C3 Connecting, Coaches, Cognition

Episode Notes: -Teacher, H.S. Administrator, worked for the State Department in Kentucky, and a middle and high school expert, and worked nationally with schools on instructional improvement and instructional leadership. -Coaching Redefined Book- instructional leaders can have a guide book of how to set it up effectively and all of the components that go into it: growing yourself to growing your school and thinking of the culture of the school. It came from a desire to make it work and from real experience in a coaching and admin role. -Intentional Instructional Moves Book- it sets up what classroom instruction should look like based on research and the intentional steps to get there. The audience is to teachers because they are the ones who will make these shifts. It is also powerful for admins or coaches, but it starts with the teacher shifts. -Actions speak louder than words, teachers see what we are doing as coaches. We need to be humble in our position, and know we are all learners. We are not the people who know it all. Coaches can show that they are still learning too. -Ask reflective questions. Have a listening tour prior to meeting with a teacher. Constantly ask questions, ask for feedback, and all the nuances in between. See the best in people as coaches. -We need to believe in the teachers' ability to grow constantly!  -Listening Tour - when schools try it, they think it is the best thing. It shapes the coaching within our school. A respectful approach to how we lead. It can change your trajectory in how teachers in your school see coaching.  -Get clarity around your role as a coach. See the website for questions to ask and the admin when entering that role. They understand the parameters and protocols within that role. -Recognize the positive part of the instructional methods. There is a lot of research as to how individuals are recognized for their positive work,  engaged deeper in the work, and is connected to retention. All is important for us in education right now. We need to recognize the positive things teachers do.  -Provide timely, honest, and consistent feedback. -Honest conversations can go a long way. Critical conversations grounded in the third point of data can also be powerful. -When we look back, we can remember which teachers believed in us, respected us, and loved us - and we know the ones who didn't. And for those who did, we would do anything in the world they asked us to improve.  -We need to have collaborative goals set with our teachers.  Research shows  that goals can bump our productivity from 11 to 25 percent. Think about that per classroom. A clear goal set with that teacher could make a huge impact. That has to be a collaborative goal. -We need to differentiate as coaches for educators. If we expect teachers to model differentiation for our students, we also have to model that differentiated learning.  -Research shows that our walk-throughs should take between 3- 10 minutes. If the goal is right you will be able to see it in that amount of time. Sometimes we can spend too much time. Then they miss out on other classrooms. If we can get in more often but for less time we will see greater growth in those educators we are coaching.  -We have to be very intentional with our time and our feedback. We have to think about the small steps.  We have to be mindful of their next step, not necessarily where we want them to be. Those can at times be two very different places, but focus on the small steps. Think about not the end mark, but the next small step in that learning progression.  -Intentional Instructional Moves - it outlines those big concepts of effective instruction, and breaks it down to intentional steps, and a virtual guide to have all the resources for each strategy.  -Human growth and psychology research and podcasts can be helpful. Listen to the podcasts and it can impact your work. -Take accurate notes- so we can see what we are doing so we can get where we are trying to go. -Coaches are collaborators of content and that partner for growth, that understands teachers do not come to school as a blank slate. They have other things going on outside of the school. We all need the support of other humans.  -Embedded coaching has the largest impact on student learning. It is hard because it is so important. It is also equally rich and rewarding.  -Find yourself a community of coaches and latch onto them. It is how people see things they need to see within themselves.    Connect with Sherry: -reflecttolearn.com - newsletter sign up there -Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Episode Notes: -Education is what Christian's journey revolves around. “I am most passionate about education. I want to imagine a time when everyone has access to excellent education.” That is what motivates him. He has reflected on how access to excellent education has impacted him, given him more opportunities, and his journey.  -Discovering coaching was a transformational moment for me. Coaching is the most respectful way to support people's learning and professional development. And it's the most empowering way of doing that. Once I learned about coaching, there was no going back. My question became how can we use coaching most effectively in an educational setting. Then I learned the art of positive psychology which is the science of living or performance.  -As coaches we are supporting people to be at their best. By linking coaching, which is the methodology of helping others meet desired change, and positive psychology, which is the science of being at our best, we bring out the best in others. Education gives us the tools to pursue our goals. It also helps us overcome barriers. Everyone needs a good education.  -There is something with each of us deciding what is the best contribution we can make. Some are amazing teachers… some are amazing leaders… Some are amazing support staff. Coaching matched my need to do well and my general approach to life. I love to see people succeed. -Our jobs as coaches relate to other peoples' successes. -Radical Listening: THe Art of True Connection Book- Our job as coaches is helping others to be at their best.  -We hope the listeners are ensuring they are at their best. -Radical Listening: Take what coaches already know and share it with a much larger audience. It expands to so many more professional roles that could be enhanced by better listening.  -One of my biggest strengths is that I am a learner and co-authoring with someone else can be such a remarkable learning experience.  -Connection to the C3 Podcast: Connecting Coaches' Cognition, and the subtitle of the book is ‘The Art of True Connection.'  Listening is not reactive and it is actually proactive. We can use the skill of listening to connect with other people.   -Radical Listening- We see listening as a two way interaction. -Work with each other in partnership to pull someone forward. -In the moments that are the hardest to relate, reach out, and be able to engage can be the most powerful. -Radical Listening Book is very practical. We are all good listeners already. We listen in empowering and powerful ways to others. Start with an intention. Imagine you are about to go into a scenario, take a moment to think, what is my intention in this conversation? -3 Social Intentions: Connect, Appreciate, & Influences -3 Cognitive Intentions: Understand, Solve, & Listening in Order to Learn -Depending on our intention we listen in different ways.  -Solving is a trap- when they really want to be listened to, not find a solution. -Notice barriers of our listening: What can get in the way of our listening to others?  -Time? - Time Poverty -I know what is best in this situation? -Internal barriers or internal dialogue -Quieting and Quietening - one of the skills to be a radical listener is to create an environment for the listening to happen, the other is to create an environment that is not full of distractions. Difficult in education but minimizing what we can and shielding the conversation. Trying to show the conversation is important for us. -Skill that is challenging is interjecting. We think - don't just go quiet or not speak. Jump in and engage.  It helps to build this sense of rapport. Some programs say to not do this, but if I don't respond to those big emotions it breaks the sense of being with the other person. It is all the nonverbals. It is a building of rapport.  -Build up the energy of the conversion by connecting with them. Finesse and optimal matching required with discernment. -Making sure the way we are listening to the person helps us to best be most helpful for our conversational partner.  -All of us need to be careful that fidelity to the intervention does not get in the way of the best interest of the client. Finesse is needed. Put the client first. It is based on their belief that they know what is best for them.  -Radical Listening involves that we can listen to people in a  way that builds rapport and relationships. And sometimes putting the relationship and rapport  first can be really powerful. The message behind Radical Listening.  - Start by having dialogue. Unlock starts by trying to  validate, understand and appreciate where you are coming from. Can learn from you. I hope it has a broader application as well.  -The motivation for this book is Radical Listening  Applies in a professional context but personal as well. Something you can do straight away. What is my intention for my next interaction I am going to have? -Are you applying this to the most important relationship that I have? Sometimes in those relationships we have had for longer so we get into habits, we are not as intentional as we could be. These people deserve our full attention. How am I listening to my partner, my best friend, or my colleague? -Listening in this way can have a transformational impact.  -Listening is the intervention. We don't have to listen so that other things happen. Listening is the first step.  That's the thing.  -It is fundamental as humans to connect with one another. Allocate more time to listening.  -Radical Listening with our pets. -Everytime we listen it is an opportunity for connection.  And sometimes we miss that opportunity.  -Children and listening and needing to be acknowledged.  -Coaching is about creating ideal environments for learning. -What's  important is going on for you right now? And being interested in that. Not saying “What's going on?” “How are you?” - Really caring beyond.    Connect with Christian: -coachonamotorcycle.com  -@coachonamotorcycle - YouTube -Barnes and Noble - Radical Listening -Amazon.com - Radical Listening

