Weekly Coaching Roundup, Week 31: August 6th, 2021

We started the last full summer month by learning how to use a coaching brochure to clarify your role as an IC, two ways to seek feedback from teachers for upcoming PD sessions, why even leaders need a coach, and more. 

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Use a Coaching Brochure to Showcase All You Do as a Coach

Brochures are a fantastic way to showcase how your partnership with teachers can help them grow. Casey Watts shares some of her must-have sections to include in your own brochure, as well as some tips for distributing them to teachers.

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We can’t ever assume that teachers, or even administrators, understand what we provide as instructional coaches. So, building clarity around our role will allow others to utilize us well, promoting the culture of collaboration needed to unlock the potential inside our schools. . . .
Part of building clarity around your role means setting boundaries and stating non-examples is a way to establish this.”

Creating a Culture of Coaching

Elena Aguilar provides ten steps you can follow to build an enduring coaching program.

“At the very least, a school needs a simple,
memorable statement that defines coaching. Without this, coaching endeavors will struggle. . . . After determining a vision and definition of coaching and naming the model,
leaders must determine the goals of a coaching program.”

Planning PD with Design Thinking

Stephanie Affinito encourages ICs to seek inspiration from teachers for upcoming PD sessions and even suggests two tools to use when reaching out.

“Planning professional learning sessions for teachers is challenging work. . . . So I turned to design thinking.
Design thinking is a process for creative problem solving with a human-centered core that encourages organizations to focus on the people they’re creating for, which leads to better products, services, and internal processes. As a coach, this meant
I needed to completely flip what I knew about creating professional development with teachers.”

Even Leaders Need a Coach

Learn what Peter DeWitt believes to be the four foundational components of coaching and why to address them when starting any new partnership.

“Whether we are teachers or school building leaders,
having a coach can help us improve our practices. . . . Leadership is complicated and complex, but it doesn’t have to be as complicated and complex as we think. Coaching can help leaders negotiate their way through the complexity of workload, accountability, and divisive conversations
at the same time they help leaders find a balance between instructional leadership and management.”

Cooking Up a Healthy School Culture

Nina Portugal and Malia Tayabas-Kim highlight three must-have ingredients for wholesome professional learning.

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Norms matter even for adults. When people are coming together, they’re coming together with the diversity of their identities, experiences, and opinions.
We all need different things to learn best, and the only way we can learn that about one another is by shining light on our needs.”

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