I was recently asked to facilitate a 70 minute session at a leadership conference that addressed the following: The outcome of an effective instructional coaching program needs to be an increase in student achievement. The partnership of the coach and principal is crucial to a program’s effectiveness. Identify elements that should be part of your […]

 I recently was a guest participant on a Twitter chat with #educoach where the topic was exploring instructional coaches’ work with Professional Learning Communities (PLCs).The facilitators offered a series of questions to spark the sharing. Here are the questions, some of the tweets I shared and my reflections on the responses. The entire chat is […]

Education: Most teachers have never had a coach and are not sure what to do with one. Many have had a mentor and all have had a supervisor/evaluator but not an instructional coach. Considering the cost to school systems, when they decide to invest in instructional coaching positions they should be considering how they educate […]

I am currently facilitating leadership teams at the central office and building level in several districts. As I researched for this work the critical importance of school based leaders was reinforced. Consider the following statements regarding the principal’s role: On average, a principal accounts for 25 percent of a school’s total impact on student achievement—significant […]

This week I was working with teacher leaders from a GA district who were studying with instructional coaches and administrators from their buildings. We examined teacher leaders’ roles in facilitating PLCs, building team cultures, and promoting a culture of coaching. One of the areas that emerged from our conversations was how to assist teachers in […]

I just finished a great day of learning with coaches and administrators from Ankeny, Iowa and surrounding school districts. The participants were tweeting at #iacoaches2013. I found it interesting during small group discussion times to check the comments they were sharing as a way of understanding what in my presentation was striking a cord or […]