Leadership
Do you guide teachers, specialists, and literacy coaches? Here are tools, advice, and strategies school leaders need for their daily work in staff meetings, study groups, and one-on-one discussions with colleagues. If you have a leadership role in coaching teachers and designing professional development, you'll want an upgraded membership with access to our Leaders Lounge.
Latest Content
Team Sharing of Writing Curriculum Innovations (TEMPLATE)
Ruth Shagoury finds some of the best learning in her study groups comes when participants share the new things they are trying in their classrooms. She develops a nifty one-page notetaking form to help everyone keep track of ideas they want to test out with students.
Cartwheels, Backward Rolls, and Literacy Coaching
Jennifer Allen observes the scaffolds her daughter's gymnastics teacher uses and gradually abandons over time. These observations make her think about how she is gradually releasing new teachers from different kinds of support as they enter their second, third, and fourth years of teaching.
Root Metaphors for Teaching: Learning from Our Passions
Ruth Shagoury finds her passion for bread baking leads to rethinking how she differentiates instruction for students. Her colleagues then come up with their own metaphors in the study group activity.
Forming Teams to Help Struggling Readers:A Pilot Project (TEMPLATES)
Andrea Smith shares observation strategies used within a teaching team. The article includes templates developed by the group.
Connecting Language and Hope: A Study Group Activity
The teaching profession needs an abundance of hope. In this creative study group activity, Andie Cunningham helps young teachers connect language and hope through art.
Fostering More Curricular Collaboration in Teams: The Meeting Notes Form (TEMPLATE)
Katie Doherty faces daunting challenges as a grade-level team leader in her middle school. A simple notetaking form works wonders in elevating the conversations and collaboration.
Learning with Intensity: A Study Group Discussion Prompt
"Learning with Intensity" is a study group activity which takes participants back to a time when they became passionately involved with learning. Ruth Shagoury shares the structure of the activity and insights from one group who gave it a test drive.
How I Flunked Literacy Leadership 101
Jennifer Jones finds she is still learning on the job as a literacy coach, especially when it comes to building relationships through collaborative teaching. Here she shares a breakdown in communication with a colleague, and how she is working to rebuild the relationship.
State Assessment Tests: Warm-Ups for Wandering Minds
Student distraction is a critical issue during assessments. Jennifer Jones provides a series of quick activities to help students focus before state examinations.
Sales Clerks and Literacy Leaders
Franki Sibberson reflects on what makes a perfect salesperson . . .and literacy coach.
Creating Structures to Sustain Our Work
Jennifer Allen explains how she enlisted teachers to lead a day-long inservice.
Collecting Literacy Stories Icebreaker (PRINT DOWNLOAD)
If you want a terrific activity to nudge colleagues to share more of their successes and failures, you might want to download Cindy Hatt’s question templates and explanation of the collecting stories activity. It’s also a fun strategy for building listening skills and community among teachers and coaches
I Believe . . . Some Thoughts on Marathons and Sustained Professional Development in Schools
Jennifer Allen runs her first marathon, and finds the good, bad, ugly, and ultimately inspiring experience is a great metaphor for professional development design that endures.
Putting Ourselves in Our Teaching
Debbie Miller's wonderful essay is great to read when you're feeling rushed, and want to hit the "pause button" to remind yourself of what really matters in the classroom.
Student Reading Interview: Assessing Ana Part 2
This is the second video in a two-part series. Principal Karen Szymusiak interviewed Ana, a second grader, to learn more about her strengths and needs as a reader. In this week’s installment, Karen will share her findings with Ana’s teacher.
Creating a Reflective Culture in Classrooms
Debbie Miller explains how the language we use with students conveys our appreciation for their thinking.
Collecting Stories: Opening Activity and Icebreaker (PRINT DOWNLOAD)
Ruth Shagoury’s collecting stories icebreaker is a fun yet thoughtful activity for opening a meeting or all-day professional development event with energy and reflection. It gets everyone moving around the room, talking with colleagues, and best of all, focused on students and curriculum.
Looking Back to Move Forward: The Plan Book Scavenger Hunt for Literacy Leaders
Jennifer Jones is as busy as the rest of us at the end of the school year. Yet she finds time spent in a “scavenger hunt” of her planning book/calendar is essential for setting realistic goals and scheduling professional development priorities for next year.
Literacy Chats with Teachers: Routines and Guidelines
Principal Karen Szymusiak explains the format and goals of literacy chats at her school, and provides a video example of a grades 3-5 chat.
Literacy Coaching Interview Rubric
This rubric can help anyone interviewing for a literacy coaching position determine if there is a philosophical fit between their beliefs and the goals of the school. The rubric is also helpful for any school in the process of defining responsibilities for literacy coaches
Finding Words: Linking Community and Classrooms
Principal Karen Szymusiak and 3rd Grade Teacher/Literacy Coach Pam Hahlen do a quick word search activity using dictionaries donated to the classroom by a local service club.
Mentor Interviews — A Protocol of Questions
This series of over 30 questions for mentors or novice teachers can be used to plan a mentoring program, match mentors and novice teachers, or launch partnerships early in the fall.
January New Teacher Group Update: When Life Happens
Preparing for a forced sick day with her daughter, Jennifer Allen is reminded that the culture of professional development in her school is something she can depend on.
Watching Teachers Teach: An Observation Form for Literacy Coaches
Being genuine about feedback is essential to educators. Jan Miller Burkins finds a form and process that allows her to be both thoughtful and specific.
New Teacher Conversations: Management Stories from the Classroom
Ruth Shagoury provides a workshop model for teacher leaders looking to encourage respectful conversation with new teachers on the topics that are near and dear to them.
The Language of Coaching Part I: Word Choices
If you believe it’s challenging but “possible to be tactful without being inauthentic,” Jan Miller Burkins will guide you around the thorniness of the language of coaching.
How Study Groups Are Like Self-Cleaning Ovens
With a few key elements in place, Brenda Power and Jennifer Allen explain how study groups can almost run themselves and get everyone involved.
The Language of Coaching Part II: The Leading Edge
Jan Miller-Burkins explores the “how” of shifting language so that it is less judgemental in discussions with colleagues.
Two or Three Things I Know for Sure: A Teacher Workshop Activity
"Two or Three Things I Know for Sure" is a terrific short workshop activity for study groups or faculty meetings, and it also can be used in partnership discussions with mentors, literacy coaches, and colleagues. The activity gets everyone to explore their bedrock beliefs about teaching – as well as what it takes to change them.
Teacher/Principal Conferring: Reflecting on Readers’ Notebooks
In this conference, Principal Karen Szymusiak and 5th grade teacher Liz Cramer discuss the ways Liz uses readers’ notebooks in her classroom.
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