Let’s be honest: Professional development planning is tough. You’re juggling state mandates, teacher needs, budget constraints, and dozens of competing priorities. So, it’s no surprise that even the best school leaders sometimes overlook critical gaps that quietly undermine their PD efforts. Here’s the good news: Once you uncover these gaps, you can fix them. What we’ve found is that most … Read More
Learnability: The Most Important Skill for School Leaders
TL;DR: School leaders face constant change which impacts their daily decisions. So they need a new skill set: learnability. Learnability can happen in three ways: (1) lead by asking better questions (2) cognitive flexibility to navigate change and adapt (3) unlearning and relearning allows leaders to be responsive to new problems. Review reflective questions for school leaders. Change is constant … Read More
4 Things Every Educational Coach Should Do
TL;DR: A school administrator is also an instructional coach, life coach, behavior coach, character development coach, and career development coach. To make an impact, every educational coach should build relationships, listen, stay positive, and start small. When talking to another colleague about a coaching training I had recently attended, they asked me why I would attend training designed for coaches. … Read More
Tag Out
TL;DR: Instead of doing a walkthrough, administrators can do a tag out. This allows the teacher a chance to do a walkthrough in a room of one of their peers. With tag outs, educators get the time to learn from their peers. This provides them an opportunity to learn more than they might if they were being observed by an … Read More
Be a Leader Who Empowers Your Staff
TL;DR: Be a leader who empowers your staff by helping each teacher see their strengths and potential. Opening up classrooms to walkthroughs gives small groups of teachers on grade and subject-level teams the opportunity to discover the cool things their colleagues are doing. Walkthroughs can have a theme around literacy, student engagement, standards-based grading, or anything else your school is … Read More