In this episode
In part three of our series exploring our core principles, we're looking at critical reflection — a crucial practice that encourages metacognition and self-awareness, and results in action that uses past successes and missteps to transform professional practice. 

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Hear from our K-12 coaching leaders

TAGS: CORE PRINCIPLES, CRITICAL REFLECTION, TEACHING TODAY

In this episode
In part two of our series exploring our core coaching principles, we're looking at contextualized practice — a way of working that allows us to design each project to the culture, context, and concrete goals of unique individuals and communities. 

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​Hear from our K-12 coaching leaders

​TAGS: CORE PRINCIPLES, TEACHING TODAY

In this episode
We're kicking off a six-part series exploring our core principles — communities of practice, contextualized practice, critical reflection, cultivating strengths, culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogy, and cycles of inquiry — which inform, define, and shape our K-12 coaching practices. 

In this first episode of the series, we unpack communities of practice — a collaborative approach to discourse and decision-making that cultivates relationships, honors individual perspectives, and encourages working together toward a common goal.

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Hear from our K-12 coaching leaders

TAGS: COMMUNITY, CORE PRINCIPLES, TEACHING TODAY

Educators at all levels can benefit from working alongside a coach for continuous professional improvement.​

By COURTNEY BROWN & SHERRISH HOLLOMAN

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​​The term “coach” often evokes memories of professional sports — like Phil Jackson and the Chicago Bulls in the NBA, or Don Shula and the Miami Dolphins in the NFL. Both coaches are credited with winning championships and encouraging athletes such as Michael Jordan and Dan Marino to become Hall of Fame inductees. But coaching is not limited to sports — and in schools, instructional coaches act as liaisons between research and practice, helping teachers learn to improve their practices in a reflective, supportive setting. Although instructional coaches may not enjoy the same salaries or notoriety as athletic coaches, they have become a policy lever for districts to improve instructional practice. 

When establishing a coaching relationship or a professional learning community within a school, there are some essential questions to address: How does coaching work in educational spaces? What is the difference between coaching adults and teaching children? What are some of the practices that coaches use to support educators? How does coaching remain flexible and effective, regardless of whether the educators you’re working with are new to the classroom, or have spent years working as teachers, counselors, and administrators? No matter the situation, there is value in educators of all levels working alongside a coach for continuous professional improvement. ​

Student vs. adult learners

For most instructional coaches, the biggest difference in shifting from teaching children to coaching adults is recognizing the needs of adult learners. (For more on this, check out Stephen Brookfield’s work on Understanding and Facilitating Adult Learners). As educational coaches, we want to be as cognizant of what teachers need to learn, as well as how they will learn best. Our first goal is to create a safe and supportive community with multiple opportunities for reflection.

Educators often experience feelings of isolation or uncertainty as they confront new challenges, in both physical and digital classroom spaces. Our goal is to name these challenges and equip educators with a toolkit they can use while teaching. We recognize that coaching in education can look different depending on the context, needs, and desires of the educator — it may include 1:1 coaching sessions and reflective discussions, team-building with small groups, facilitation of teacher teams, or whole school or even district-wide professional development opportunities. However, one thing is true regardless of the context: adult learners often ask, what’s in it for me? before investing their time and energy. Their time is valuable, and they need the learning experience to concretely further their professional practice. Adult learners also bring more experience and expertise to the coaching relationship. Coaches should strive to honor this knowledge, while simultaneously offering engaging, effective facilitation and reflection.

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​Approaching vs. prescribing

A core component of coaching work is the relationship. Whether it’s between the coach and the teacher, the coach and school administrators, or the coach and the faculty community, we prioritize the professionalism and humanity of our partners as we strive to get to know them personally. When teachers invite us into their classrooms, into their lesson plans, and into their most challenging professional situations, we know how important it is to be trustworthy, to listen with empathy, to ask questions, and respect boundaries. We are there as thought partners who can offer an outside opinion based on research and our own personal expertise. 

We recognize the strengths that each of our teachers bring and create opportunities to cultivate those strengths when in professional learning settings. Similar to students, no two teachers are exactly the same, nor will their approaches to teaching be the same — but we can support them in developing a teaching strategy and style that is consistent with highly effective instructional practices as they strive to meet students’ needs. Our work is guided by five principles of practice, also known as the 5Cs: 
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• Communities of practice: A collaborative approach to discourse and decision-making that cultivates relationships, honors individual perspectives, and works together for a common goal.
• Contextualized design: While there are many patterns and trends in education, each partner, project and person is unique. We believe in designing each project to the culture, context and concrete goals.
• Critical reflection: Meta-cognition, self-awareness, and considering multiple viewpoints are all features of critical reflection resulting in reflective action. We learn from our successes and our missteps so that we can be constantly improving our practice.
• Cultivating strengths: Grounded in the Growth Mindset, we believe that improvement in growth areas increases when we leverage areas of strength first.
• Cycles of inquiry: As educators, we must maintain a commitment to the inquiry process in which we identify challenges, pose questions, implement interventions, and monitor for improvements. It is this quest for understanding that fosters a learning community and helps us to evolve to meet the changing needs of our partners.

Knowing when coaching is working

How do we know if what we're doing is working? This is one of the best and maybe most challenging questions about coaching. In the context of many standards-based state and federal reform efforts, instructional coaches are playing an increasingly important role as “professional sense makers” who develop expertise in academic content standards to help administrators and teachers translate them into classroom practices. Because it can take time for a teacher to make the changes in mindsets that enable them to adjust teaching practices, instructional changes may occur in small increments. Therefore, measuring "effectiveness" is not a one-size-fits-all task.

