How to support a coach

Most teachers, including experienced ones, need support to continue to evolve professionally, hone their practice, and use new tools. This support is most powerful when offered routinely and on the job by skilled professionals. In Coaching for Impact, Learning Forward, the University of Florida Lastinger Center, and Public Impact call on the nation’s education leaders to expand their commitment to high-quality coaching for all teachers. The report outlines six pillars essential to creating meaningful coaching roles.

Has everyone been heard?

What went wrong in one district’s efforts to overhaul its professional learning system? Despite its best intentions, the professional development team left out a critical component of launching a new initiative — engaging stakeholders. Engaging stakeholders deliberately is a critical element of a comprehensive performance management process. The fall 2016 issue of the Tools for Learning Schools newsletter outlines that process and includes tools that support the major stakeholder discussion points to build a solid structure from the start.

Measure your impact

States and districts work with Learning Forward to assess their policy infrastructures and measure the quality of professional learning experienced by educators in their systems. Explore what Learning Forward’s Professional Learning Policy and Impact Review can do to help improve the return on investment dollars your state spends on professional learning.

Stories waiting to be told

Dawn Wilson, a lead coach for Learning Forward Academy, writes about the benefits of blogging:

“Educators spend their professional lives in experience-rich environments. These experiences are stories waiting to be told.

“Blogs can tell the story of who you are; who your students are; describe your professional learning values; teach a lesson by sharing how a skill was mastered or change was implemented; motivate change by showing how you learned something through failure or success; establish the case for change; allow your audience to see a situation through a different lens or from a different perspective; create a vision of success; share what’s working with students; and celebrate colleagues and students.

“Regardless of your role … teacher, coach, administrator, or student … your words have the power to offer perspective, insight, learning, understanding, encouragement, and hope.”