Coaching Defined
Coaching is a philosophy and plan that deals with how best to implement sustained change in educators. The autocratic way or, if you like, the "let me help you fix it" way, means that others dictate and direct a teacher's progress to teacher improvement with affixed consequences if it does not happen. Under this traditional system, ultimately, the teacher can blame his boss if the strategy that he was dictated to do does not work. Educational coaching is entirely different.
How It Works
Instructional coaching at the teacher level requires that the administrator and school leaders be trained to refrain from their natural tendency to provide the teacher with solutions to the problems he is facing. Rather, the administrator/coach's role is to help the teacher identify the problems and bring their own solutions to light. By asking the teacher probing, open-ended questions, the administrator or coach helps the teacher reflect and analyze an issue of the teacher's choosing and then asks the all powerful question: "What are you going to do about it?"
(excerpted with minor modifications from Edutopia's The Power of Educational Coaching by Ben Johnson)