School leaders and instructional coaches can support teacher reflection that promotes teacher learning. Listening and questioning are key facilitation skills that generate reflection that promotes insights and learning. As I am listening and questioning, I am exploring teachers’ thinking: Where are they? How did they get there? Where do they want to go? Questions for […]

Most school administrators, instructional coaches, and teacher leaders have spent time in the previous weeks creating school improvement goals and a set of action steps to reach those goals. Frequently though the actions are implemented without the ongoing collection of evidence concerning the impact of the actions. Often because the impact of individual actions was […]

I was recently at an instructional coaches’ conference where a presenter put the following on a power point and asked the participants, collaborating with a standing partner, to put the items into the sequence in which they occur: Change in student outcomes Change in teacher attitude/beliefs Change in teacher practice My partner shared her thinking […]

I recently posted an earlier blog I had written about being comfortable with discomfort on LinkedIn using this lead-in statement: I find it intriguing that teachers recognize that discomfort is part of student learning. They work to create classroom environments where students can be comfortable with discomfort. Yet, they frequently work to avoid discomfort for […]

Each summer I post a blog encouraging coaches to request a conversation with their principals. Scheduling time, especially uninterrupted, for necessary coach/principal conversations is often difficult. Summer may provide the perfect opportunity for a coffee hour to catch up and/or establish a plan for the start of the new year. I see this conversation as […]

The MindTools website defines empathic listening as “a structured listening and questioning technique that allows you to develop and enhance relationships with a stronger understanding of what is being conveyed, both intellectually and emotionally. As such, it takes active listening techniques to a new level.” The power of really listening I was surprised to come […]