Joellen Killion and Learningforward have produced a great resource for instructional coaches and school leaders. The Feedback Process: Transforming Feedback for Professional Learning   provides ways to examine and improve your practice in supporting continuous teaching improvement. “Feedback is a process that engages the learner in review, analysis, reflection, and planning of future action. When […]

Barbara R. Blackburn posted 3 Strategies for Building Tween Resilience on the MIDDLEWEB (10/28/2015). “Resilience is the ability to effectively handle pressure and to overcome failure. It is a characteristic that many of our struggling students do not demonstrate in the classroom; yet it is one that we can teach. We do this by being […]

My previous blog ended with this paragraph: It’s important that principals’ work with instructional coaches to extend the coaching culture in a school. That culture increases the impact that the coach can have in providing feedback and reflection opportunities as well as increasing the coach’s role in being the “coach of coaching.” Anyone working in […]

The first book that I wrote about coaching was titled, Quality Teaching in a Culture of Coaching. The title was purposeful as I wanted to communicate that coaching was not merely an isolated activity of observation and feedback, but the way a team of educators “did business.” When a coaching culture is present, teachers use […]

My recent reading lead to two articles that had me reflect on classroom observations where I was examining teaching and learning. In the August 2015, JSD Learning Forward Journal, Jennifer Hindman, Jan Rozzelle, Rachel Ball and John Fahey wrote about a Principals’ Academy at the College of William and Mary.  The academy is designed to improve instructional […]

I was recently requested to facilitate a meeting of coaches and principals from K-12 buildings for the Bismarck Public Schools in North Dakota. Those of you who follow me on Twittter (@stevebarkley) know that I have been working with the district for the last four years. The agenda I was given had the coach/principal pairs explore […]