Find out the best ways to take end-of-year risks, how to help teachers connect with students, some great interview tips for future instructional coaches, how coaches can facilitate group coaching sessions, and more!

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Beat the Testing Season Blues as an IC

E'Manita Creekmore offers fives tips to avoid a negative testing culture at the end of the year.

"During this time of year your job title will be iridescent. You will have many job titles because you will be needed in a variety places, spaces, areas, and classrooms. This is the time to pull out your flexibility hat and own it. It’s important to realize that being a team player is what helps to continue that positive testing culture you’ve been striving for."

Getting Ready for Off-Peak Training

Laural Matthews encourages educators to take end-of-year risks that help lead professional growth into the summer months.

"Try something new for a few weeks and feel its impact, whether good or bad. Connect with other educators who intrigue you or are doing things you have heard about; grab a new professional resource. Keep your learning alive and find an area to become passionate about for next year’s success in your classroom. Create an off-peak training schedule in your summer that makes sense and that will benefit your students’ thinking and learning."

Making the Last Days of School Count

Dr. Christina Podraza shares eight ideas for teachers to connect with students and build ongoing relationships while wrapping up the school year.

"A good reflection always starts with a great question. I believe the purpose of school is to grow curious learners and build on their unique talents as well as help them to discover new ones. . . . I would encourage you to think about what do you want students to look back and remember and what impact do you most want to have moving forward?"

Interview Tips for Instructional Coaches

Kristin Houser provides four ways to knock an interview out of the park when applying to be an instructional coach.

"As an interview candidate, your job is to make the best case you can that you’re the right person for the job. And the candidates who really grab my attention are those who are able to provide specific examples or stories that relate to particular questions asked. A great way to prepare for this is to think ahead of specific examples that would lend themselves to different categories of behavioral type questions you may be asked. You might also consider bringing in actual artifacts as well…a coaching plan or PD plan for example. Preparing yourself to talk about your experiences in this way will really help you sell yourself as a candidate."

Coaches Working With PLCs and Teaching Teams.

Steve Barkley focuses on ways coaches can facilitate teacher meetings to address student learning.

"A middle school PLC made up of teachers who are working with the same seventh grade students in each of the content areas has invited the instructional coach to explore their concerns with the ever-increasing complexity of the standards their students need to achieve. The teachers are concerned that students currently complete tasks with compliance rather than engagement. Students invest the minimal (at times no) struggle needed to gain greater understanding and mastery. Complex standards will not be achieved without greater investment of effort from the students."

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