. Teacher B, envisaging the potential limitations of the co-coaching model, raised the importance of school ethos. In her school she was part of an open and honest team trusted by the senior leadership to be responsible for their own professional development. The freedom of the triads, and the lack of intervention from the senior leadership team she took as an example of professional trust. Teacher A also projected this positive stance, suggesting ‘because we were just in threes in classrooms without the leadership team dropping in, the triads were allowed to grow;’ suggesting teacher autonomy is relevant. Such beliefs were endorsed by HT. He argued the ‘buy in’ of the school’s senior leaders was fundamental to the success of the project for the research triads and wider school triads. He also foregrounded teacher empowerment (and the freedoms of the triads) as the key to the intervention’s success:

The power is in your staff and their beliefs and their dedication matters. DH and I are keen about it, we look for it in lessons. observations and we feed back to teachers on it. We give staff meeting time to the wider triad meetings … but we know that it is successful because the teachers are driving it and really buying into it … It is embedded in our school now, it is in people’s conversation, it is an everyday part of our practice. DH and I have been able to step back and watch our staff take the leadership of this.

His analysis evokes distributed leadership. In contrast, Teacher E interpreted this ‘hands off’ autonomy as a potential limitation of the co-coaching model. Reflecting on whether the wider school triads might have been more effective she explained there was relevant micro-management:

There had been more of a drive from the senior leaders behind it. They have been behind it, but they haven’t been visibly behind it. They have just let us go off in our triads and some triads have not really given the focus to what the time has been allocated for. Whereas I think if the senior leaders had really shown that they had bought into it a little bit more maybe that would have driven it as more of a focus across the whole school. Maybe if we had been a bit cleverer in linking it to the objectives we are working towards in our improvement plan, which would have made all staff think, ‘this is going to be particularly effective in helping us to meet that objective.’

DH also explored the tension between senior leader involvement and teacher freedom/empowerment including limited transparency and knowledge-sharing:

A challenge from the senior leaders’ point of view is that we do not know what went on in those triad conversations. We know what goes on in an hour’s PD session when someone delivers from the front and then we can go in the classrooms and check-up that has happened in the way we want it to. So, there is a trust element. We know that the discussions have happened, we have set aside time for it. But in terms of the quality of the discussion, not that I worry about that, but there is certainly a leap of faith to know that there will be an impact.

However, he further reflected that the role of a senior leader need not be that of participating in or leading professional development but that of evaluating the impact of such training on the learners. He concluded:

We have observed the impact in lessons, so we know there is an impact. If you were looking at this as a school who were seeking to promote dialogic teaching from scratch, then this must be something you are prepared to do – to hand over that PD to your professionals … This project mirrors that because it hands over some pupil responsibility and staff are embracing responsibility for their PD in that same way.

His account reflects the tension explored by Lofthouse et al. (2013; as cited in Lofthouse 2018a) who recommend that school leaders must be circumspect regarding over-focus on performativity that may undermine more serendipitous professional learning within the coaching context.

Conclusion

Whilst the study offers compelling insights into the research participants’ experiences of co-coaching designed to promote dialogic teaching in the classroom it has methodological limitations. The qualitative findings of the research are warranted on the basis of self-reported data generated by a modest sample. For that reason we must be circumspect about claiming wider generalisability across the school system. The enthusiastic commitment of research participants may have helped shape the positive outcome of the pedagogic coaching intervention. The teachers’ experience confirms that video co-coaching impacts their dialogic teaching practices. A larger study is necessary to determine the extent of its embeddedness in teachers’ wider choices of pedagogy and if this approach was a candidate among those favoured. The findings nevertheless contribute to an understanding of the place of co-coaching as a means to enact and achieve PD in this professional area.

Teachers who embrace a transmission construct of effective pedagogy may be disinclined to ‘buy in’ to the dialogic concept and view their PD in the classroom in other ways. Dialogic teaching could potentially be facilitated by other approaches including curriculum design, and during the planning phase of lesson preparation. Relying upon a teacher’s linguistic awareness of dialogic indicators to facilitate dialogic teaching approaches assumes they have successfully assimilated a dialogic schema into their pedagogic repertoire (Nystrand et al. 2003). For that reason preparatory PD work is appropriate in order to progress the growth of such schemata and build confidence in its application.

In response to the video co-coaching interventions the participant teachers incorporated dialogic teaching pedagogy more frequently and systematically analysed their dialogic teaching practice through this schema. The media of video and the context of the coaching triad facilitated a ‘deep dive’ [Teacher G] into classroom interactional behaviours with a concomitant ‘shift in their ways of seeing’ and constructing knowledge (Lord, Atkinson, and Mitchell 2008, 31). The initial focus on identifying and naming ‘dialogic bids’ within each teacher’s transcript facilitated a focus on the ‘immediate micro issues’ of classroom based interactional practices. That focus underpinned the analysis of dialogic teaching practices within the context of the GROW, co-coaching model (Renshaw 2008, 11).

