Lead Lit Topic: Guiding Teachers
Here is where you'll find information on guiding teachers.
Results
The Power of Mini-Charts
I spend a lot of time making charts. I have filled multiple sketchbooks with charts over the years—anchor charts, strategy charts, and learning progressions. These sketchbooks have become invaluable to...
Professional Development Choice and Follow-Up
We have many opportunities for professional development in our district, but we are constantly grappling with the question of how to create more long-lasting instructional changes. In the moment, as...
Coaching Minute: Lesson Planning Form
Kathy Provost and Heather Fisher talk about the value of using a lesson planning form with teachers as a shared record of plans, action, and reflection in coaching sessions. The...
Planning Next Year’s Professional Development Offerings
I woke in bits, like all children, piecemeal over the years. I discovered myself and the world, and forgot them, and discovered them again. Annie Dillard It’s easy to...
Coaching Minute: Selecting Books for Teachers
Kathy Provost and Heather Fisher share some criteria for selecting books for teachers to open doors and conversations.
It’s Not About Us
One of our teachers scheduled an appointment with me. Assuming she wanted to discuss her midyear professional goal, I was surprised when she came with guided reading resources. “I wanted...
Benched
We’ve all watched games in which players have been benched. In my own house, we have all kinds of experiences with “riding the bench.” One of our kids isn’t athletically...
The Secret to Better Meetings: It’s All in the Ending
I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and...
The Other Agenda
Teachers are always on the lookout for a fresh idea. They look to their colleagues, to curated sites such as Pinterest, and to any number of other resources for new...
Coaching Minute: Better Data Meetings
In this brief video, Heather Fisher and Kathy Provost explain why turning data meetings over to reading specialists has had such a positive effect on schools in their district. ...
Choosing Our Words Carefully
At the start of our collaboration session, Kathy shared, “I have really been thinking about the word unfortunately and how I have seen it being used lately.” She proceeded to...
Planning Family Literacy Night
Heather Fisher and Kathy Provost work with a group of reading specialists to plan a family literacy night.
Aligning Beliefs and Practices: Homework Policies
A few years ago, after rereading Debbie Miller’s book Reading with Intention, I led our teachers through an exercise of defining their beliefs about teaching and aligning practices. They named...
Coaching for Confidence
Every once in a while, even the most capable, talented teachers have a year that tests their skill and sanity. You may find them questioning their decision to continue teaching....
Sustaining Trust While Maintaining High Expectations
As a principal in a new school, I have been hesitant to start observations of teachers. My big goal this year is to build trust and develop relationships with staff,...
No More Whack-a-Mole Coaching
When I was a kid, one of my favorite games at the arcade was Whack-a-Mole. There was something about having a giant club that seemed empowering. Little plastic moles would...
Collecting Data on Case Study Students
As part of a yearlong in-depth study of one student, each reading specialist in our district gathered data in a variety of ways about a student who, as a reader,...
Coaching Minute: Case Studies with Reading Specialists
Heather Fisher and Kathy Provost talk about how case studies have changed their work with literacy specialists over the past year in this brief video.
Who Keeps You Up at Night?
Beginning a coaching relationship is a bit like a first dance. You have to watch your partner, understand his or her body language, and listen carefully in order to dance...
Learning Through Listening
As we read Marie Clay’s words, we thought about how this quote pertains to coaching too. The more years we work in schools and coach alongside teachers, the less we...
Common Planning Meeting: Third-Grade Notebooks
In this excerpt from a common planning meeting, Kathy Provost works with third-grade teachers who are focused on improving their use of student notebooks across the curriculum.
