This week we learned how collaboration built on ongoing relationships, learning, and feedback helps improve student and adult achievement within an organization; a few ways you can kickstart your second semester of coaching; four elements of professional learning; and more. Enjoy!

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3 Ways to Build a Culture of Collaboration

Lauren Smith shares how collaboration built on ongoing relationships, learning, and feedback helps improve student and adult achievement within an organization.

"Each member of the community plays a crucial role in upholding the school's shared beliefs and values on a daily basis. The culture thrives on collective teacher efficacy, with the shared belief that all staff members can—and will—make a difference to student learning. As a result, there's a sense of collective strength and unity toward improvement with plentiful opportunities for ongoing learning and growing."

Ways to Improve Your Coaching Practice

Diana Benner reflects on 10 things she wished she knew during her career as an instructional technology coach.

"Instructional coaching is an incredibly rewarding career, and each day can be filled with both excitement and challenges. . . . It is very important to build on the positive. This will encourage teachers. Notice what is going well, share it, and then build on it."

Back to Reality

Nicole Turner offers five ways you can start your second semester on a high note.

"Getting back to school after a break can be rough! But, it's also an opportunity for you to start over again without really having to start over. Take some time to make a plan, get your baseline observations in, review yourself, and have a little fun to start the new year. It's a great way to start the new semester on the right foot with limited stress."

5 Tips for Coaching for Equity

Elena Aguilar suggests that equity should be at the forefront of all coaching conversations and even offers a few steps you can take to ensure it is.

"Every conversation I have in and about schools is a conversation about equity. Always looking through an equity lens, I notice who is sitting where, who is raising his, her, or their hand, who is being yelled at, who is reading what, who is playing with whom, who is in the front office waiting for the principal. . . . Ultimately, you can coach for equity anywhere, with anyone. It's about what you pay attention to and what you say about what you see and hear."

Should We Forget About Goals and Just Focus on Habits?

Jim Knight identifies four elements of professional learning that, when used in conjunction, provoke teachers to embrace learning.

"Habits, goals, learning, and beliefs can be all part of professional learning. Growth isn't just about goals any more than it is just about beliefs. What is most important for coaches to consider is that when they partner with teachers in ways that address all four elements of professional learning, there is a better chance that teachers will embrace learning. And when teachers learn, students have more opportunities to learn, too."

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