The sharing of videos within the triads had enabled teachers to focus on the development of their professional skills, encouraging them to experiment with new classroom strategies (Lofthouse, Leat, and Towler 2010). This enthusiasm was underpinned by space and time for reflection afforded by the school’s funding and enthusiastic project endorsement. Institutional commitment has a positive influence on whether or not a culture of co-coaching interventions thrive (Knight et al. 2018). Teachers valued the opportunity to develop their dialogic teaching skills within a non-judgemental co-coaching milieux. The sharing amongst teachers of ‘car crash videos’ [Teacher A] was acknowledged as a learning opportunity for coming to terms with a new ‘body of material’ [Teacher D]. That objectifying model of conveying this skill set enabled them to ‘watch themselves from a distance’ (Fukkink and Tavecchio 2010, 1653). Nevertheless, teachers knew sharing videos had the potential to provoke anxiety and defensiveness. We recognise that a professional willingness to accept vulnerability mattered to the success of this PD encounter. Teacher D demonstrated a receptive mind-set remarking it was ‘worth feeling defensive at the beginning’ in order to ‘learn so much more.’

Leadership and school ethos was favourable to the environment studied as the model of PD teachers experienced was congruent with the school’s ambition to promote dialogic teaching. Teachers and senior leaders endorsed the dialogic nature of co-coaching model as supportive of dialogic teaching. Teacher E’s reflection that ‘it is about attitudes’ connects the dialogic positioning of co-coaching to dialogic teaching in classrooms. That analysis is reminiscent of Boyd and Markarian’s (2011) reminder that learning occurs when learners and teachers are committed to maintaining a dialogic stance (Nystrand et al. 2003).

Exploration of the role of the senior leadership team in facilitating or driving the co-coaching initiative evidenced mixed professional views, contrary to the thesis of leadership support for the innovation being an intrinsic good. Whilst most teachers and senior leaders felt that school leadership support for the co-coaching model was significant in ensuring its success and promoting professional trust, other teachers argued there was insufficient ‘drive’ from school leaders. This critique concluded limited leadership investment had inhibited the success of a co-coaching model across the wider school. The participant teachers were seen as empowered by the triads, but the cascade of that expertise across the school and a dialogic learning culture was limited, suggesting the grip of procedural reciprocity or/and fractures in school ethos (Lord, Atkinson, and Mitchell 2008; Allan 2007).

One teacher acknowledged tension between teacher empowerment and a whole school ‘drive for improvement,’ suggesting a stronger or more transparent emphasis on the value of the triads would have positively impacted the agenda of school improvement. A Deputy Headteacher remarked ‘A challenge from the senior leaders’ point of view is that we don’t know what went on in those triad conversations.’ A strategic understanding of the PD intervention and the confined nature of its impact requires attention to issues of school autonomy, performance and audit demands on schools in England. It is unclear why a member of the leadership team who claimed ignorance of the triad conversations did not take the initiative to learn more about them. It is clear factors such as a school’s history, ethos and values are likely mediators of PD innovations. Future research may consider contextual and government policy factors through which the meaning of dialogic triadic coaching is filtered (Keddie 2014). Equally it may be important to interrogate localised power dynamics at school level and elevate community building and school student voice if they are to become more responsive to a culture of dyadic exchange with the voices of learners at the centre (Eller and Eller 2009; Sandwick, Hahn, and Hassoun Ayoub 2019).

Notes on contributors 

• 17 years in primary schools teaching pupils aged 4–11. Last 7 years as Deputy Headteacher then Headteacher.

• 10 years at University of Chichester teaching curriculum English – core and specialism (FHEQ levels 4–9). Last 3 years as Programme Leader for BA(hons) Initial Teacher Education.

• Initial Teacher Education, BA(hons) programme (SCQF levels 8–10)

• PGDE Programme (SCQF levels 10–11)

• MEd Education Studies (Specialisms) (SCQF level 11)

• Academic specialism Lead: MEd Education Studies (Leadership)

• PhD and Professional Doctorate supervision

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Appendix A

Table

Pupil Dialogic Bids	Explanation	Example
Pupil linking phrase To signal cumulation	Pupils use phrases to demonstrate that they are aware of and intend to comment on previous contributions to the discussion.	‘I agree/disagree with … because … ’ ‘That’s right/wrong because … ’ ‘Yes/No, because … ’ ‘I’m not sure about that because … ’ ‘And … ’ ‘But … ’
Pupil thinking phrase To signal reasoning	Pupils not only share their view but also offer reasoning to justify the viewpoint and make this explicit to the group.	‘I think … because … ’ ‘When X said … it made me think … ’ ‘I’ve been thinking that … ’ What confuses me is … ’
Teacher Dialogic Bids
Prompt To cue pupil ‘uptake’ – cumulation or reciprocity	The teacher makes explicit connections between ideas before encouraging pupils to comment upon these.	‘So, who agrees/disagrees with … ’ ‘Would anybody like to add to that.’ ‘Does anybody want to build on?’ ‘Any different ideas?’ ‘Who disagrees with … ?’
Probe To cue an extended response/shared reasoning	The teacher returns to the pupil who has just spoken to ask for a more extended response or to seek justification, clarification, or reasoning.	‘Go on.’ ‘Can you tell me more about … ?’ ‘What were you thinking when you said … ?’ ‘Can you explain what you mean by … ?’ ‘Talk a bit more about that.’
Low control acknowledging move Teacher withholds evaluation	Moves such as ‘ok,’ ‘go on,’ ‘uh hu’ or non-verbal moves (such as a look directed to the student who has just spoken) that encourage that pupil to continue/extend his/her contribution.	Non-verbal (nod, neutral look, quizzical look, gesture) ‘Ok’ ‘Um’ ‘Interesting