Despite the common title of “coach,” definitions of high-quality coaching vary tremendously across models and programs. Yet few studies make comparisons between different models to understand what is most helpful, for whom, and under what circumstances.
As a result, practitioners are left with many options and little evidence-based direction. This is exacerbated by the literature’s focus on more abstract features of coaching practice, such as building trust, leaving practitioners to determine what concrete discourse strategies support these goals.
This article begins to address these challenges by introducing a taxonomy of coaching “moves,” parsing the concrete details of coach discourse.
The taxonomy is designed to provide a common language for describing coaching discourse, support future research on how coach discourse shapes teacher development, and offer practitioners a flexible tool for reflecting on and planning coaching conversations.
While the taxonomy is informed by the literature, it highlights conceptual possibilities rather than providing a list of empirically grounded or evidence-based strategies.