“We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.” Whether or not Dewey wrote those exact words in that exact form is debated, but the concept runs throughout his work. Experience alone does not guarantee learning. Reflection turns experience into learning. Inquiry begins when we encounter uncertainty. This diagram from the Great […]

Have you ever had this happen? Coach: Thanks for meeting before our coaching observation. What would you like me to focus on when I come into your classroom? Teacher: Honestly, I don’t really have anything specific. You can just come in and watch. Coach: Okay… sometimes teachers ask me to look at student engagement, questioning, […]

John Cambell from Growth Coaching International posted a blog that highlights some strategies for maintaining momentum when coaching around a coachee’s goals. I found reinforcement in his three recommendations for some practices that I usually build into my coaching. Here are Cambell’s suggestions and my connections. The first suggestion that Campell shared (implementation intentions) aligns […]

Very, very early in my initial work with coaching I zeroed in on the need to focus on the kinds of questions one asks as a coach. My first work in coaching was implementing  peer coaching—teacher to teacher. I would pair teachers up for a pre-conference before observing in a colleague’s classroom and they would […]

These three questions can guide your coaching pre and post conferences. They help you understand what the teacher is thinking, what experiences have influenced the teacher’s current thinking, and where the teacher would like to be in the future. Possible questions for a post conference and a sample pre-conference with a teacher are included.  View […]

There are situations where the opportunity for a coach to observe the teaching and learning process is not available. Steve models a post conference in this podcast that illustrates a coach’s ability to support teacher reflections following her project based learning activity. Ending a post conference with a pre-conference for their next coaching conversation is […]