While coaching is often unpredictable, it’s extremely important to have a plan and clear goals, developed collaboratively between school leaders, teachers, and their coaches. By monitoring our progress toward the goals, we’re able to track leading and lagging indicators that represent changing practices. Smaller shifts — such as shifts in mindsets, the language a teacher uses, or small incremental shifts in their practice — are recognizable when a coach is deeply engaged in a teacher’s practice.

In addition to tracking the leading indicators, or small shifts in practice, we can also look at the lagging indicators or larger moves that demonstrate significant changes over time. We look at three elements to determine effective coaching practices. First, we look to determine if teachers implement what they’ve been learning, or what they’ve been talking about with their coach. It demonstrates effective coaching if after a workshop or coaching session, the teacher begins implementing a strategy or practice they learned from the experience, even if it isn’t implemented with textbook precision. Trying something new is evidence that the coaching was impactful. Second, we look to see if the teacher begins to initiate requests for further support. Teachers who are finding coaching valuable often take the initiative to request additional support, articulate future goals, and ask specific questions to refine their practice. Finally, we want to be able to connect the dots between the coaching guidance, teacher practice, and an increase in student achievement. 

​Similar to athletic coaches that help professional athletes thrive and take their skills and talents to new heights, instructional coaches allow teachers to apply their learning more deeply, frequently, and consistently than teachers working alone. Coaching supports teachers as they improve their capacity to reflect and apply their learning to their work with students, and also in their work with each other. With supportive environments and thoughtful reflection coupled with sound facilitation practices, coaching can have a significant impact on teachers' practice. 

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​TAGS: ADULT LEARNERS, CORE PRINCIPLES, COURTNEY BROWN, INITIATIVES, SHERRISH HOLLOMAN

By ROBERTA LENGER KANG

We’re all familiar with the image of a coach standing on the sidelines, intently watching their team run a play on the field. When things get intense for the players, they look to the coach for guidance, encouragement, focus, and to see the lay of the land from a new perspective. 

In the realm of sports, the role of a coach is widely accepted. Coaches are seen as necessary in order for professional athletes to increase their performance at elite levels. But coaching shouldn’t be limited to athletics. Coaching in other fields can prove equally beneficial — just ask Atul Gawande, who explained the power of coaching in the operating room. 

In education, coaching takes traditional, procedural staff development to the next level by providing support when, where, and how teachers need it. And we should know — in the past year, we provided over 1,200 days of professional development to partner schools in the US, Istanbul, Saudi Arabia, and China.

Why you need a coach in your corner

We’re focused on supporting teachers towards transformation. Our five core principles fuel our coaching methods and maximize our ability to customize promising practices for each unique school setting, develop deep relationships with teachers and school leaders, and use data to inform our high-leverage strategies. 

Educators who seek out coaching know why it’s invaluable to have a coach in their corner: 

• Prior knowledge and experience: Teaching is disorienting. One moment you think you know where you are, the next you feel completely lost. Whether with a new class, a new grade level, a new curriculum, or a new test, teachers know that the only constant in education is change. But it’s impossible for a professional to be at the top of their game when the rules of the road are always shifting. Our coaches come equipped with prior knowledge and experience in the classroom, which allows them to help others be mindful of the potholes and pitfalls along the path that they’ve walked before. 

• Outside perspectives expose blindspots: Teaching is a personal profession. When teachers pour hours and hours of their personal time into developing the perfect lesson plan and spend dollar after dollar of their personal money on classroom supplies, they have a vested interest in the success of their lessons and their students. If anything goes awry in the implementation, teachers can take things personally. Coaching provides an outside perspective that helps to expose blindspots that distort or distract from the root of the issue. When teachers are supported by a coach who can offer alternative points of view, challenge assumptions or hold space for teachers to engage in critical reflection, they’re able to regain perspective and identify areas for growth. 

• Acknowledgment, empathy, and encouragement: Teaching is isolating. Most teachers will see over 100 students, and make over 1,500 decisions a day. There are overwhelming lists of papers to grade, parents to call, games to attend, and lessons to plan. In the midst of it all, they often feel isolated and invisible. Coaching can change that. Instructional coaching creates a unique opportunity for teachers to be seen and heard. CPET coaches focus on cultivating teachers’ strengths and acknowledge the progress teachers are making in their practice, make real connections over shared challenges, and encourage continued practice for future growth. These connected conversations create space for teachers to reflect, and develop an increased understanding of their experiences. 

• Targeted guidance: Teaching is strategic. When teachers realize they are in a safe space, they can begin to investigate their biggest challenges and are more open to receiving feedback. Coaches can provide targeted guidance to increase content knowledge and pedagogical skills, and this feedback can have an almost immediate impact on teacher practice and student performance. Feedback that’s offered to teachers leverages teacher strengths in order to build on areas for growth, and offers both broad and nuanced advice about how teachers can evolve their practice, whether it’s by using a new instructional strategy, customizing the curriculum, or helping reposition the relationship between teachers and students.

• Continuous improvement: Teaching is ever-evolving. “Teaching is a human profession,” said John Browne, a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, “that means it will never be perfect, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.” Like doctors and lawyers, where every patient and every case is a little bit different, every class will present a new type of challenge for teachers. This is why coaching is essential. There are unlimited opportunities for professional learning and growth, and teachers who don’t engage in continuous improvement will not cultivate the skills necessary to meet the demands of the changing generations of students. Just like we want our doctors to be learning the most current medical procedures and our lawyers to be learning the most current legal precedents, we want our teachers to be evolving their practice through the latest research-based pedagogy. 

TAGS: CORE PRINCIPLES, ROBERTA LENGER KANG