Lead Lit Topic: Guiding Teachers
Here is where you'll find information on guiding teachers.
Results
Third-Grade Team Discussion: Rate Your Post-It Tool
Literacy coach Kathy Provost leads a team of third-grade teachers as they discuss using a "Rate Your Post-It" visual tool in their classrooms.
Protecting Your Coaching Time
It was 3:00 p.m. when the dismissal bell rang. Some students bolted from the building to head for home, and others chatted loudly in the bus line. I emerged from...
Culture for Coaching Part 2: Resistance to Cycles
This is the second in a series of four articles about creating a culture for effective coaching. Working together as a principal and instructional coach, we took steps to build...
Starting a Coaching Cycle: The First Meeting
First impressions are everything. As an instructional coach, half the battle is getting teachers interested in coaching cycles. The other half of the battle is making a good first impression....
Authentically Curious
When I first received the note from a member of the staff, my initial reaction was shock. "I feel like I don't really know you, nor do you really know...
Culture for Coaching Part 1: Introduction
This is the first in a series of four articles about creating a culture for effective coaching. It begins with a problem and a brave, counterintuitive response from a principal...
The Awkward Chair
A colleague of mine recently presented an excellent professional development session about how school leaders can become experts in facilitating effective IEP or RTI meetings. These types of meetings are...
Coaching Purposeful Classroom Design
Candace scrolled excitedly down the page of the website filled with colorful stools, crisp conference tables with charging stations, and nifty caddies. “Ugh—I could spend my entire paycheck here!” she...
School Leaders and Written Communication
For several years now, I have taught a graduate class for aspiring school leaders. My students are practicing teachers and counselors who have their eye on being principals someday. As...
Motivating Reluctant Writers in Third Grade
Kathy Provost and a third-grade teaching team discuss how to motivate reluctant writers.
Paraphrasing to Let Teachers Lead
There was a diamond in the rough in the teacher’s lesson. Overall, it was a good lesson. She had provided choice in how students could respond to the whole-class reading...
Literacy and Last Days: Keeping It Simple
“I’m not doing a bouncy house.” That was my initial response when I heard that as principal of our school, I am tasked with coming up with the last-day activity...
Dealing with Side Conversations
It happens almost every time. Someone (maybe it's you?) is leading a professional development session for teachers, and a side conversation is happening at one of the tables. The presenter...
Rocking the Boat
When I was in high school, I attended ARC camp. The acronym stood for Advanced River Challenge. It was a weeklong canoeing adventure camp. I had never canoed before. It...
The Thin Line Between Mentoring and Coaching
The teacher came in to see me, disappointed in his midyear results. “My students aren’t progressing like I thought they would.” His goal: provide more authentic literacy instruction so students...
Choice Professional Development Sessions
Back in August, our district offered K-3 teachers a selection of workshops. The language arts consultants, reading specialists, and I (the writing coordinator) put together a collection of offerings that...
Improving Professional Learning for All
In my early days as a school leader, I could count on one hand the number of times a staff member personally told me how much they enjoyed the professional...
Case Studies All Year Long
Kathy Provost and Heather Fisher talk with reading specialists about the value of following a case study over an entire year.
Teacher Guilt
Negative emotions like loneliness, envy, and guilt have an important role to play in a happy life; they're big, flashing signs that something needs to change. Gretchen Rubin A...
Word Study Kick-Off
One of the biggest struggles teachers share is that getting word study off the ground is tricky. It should be no surprise to know, then, that many teachers admit that...
Grammar Instruction in Fourth Grade
Melanie Meehan coaches a fourth-grade teacher who is trying to improve his grammar instruction.
