Cognitive Coaching : an examination of the reflective journaling of teacher candidates.

Cognitive Coaching is a method of instruction that recognizes the strength in thinking about thinking and fosters independent learning. Cognitive Coaching is one method of instruction that can help to better prepare teachers for the classroom. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact that Cognitive Coaching had on teacher candidates as measured by comments in the reflective journals of these candidates. In this mixed methods case study design, the researcher conducted a qualitative study with embedded quantitative methods that enhanced the archived data. The archived data consisted of reflective journals originally collected from a group of junior level teacher candidates who were exposed to Cognitive Coaching. The researcher compared these journals to other archived reflective journals of teacher candidates who were not exposed to Cognitive Coaching. The reflective journals were part of a weekly assignment in a course that included a 13-15 week field experience on a campus of an urban school district located in Central Texas. When examining the archived data, the researcher identified key categories that emerged and were consistent with Costa and Garmston’s (1994) five states of mind: efficacy, flexibility, consciousness, craftsmanship, and interdependence. The findings of this study revealed that the cases exposed to Cognitive Coaching were able to learn more from their experiences and used more words indicating higher levels of the five states of mind in their reflective journals.