Model for Spawning Inquiry
Effective Questioning
Conclusion
Strategies for Creating a Culture of Healthy and Effective Discourse
Assessment of Existing Culture
Conclusion
Reverberation Cycle
Praise and Affirmation Versus Feedback
Informal Dialogue in Debriefing
Professional Growth for Coaches
Conclusion
Illuminating Teacher Voice
Supporting Teacher Creativity and Innovation
Conclusion
Reframing the Focus From Ineffective Teaching to Effective Student Learning
Getting Divergent Ideas to Fly
Moving Forward Through the Unknown
Conclusion
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nathan D. Lang, EdD, is a speaker, author, and professional learning facilitator. He is chief education officer at WeVideo. Throughout his career, he has served as a teacher, assistant principal, university adjunct professor, consultant, and education strategist. He was director of elementary curriculum and instruction for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, as well as education supervisor at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. He speaks at both local and national professional conferences. He is the cofounder of Bammy Award–nominated #LeadUpChat, an educational leadership professional learning network (PLN) on Twitter. Nathan is also the cofounder of #divergED, a Twitter chat focused on divergent thinking and innovations in education. He is a Google Certified Educator, Microsoft Innovative Educator, and 2016 Apple Teacher and serves on the Children’s Right to Read International Literacy Association Task Force.
Nathan has written several blog posts featured on the EdTech K–12, Corwin Connect, Education Week, K–12 Blueprint, and Solution Tree websites.
Nathan received a bachelor of arts in general science-chemistry from Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, a master of education in administration and supervision from the University of Houston-Victoria, and a doctorate of education in learning organizations and strategic change from David Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee.
To learn more about Nathan’s work, visit http://nathandlang.com or follow @nalang1 on Twitter.
To book Nathan D. Lang for professional development, contact [email protected].
INTRODUCTION
In the ever-changing landscape of education, now more than ever before, schools need instructional coaches who know how to support teachers and students through varied teaching and learning challenges. Although instructional coaching isn’t brand-new, ambiguity still exists around the role of an instructional coach. The crux of instructional coaching should be a daily, intentional, and purposeful engagement with all learners in the school community to support teaching and learning in innovative and transformational ways. Instructional coaches need their own supports to determine how to fulfill this function each day. As instructional coaching expert Jim Knight (2007) states, coaching is “one of the most unpredictable professions in education; each day brings surprises, new challenges, and successes” (p. 19).
As we embark on the journey of instructional coaching, we must identify drivers that will not only support the work of an instructional coach but also aid in transforming the role of instructional coach in the same way classrooms are being transformed. You might ask, “Shouldn’t I just follow a coaching framework, prescriptive model, or cycle?” While instructional coaching frameworks, models, and cycles are helpful for defining the overall work of an instructional coach, we live in a dynamically changing educational context that is often unpredictable and that requires innovative approaches daily. Classrooms are being transformed into learning studios, libraries into learning commons, and brick-and-mortar schools into virtual learning spaces. Teacher professional learning is on demand, self-directed, and personalized. Teachers access, deliver, and facilitate content, curriculum, and instruction in various blended online and off-line media. Students are expected to develop skills to solve local and global problems that have yet to arise, and become the next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs. All these conditions, and more, require that instructional coaches know how to quickly determine how to best support teacher effectiveness throughout changes in education. The drivers presented in this book provide foundational guidance that helps drive this action because they are not framed inside a rigid structure or in a prescriptive fashion the way frameworks, models, and cycles often are. The works and research of Adam Grant (2014), Carol Dweck (2007), Susan Cain (2012), and Don Beck and Christopher Cowan (1996) also provide new insights into how people live, work, collaborate, and view the world.
Based on these changing demands and this emerging information, I’ve identified a set of seven drivers for effective daily instructional coaching—catalysts that will support and guide coaches through this ever-changing educational landscape.
1. Collaboration
2. Transparency
3. Inquiry
4. Discourse
5. Reverberation
6. Sincerity
7. Influence
Coaches can create a sense of inspiration, compassion, empowerment, and empathy around instructional coaching when they apply these drivers on a daily basis. These daily drivers work to produce successful outcomes not only for coaches but also for principals, teachers, students, and parents.
About This Book
This book explores the seven drivers of instructional coaching to build on, refine, and innovate ways that instructional coaches work and communicate with teachers. These drivers will help illuminate the importance of the teacher’s role in student learning, and the importance of instruction.
Chapter 1 explores the driver of collaboration. Coaches should share their expertise, practices, and purposes daily while embracing diversity and dissonance among the educators they serve. They can lead the development of a school community in which collaboration with all learners makes coaching an expectation and a safe, normal, and critical part