Lead Lit Topic: Coaching Support Structures
Some literacy leaders receive extensive training for working with adult learners, but most of us do not. As you move between the stances of coach, collaborator and consultant, you’ll need support structures in place for defining your role, communicating with administrators, advocating for your position with a school board and more. Here you’ll find reflections and how-tos that respond to the question, “Who coaches the coach?”
Results
Coach-Principal Meeting Template
An Agenda Template to Streamline Principal-Coach Meetings Every administration and their building needs are different. For coaches, traveling between buildings can often feel like whiplash. The building goals are different....
How to Build Your System for Knowing, Thinking, and Writing
Your notes deserve better than to be forgotten. When I started my new position as a systems coach for an educational service agency, my first project was to develop a...
Teachers as Leaders: Five Ways to Create the Conditions for Change (Part 2)
In Part 1, we introduced the five Vs and shared a process of using models to navigate the unpredictable terrain of school-wide change. The five Vs offer a pathway that...
Teachers as Leaders: Five Ways to Create the Conditions for Change (Part 1)
As I waited in an office lobby on a Friday afternoon to meet with a principal as an external coach, I remembered how demanding the work of positional leaders can...
Goals Create Direction
You feel stressed because you don’t have a goal. This simple truth resonates deeply in our schools today. Many of our colleagues are stressed—overwhelmed with classroom behaviors, daily demands, and...
The Coach’s Notebook: How to Capture and Organize Your Notes to Support Your Practice
Part of my work as a systems coach is documenting my conversations with leaders and teachers around their goals for building more equitable outcomes for students. We use a Google...
The Confident Coach: Seven Competencies to Empower Your Practice
As a systems coach for a regional education agency, my primary role is to help school districts develop the processes and practices that support more equitable outcomes for students. My...
Using Metaphors and Analogies to Help Educators Shift Their Thinking and Change Their Practices
Any assessment can be used both formatively and summatively, but usually one function interferes with the other, so it is generally best to decide at the outset about the purpose...
Transforming Our Own Professional Learning
If you want to thrive as a Transformational Coach, you need to be prepared to engage in a lot of practice and refining of your skills. I’ve also learned that...
Help! I’m a New Coach
As the school year came to a close, the air buzzed with talk of change. The middle school was set to undergo departmentalization, a major shift that meant a significant...
AI in Teacher Prep
A just machine to make big decisions Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision We'll be clean when their work is done We'll be eternally free yes and eternally young...
You’re Not There—Yet!
We have to cultivate a culture in which brave work, tough conversations, and whole hearts are the expectation. —Brene Brown You’re not there… yet! We throw this term around with...
Coaching from Teachers’ Strengths
As a principal for the last 16 years, I have had many opportunities to sit in classrooms to learn with teachers and students. One question I ask myself when observing...
Empowering Teachers and Building Relationships
My first days as a traveling coach were filled with excitement. What a new adventure this would be, moving between the five buildings in the district. I was really looking...
Energizing Yourself
I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance...
Combat Self-Doubt: Make a Ta-Da List
My first word was hardball, which is shooter slang for a type of ammunition. I was Dad’s best assistant at reloading ammo. I could take apart, clean, and name each...
Coaching Minute: Keep a Meeting Journal
Curriculum director Inga Omondi spends a lot of time in meetings. To make connections, remember next steps, and stay organized, she keeps a journal with all of her meeting notes.
Maintaining an Inquiry Stance: Seeking to Enhance the Practice of Questioning in Leadership
A person who asks questions is more helpful than the person who offers advice. —James Clear "What should I do?" The classroom teacher turned her face toward me with a...
Picture It: When Material-Use Goes Awry
I was leading a demonstration lesson for 40 middle school teachers when I looked across the classroom and saw that one of the students had lined his hands with stickers....
A 30-Day Coaching Challenge
Instructional coaching can feel a bit like a roller coaster. Some days feel like we’re sailing through the day with the wind in our face and our arms outstretched with...
How Do You Show Up?
Let’s start with a quick exercise. Think about your own coaching work with colleagues or think about a coach you’ve partnered with recently. Using the matrix below, where would you...
