I focused on the phrase “professional learning conversations” while reading an article by Dr. Kristine Needham titled 5 Conversations for Professional Growth. She explores the terms ‘professional conversations’, ‘learning conversations’, ‘professional learning conversations’, ‘coaching conversations’, and ‘feedback conversations.’ Dr. Needham shares that the term “professional learning conversations” was coined by Lorna Earl and Helen Timperley […]

My frustration has grown as more and more conversations with educators have centered around people sharing their concerns about teachers’ and students’ wellbeing. They share concerns about teachers being stressed and contemplating leaving teaching. They describe students’ inappropriate behaviors and lack of engagement. Then, in the same conversation, they describe the need for students to […]

I recently posted this statement on Twitter and received more likes and retweets than my posts generally receive: Teachers engaging in peer or instructional coaching isn’t adding to their plates. It’s supporting them with what’s on the plate that can best impact student learning. Critical for teacher agency. In an earlier blog, Empowering Plate Redesign, […]

Student learning production behaviors have been the focus of my coaching for many years. Knowing what we want students to gain as learning outcomes, drives us to identify what students do (learning tasks and experiences) that are most likely to generate those desired outcomes. Just like performing arts coaches plan what students will “do” to […]

Steve Martin, a co-author of Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion, illustrates how words we use can have unexpected impacts. “People consider having to travel north as more difficult than traveling south. (We process north as uphill.)” After watching a video of one car hitting another, people are asked to predict the speed […]

In a recent book, Grades K-12 Rebound: A Playbook For Rebuilding Agency, Accelerating Learning Recovery, and Rethinking Schools, authors Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, Dominique Smith, and John Hattie dedicate a chapter to educator agency. The authors point out that when we don’t see the link between our efforts and the impact that they have, our […]