In many of my presentations I discuss two beliefs behind my work in schools: Teaching is a team sport and Teaching needs to be a public act. Both of these beliefs reinforce the need for schools to have a culture of coaching that defines staff relationships. This week I was in Rochester, NY providing a […]

Working with the staffs at Jollyville Elementary and Live Oak Elementary in Round Rock, Texas, we explored the work of PLCs and how peer coaching might positively impact teacher and student learning. We examined three critical elements of PLCs: They are results driven…… (student achievement). They focus on learning more than teaching. They are collaborative…(the […]

In an earlier blog I described the New Jersey Education Association’s (NJEA) Priority Schools program, which is placing retired teachers as coaches/facilitators in some schools. This week I spent a day with the coach and staff at School 6 in Linden, NJ. I demonstrated for the team how to use a backwards planning process to identify […]

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 […]

Learning Companion is the phrase my Turkish colleague, Kayhan Karli, uses to describe peer coaching. Kayhan is the Director General of ÖĞRETMEN AKADEMİSİ VAKFI, a foundation that has now provided training to over 70,000 Turkish teachers who historically had received very limited professional development. Kayhan shared that he uses the metaphor of ” Life is […]

I recently had the chance to attend a workshop for parents at an international school implementing the PYP (Primary Years Program) from the International Baccalaureate Organization.  In the workshop teachers were explaining to parents the role of inquiry as the instructional strategy used when exploring the transdisciplinary themes of the program. Parents were shown an […]