Lead Lit Topic: Getting Organized
Getting Organized
Results
Triangulating: The Importance of Multiple Data Points When Assessing Students
We went to a professional development session a few years ago with Elizabeth City and she gave us a name for something we have always believed - the importance of...
Personal Conferring Notebooks
How do you effectively and efficiently share formative assessment data between the teachers providing different types of instructional support when the population of students receiving extra instructional support exceeds more...
Introducing the Writing Common Core Standards: Planning for Professional Development
When I began to plan for how introducing the Common Core State Standards in Writing with a key group of leaders in our district, I kept these words of wisdom...
Ask Me – I’m Not the Expert
If nothing else, children should leave school with a sense that if they act, and act strategically, they can accomplish their goals. I call this feeling a sense of agency....
Off the Dance Floor and Onto the Balcony: Getting the Big Picture in Schools
We coordinate professional development efforts in schools. Periodically we visit classrooms during literacy blocks to think about how we are progressing toward our goals and to identify next steps for...
Common Core Standards: Spreading the Word
As a district-level literacy coach in California, I've been given the task of helping move our system toward implementation of the Common Core Standards. We are a large urban district...
Walk-Arounds: Gathering Data to Test Assumptions
As an instructional leader, I am subjected to tattling. You are probably assuming I mean tattling on the part of children, but you'd be surprised. I am referring to teachers...
Planning for a Demonstration Lesson
Clare Landrigan takes a team of grades 3-5 teachers through the steps of selecting a book for a demonstration lesson.
Collaborating with My Principal on Student-Centered Coaching
It is the beginning of a new school year, and I am tucked in a small private meeting room with my coaching colleague Heather, drawing timelines and outlines. I’m shifting...
Heather Sisson’s Coaching Space
Literacy coach Heather Sisson has a shelf of resources available to teachers in her coaching space. A simple checkout system puts everything from cooperative learning books to mentor texts...
Supporting New Teachers and Appreciating Their Gifts
The research is clear and the statistics are grim. The most important factor that influences student achievement is the skill of the teacher, yet we lose more than 50 percent...
Book Hooks
I write this article about the masterful work of Amy Simmons, a teacher in my building. Her official role is “instructional support teacher,” which means she is in charge of...
Dear Teacher, Dear Principal
Often there is confusion about the role of an instructional coach. These letters are intended to clarify the position, as well as reveal the genuine desire of a coach to...
Keeping It Real for Students: Never Underestimate the Power of Reflection
Katie is a veteran teacher who willingly shares she is learning all the time. Her stance has evolved over time from the traditional preparation she received in her pre-service program...
Curriculum Work: Making Meaning Together
To make dreams apparent to others and to align people with them requires not just mere explanations or clarification but the creation of meaning. ...
Simplexity: Finding Your Focus
Simplexity - Finding the smallest number of high-leverage, easy to understand actions that unleash stunningly powerful consequences. Michael Fullan, in Motion Leadership As I approached 279 Newbury Street in Boston, I...
Tips for More Effective Debriefing Sessions
We do a lot of demonstration lessons in our coaching work. Lately we have been reflecting on how we structure these sessions. We find the debriefing of the lesson to...
From Teacher to Coach: Building Community in the Early Days
It's late August and next week I start my position as Instructional Coach. I am not new to working with teachers. I spent six years in higher education working with...
Busywork?: From Classroom Assistant to Agent of Change
It’s the day before school starts, hours before the kindergarten classrooms will be filled with parents and students excited to meet their very first teachers at a meet and greet...
Overwhelmed Coach
Everyone in education feels overwhelmed from time to time. Coaches can feel extremely stretched at particular times throughout the year. The months of November and March are the most intense...
Literacy Coaching and Student Work with Diane Sweeney (PODCAST)
Diane Sweeney is the author of Student-Centered Coaching: A Guide for K-8 Coaches and Principals. In this podcast with Heather Rader, she talks about the dangers of focusing too much on...
