January 2018 Instructional Coaching Must-Reads

Must reads header January 2018.png

With the first month of 2018 in the books, it's time to look back at the top 5 coaching articles in January from the weekly coaching roundup straight from your peers! Indulge in some great articles on inefective questions during a coaching conversation, ways to overcome a "bad" coaching session, how to support self-coaching, and more. Enjoy!

Want our must-reads sent straight to your inbox? Make sure to subscribe to our blog today!

11 Ineffective Questions During a Coaching Conversation

Vicki Collet surfaces ineffective coaching questions that don't work, compiled from years of her coaches' conferencing notes.

"Over the years, I have collected stacks of GIR conferencing guides. This week, I went through one pile with a particular purpose: I was looking for some bad questions to use as illustrations. [...] As we look at questions that don’t work, we become clearer about what makes a good coaching question."

Creating a Coaching Role Within my School

Kristy Louden reflects on her first year as an instructional coach, sharing her experiences of creating the position from scratch and introducing her new role to peers.

"My principal told me to "write my own job description" in hopes that we can make it a full time position next year. As awesome as this is, it's also incredibly overwhelming. Unlike teaching, instructional coaching does not have a predictable routine, relatively measurable goals, or myriad guidelines and expectations."

7 Ways to Support Self-Coaching

Carol Adams and Jamie Pitcavage of PIIC provide self-coaching methods to practice what you preach and bring your best to the teachers you work with.

"Self-coaching is our ability to cultivate that same mindfulness and metacognition within our coaching practice. It allows us to get beyond our own blindspots and be empathetic toward ourselves. It invites us to come from a place of wholeness and welcome conflicts and dilemmas."

Teachers' Soft Skills: Critical to School Success

Steve Barkley reflects on 7 characteristics of success from Google that mirror critical attributes of high functioning PLC's and collaborative partnerships amongst staff.

"School leaders need to create cultures and opportunities for teachers to continually advance in coaching and coach-ability skills and culture. [...] Part of providing facilitation and training in PLC practices should be raising teachers’ consciousness in practicing empathy and support with each other."

3 Ways to Overcome a "Bad" Coaching Session

Allison Newby shares reason why a coach may feel their session was subpar and ways to overcome self-doubt via effective planning and preparation.

"If we can regain the ability to change our perspective and recognise the multiplicity of colours associated with our actual rather than remembered experience, we’re well on the way to understanding more about what happened and becoming more realistic about how the coaching session really went."

Have some interesting instructional leadership news?
Share it with TeachBoost and we'll highlight it here!

Continue reading more great posts!