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Getting Organized

Getting Organized

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Learning Land

Jennifer Schwanke considers what she and her district learned when they adopted an online digital skill and drill program that promised more than it delivered (don't they all?). The name of the program has been changed to protect the guilty.

New Year Resolutions

Melanie Quinn begins the new school year with a list of habits she plans to develop, from spending more time with new teachers to greeting every child in the building by name.

Planning a Coaching Cycle

Kathy Provost works with a third-grade teacher to plan long-term and daily goals in a coaching cycle in this video.

Defining Your Role as a Coach

Dana Murphy finds that coaching is a lot like marriage: it succeeds only when there is a lot of hard work, and actions mirror beliefs.

Getting PD Feedback

Stella Villalba shares ideas for getting ongoing feedback after professional development offerings.

“Got a Minute?”: Rethinking My Schedule and Priorities

Matt Renwick rethinks his strategy of responding instantly to requests for his time, considering his priorities as a literacy leader.

Getting Out of the Tater Tot Office: The Importance of Visibility

Gretchen Taylor ponders what literacy coaches can do to make their presence and the possibility of collaboration better known to teachers, focusing on her work in public spaces and on her coaching calender.

Meeting Debrief: Coaching Literacy Coaches

Heather Sisson and Amanda Adrian debrief after leading a professional development session for literacy coaches on the Pause Paraphrase Probe strategy.

Essential Resources for Building Professional Learning Communities

Matt Renwick shares his favorite online and print resources for PLCs, including templates and surveys for planning before groups are launched.

Questions for Reflection and Goal Setting with Teachers

Matt Renwick shares some of his favorite questions and strategies for promoting reflection and goal setting with teachers.

Coaching Connections

Jennifer Vincent takes on a new role in a new school district. She develops trust with a plan for working with colleagues to set goals and reflect.

Refining Reflective Practice and Notetaking

Gretchen Taylor shares three tweaks she has made to her record-keeping system to ensure she keeps her coaching notes organized and useful for reflection.

Coaching Tool: Evernote

Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan describe how they use Evernote to enhance coaching collaboration and organize materials and assessments from professional development sessions.

Engaging Not Blaming: Increasing Parent Involvement

Melanie Quinn and her colleagues try some fresh approaches to tackling the dilemma of low participation in curriculum events for parents.

Master Class: Mentoring New Coaches

Memories are triggered as Jennifer Allen mentors a first-year literacy coach through the anxieties and failures of the first weeks in the role.

Three Little Tweaks for More Effective Communication

Ruth Ayres realizes that the sheer volume of information teachers receive each day overwhelms any attempt at real connection. She explains some simple changes she made to improve her communication skills.

Closing the Year Strong: Leveraging Technology When Time Is Short

Matt Renwick shares some strategies for connecting with teachers during the stressful last months of school.

Becoming a Literacy Coach: Principles and Mission Statements

Brian Sepe thinks about what has influenced his coaching, and through that process develops a mission statement and a vision statement to guide his work.

Coaching Minute: Baggies

Melanie Meehan shares her bedraggled baggie—the essential tools she carries with her when she confers with students.

No Cutting Corners in Coaching

A home renovation project gets Kathy Provost thinking about what's essential in coaching well.

The Importance of Creating a Literacy Room (Instead of a Tiny Office)

Melanie Swider finds that her first task in moving from teaching to a coaching role at her school is to think through how she will organize and share resources with teachers. Scratch that—her very first task is convincing her principal that a large room needs to be set aside for professional development resources.

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