The Duties of a Science Coach

• Science coaches help science teachers improve their skills. Juan Silva/Photodisc/Getty Images

  Instructional coaching is one method of teacher development. Instead of relying on external sources of help, like conferences and workshops, an instructional coach is an employee of the school or school system who works with teachers in an ongoing manner. Science coaches specialize in science teaching. They usually have many years of experience teaching science. Science coaching is not necessarily a full-time job; it can be part of the job description for a senior teacher.

Teacher Training

• The primary responsibility of a science coach is to work with science teachers. A science coach helps teachers find weaknesses and develop a training plan to develop good teaching practices and to improve content knowledge. Science coaching is a relationship-based approach, and each teacher's development program should be tailored to the individual. A combination of self-assessment, classroom observations and team teaching can be used to assess progress. To be most effective, development programs should be as specific as possible, detailing what aptitudes need to be improved, what activities are meant to make those improvements, specific goals that need to be achieved and a time frame for the program.

Curriculum

• Science coaches are often asked to help with curriculum development. Because they are working with many, possibly all, of the science teachers at a given school, science coaches have a broad view of what is being taught. If some of the instructional problems the science coach witnesses are structural, making changes to the curriculum could alleviate these problems. Alternatively, if a new curriculum has been mandated from an external body, such as a school board, science coaches can be used to help teachers adjust to the new curriculum.

Equipment

• Science demonstrations and lab work are important parts of science education, but limited resources may prevent science teachers from doing all of the experiments they would like. Science coaches may be asked to help coordinate timetables for lab equipment or allocate resources that can be used up, such as chemicals. Science coaches may also help decide what new equipment needs to be purchased or repaired.

Communication

• In some cases, science coaches may be asked to perform community outreach on behalf of a science department. This can include talking to parent groups or government bodies or fund-raising to help the science department buy new supplies. Science coaches who work at a district or regional level might spend most of their time working with senior science teachers, who in turn are acting as mentors for less inexperienced science teachers at their schools.