Lead Lit Topic: Guiding Teachers
Here is where you'll find information on guiding teachers.
Results
Always Another Choice
Faculty meetings can be tough for me. Over the past year, I made a new commitment to try to contribute to the community without vying for power or inadvertently bumping...
Collaborative Brainstorming
“Turn to those around your table and talk for a moment about where your thinking is right now." This is a phrase that I often utter as I lead professional...
The Honeymoon Is Over
“The honeymoon is definitely over.” This is what I heard walking back into my office a few weeks ago after dismissal. Pausing to soak it all in, I realized I’d...
Picture It: Museum Walk with Quotes
When transitioning from one focus to another in a professional development session, we find that using quotes gives teachers a taste of new learning through another person's perspective. At the...
Why I Love Having a Coach
This year, our district put literacy and math coaches in place at the elementary level. I knew I’d love having a coach, but I had no idea how much I...
Fostering Change with Student Work
As a literacy coach within my district, I find myself promoting district initiatives that require teachers to take on new curriculum. For some teachers this means letting go of cherished...
Screencasting Professional Development
One of the biggest barriers to professional learning is simply that of finding the time. Teachers have so much on their plate that actually finding time to attend a workshop,...
Coaching Relationships: Move Closer
When I was in graduate school working on my degree in educational leadership, I had a professor admonish us to “Move closest to the person you feel the least closest...
Honesty, Ignorance, and Building Relationships
Being a leader of literacy instruction can feel like a daunting job. There are so many excellent instructional practices being used by teachers that it seems impossible to know everything...
Takeout Book Club
Book clubs are a rewarding opportunity for educators to continue growing in their profession while reading the latest in professional resources and collaborating with colleagues. But with the hustle and...
Twitter Book Chats
Cultivating a culture of learning and collaboration among teachers and support staff is a responsibility of all coaches. But everyone is dealing with overstuffed schedules, and finding the ability to...
Coaching Minute: The Walkaway
Amanda Adrian shares the importance of the "walkaway" -- narrowing the focus of professional development planning to one critical question in this quick video tip.
Because It’s the Right Thing to Do
As a school that focuses on positive behavior, we used to have a token jar that was prominently displayed in the front hall. As classes passed, they could see how...
See Their Stories, Not Their Misbehaviors
Picture a glass jar filled with your favorite pens. Imagine every color of pen inside the jar. Red and turquoise, ocean blue and fuchsia, sunshine yellow and neon orange. There...
Expanding Study Group Communities
Jennifer Allen explains how a simple bulletin board in the literacy room can expand the learning from individual study groups to the whole school teaching community.
Reactions to the Book Paper Things
Teachers discuss Jennifer Richard Jacobson's book Paper Things in a study group.
On Being Observed
Jeni shares reflections on teacher observations and what needs to be in place for them to work well.
Leading a Demonstration Lesson: When It Doesn’t Go Well
Jennifer Allen talks in a leadership team meeting about the experience of being observed when a demonstration lesson isn't going well.
Implementing New Mandated Initiatives
An emotionally positive learning environment encourages learning by mitigating the big learning inhibitors: fear, ego, defenses, complacency, and arrogance. Edward Hess With a new school year come new initiatives...
Study Groups That Nourish the Soul
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed. Carl Jung Steven Wozniak was part of a...
What I Wish I’d Known As a New Coach
As I begin my fourth year in my position as our district’s writing and social studies coordinator, I realize my work alongside teachers has changed in subtle and profound ways....
