Pennsylvania Institute for Instructional Coaching — A Partnership Between the Annenberg Foundation and the Pennsylvania Department of Education
Coaching Tip of the Month
October 2016 PDF Print E-mail

Coaching is untidy, somewhat cluttered, and oftentimes complicated. That’s the good news. Want to know why? Because when coaches challenge the status quo, questions are asked and conversations explode. That’s what happens with effective coaching interactions. What is not so useful is when conversations are limited to the moment with no opportunity to explore the “what ifs.”

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September 2016 PDF Print E-mail

Thomas Guskey’s quote in the June 2016 issue of JSD rings so true… “One constant finding in the research literature is that notable improvements in education almost never take place in the absence of professional development” (Guskey, pg. 11).  This finding reiterates the coaches’ ongoing mantra about the importance of building teacher capacity and refining skills. Supporting this notion is what Stephanie Hirsh has repeatedly said, “…by making learning the focus, those who are responsible for professional learning can concentrate their efforts on ensuring that learning for educators leads to learning for students.” This is not rocket science; we know that cultivating the teachers’ skill sets influences their students’ outcomes.

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June 2016 PDF Print E-mail

Right about now, coaches are assessing what they have achieved this year with their teaching colleagues and projecting their expectations for next year. Along with this reflection is the realization that what they anticipated doing may not be exactly what they actually did. That balance is often elusive… we make the blueprints for our work in the schedules we design and try to adhere to our own recommendations for the work we want to accomplish but we all know that life intervenes and in Robert Burns’ words…the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry… (“To a Mouse,” 1785).

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May 2016 PDF Print E-mail

Coaches are on the side of helping teachers implement effective instructional practices every day. They are not “drop-in” professional developers who are unaware of school climate and culture nor are they once and done “experts” who talk at teachers rather than work with their teaching colleagues. They are skilled practitioners who understand how adults learn and recognize the importance of collaboration and new learning. But, the coaching relationship is not automatic, robotic, or involuntary. It is actually built on a specific skill.

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April 2016 PDF Print E-mail

In the February 18, 2016 Hechinger Report Opinion “How Finland broke every rule- and created a top school system” by William Doyle, he states that control, competition, stress, standardized testing, screen-based schools and loosened teacher qualifications should be replaced with warmth, collaboration, and highly professionalized, teacher-led encouragement and assessment. What a novel thought to personalize teacher professional learning!

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