I have been working with several school organizations updating and examining their teacher professional growth plans. In each case leaders want to focus on maximizing the payoff in student success, growth or achievement from educator’s learning. They want the plan to provide for teacher autonomy while aligning efforts to school-wide goals. Each of these systems […]

While reading a blog by Cristie Watson titled 9 Mistakes New Teachers Make, I was triggered to consider how mentors and instructional coaches approach the start of new relationships with teachers new to working with a coach or mentor. Number 6 on Watson’s list of 9 is Being Afraid to Ask for Help “When struggling […]

In a previous blog, I shared the work of Randy Conley and Drea Zigarmi that identified twelve factors of employee work passion (EWP) categorized as organizational, job, and relationship factors. (You can find the twelve here.) In that blog I explored two factors that I believe deserve attention as leaders plan for the opening of […]

Tom Shimmer, the co-author of Grading From The Inside Out: Instructional Agility and Standards Based Learning in Action, joined me on a podcast and explained his use of the term, “modernizing assessment.” He suggested that like in any industry, education continues to grow and evolve. “We continue to learn about the roles that all the various […]

This is the first of three blogs illustrating how coaches can apply the backwards process of connecting the desired student learning production behaviors to the teacher behaviors/practices/strategies that can generate those behaviors. This blog focuses on the coach working with an individual teacher. The following two will consider working with PLCs or teams and working […]

I benefited from instructional and peer coaching before I had heard the terms. My teacher preparation program and my initial teaching roles were built around team models that had formal and informal coaching conversations built into the organizational structure. When I first began consulting with teachers in other schools, I was surprised to find working […]