Weekly Coaching Roundup, Week 13: April 2, 2021

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Weekly Coaching Roundup - April 2021 (Seasonal)

Learn a few tips for giving quality feedback on lesson plans, how you can make coaching irresistible for teachers, the advantages of using achievement teams in your organization, and more. Enjoy! 🌷

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Paving a Better Way for Lesson Plan Feedback

You've heard of classroom walkthroughs, but what about lesson plan walkthroughs? Rachel Wyatt shares her tips for giving quality feedback on lesson plans by connecting them to classroom walkthroughs.

"When I first review a lesson plan, it's tempting to mark it up and comment on everything I find, which is neither practical nor efficient. I've found that giving one glow and one grow is best, always focusing on what will have the highest impact on student learning."

Achievement Teams: Functional Teacher Collaboration is Solved!

Steve Ventura speaks to the advantage of using achievement teams to move the needle for disciplined collaboration among teachers and leaders.

"Achievement Teams are the key part of a collaborative model for implementing data-driven decision-making at the instructional level. . . . When schools and school systems de-emphasize individual practice and promote collective ability, it's possible to create professional teams of educators who continuously reflect on and improve their practice."

Falling in Love with Instructional Coaching

Heather Moschetta believes the way to make coaching irresistible is to build strong, supportive relationships.

"In order to have teachers fall in love with instructional coaching, coaches need to play Cupid for themselves and market their coaching offerings. It all starts with creating a clear understanding of the role of the instructional coach. Just like in any relationship, both partners need to get comfortable with each other while they learn what the other has to offer."

Extending Our Range of Coaching Gifts

Alison Newby encourages coaches to use the "Spectrum of Coaching Skills" to gauge whether they're coaching in a directive or non-directive manner.

" Coaches need to be aware of when they're in directive or non-directive mode, as well as which skills they tend to use by default without due consideration. . . . Once we understand our default mode, we can work to expand our repertoire of skills. By reflecting on our performance regularly, we can check how we're increasing our flexibility and range of approaches, how we're fulfilling client need in more creative, transformational ways."

Staff Relationships

Steve Barkley highlights the Search Institutes' areas of focus for building developmental relationships with students and teachers.

"They define developmental relationships as close connections through which young people discover who they are, cultivate abilities to shape their own lives, and learn how to engage and contribute to the world around them. . . . What purposeful, conscious actions can be built into coaching conversations to strengthen relationships? These conversations can be implemented by coaches or administrators but must be clearly separated from any supervisory or performance accountability elements."

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