Episode Notes: -Served in a wealth of roles within education from teaching, coaching, to administration. -Contract work for curriculum companie and Senior Consultant for Learning Forward -Mentoring Program through Learning Forward- a learning cycle with three parts. 1. Diagnose 2. Coaching Support 3. Monitoring Progress and Reflect -The mentors only goal is to help the mentee grow professionally. You have to communicate effectively through  listening, paraphrasing, questioning, and giving quality feedback. -Work life balance and time management are two big factors that can be barriers for new teachers, as well as big behaviors.  -We can support and retain teachers through the use of a specifically assigned mentor. Also having a good, collaborative team can be a huge difference in morale and make you not feel alone in this difficult job.  -Monthly mentor/mentee check in meetings are also powerful in supporting our newest educators. -This job does not get easier, you just get better - because you have more tools and resources in your toolbox.  -Establish strong and trusting relationships. Develop partnership agreements to foster that strong relationship- sets the purpose of the relationship.  -We assign mentors as soon as is possible. We want to be proactive in building that relationship and that  they are part of a team and a culture.  -Mentor check ins - agenda - and tailor to strategic points in the year to ensure we are checking in and providing support. Your success is our success! -Observation and feedback are essential to growing as an educator. Utilize SMART goals between mentor and mentee. Make it timely and attainable, so the mentee can feel that success in a timely manner. -Coaching is a way to scale your impact, a way to impact more students through educators. Every educator needs a coach.  -If you could fix one thing about this situation, what would it be? If you could wave a magic wand and it would fix the hardest parts of this situation, what would it be? In a perfect world, what would this look like?   Connect with Leslie: -X: @ldhirsh -Learning Forward Consulting Services -Mentoring New Teachers: A Learning Cycle Approach go to LearningForward.org —> Bookstore

Episode Notes:   -High Tech High- PBL Based Leader -International Educator to move from teacher focused to student focused learning. -Moving from  sage on the stage to the guide on the side. Where do you start? Look at the physical environment first. Eliminating the ‘front' of the classroom and teacher desk, which changes the dynamics in the room. It makes any space in the room a learning space.  -Have students help in the redesign process around what their needs are, the environment dictates what the learning looks like. Shared decision making is pivotal.  -Giving voice and choice, involving the students within each portion of the learning process. -Lead with questions- student generated or open ended?  -Encouraging student independence - it does not come overnight, structures need to be put into place over time.  -Project Based Learning - student driven - foster that level of independence with critical thinking with support and then slowly take some of those supports away. -Make things highly visual in your classroom - even progression within learning. -Classroom culture that encourages students to ask questions, explore, and find inquiry within their own learning. -How do I set up an environment that fosters that type of inquiry? Work to gather and group questions together and gauge interest so you can structure accordingly. Start with the student at the center of the lesson. -Don't lead with content, lead with inquiry. What is an open ended challenge you can present? What is meaningful to them? How can you scaffold their learning by addressing that inquiry? -Rigor - having high expectations for student learning - have to teach them to not rely on us as much. It is not about jumping and checking boxes. It has to be led by wonder and inquiry. -Try to eliminate teacher time in the front of the room. How can you reach the same end without the teacher being the main focus? Have students present their learning or share out. It is a great formative assessment.  -How can they articulate their learning in a way that is meaningful to them?  -Coaching means reaching your own identified personalized goals. -A mentor or a coach will always be my saving grace in education. Reach out as you need someone to coach you through. Shift models are so important and have made a world of difference and have brought back the joy!  -Find your mentor or your coach. Every journey starts small, every journey starts with a single step. What will your first step be?   Connect with Kyle: -Website - https://transformschool.com/  - this has resources, links, scorecards, blogpost, training, and his podcast. -Email- kylewagner@transformschool.com -LinkedIn - Kyle Wagner - reach out

Episode Notes: -Thomas has had a wealth of experience teaching middle school and high school. Then he went to graduate school at the University of Chicago. He worked with Benjamin Bloom. He has had the amazing opportunity to learn from such remarkable minds as this.  -We have to give credit to those brilliant people who came before us. Tom worked with Chicago Public School as a Curriculum Evaluator and the Director of Research and Development. Then he moved into a university position at the University of Kentucky. -He realized he had not taught at the elementary level, so he took a leave from the university and went to go live that experience in her second grade classroom. It has had a profound influence on his work ever since.  -2024 Learning Forward Conference - Evaluating Professional Learning Experiences.  -Donald Kirkpatrick - Evaluating Programs in Business and Industry - 4 Levels of Learning Evaluation for Professional Learning in Business Industry Participants reaction Participants learning How it impacted practice How did it improve productivity? -Built off this model with a fifth level- All levels are important, but yet, all are different. -Organizational support and change - what is necessary to gain a high level of implementation? -Active ongoing sustained support from building leaders. -When you plan instructional learning, you have to start at level 5 - look at the evidence we have on student learning and find what improvements we want to make there.  -Begin with the end in mind - Covey -If you plan well, evaluation takes care of itself. -We need to recognize that there has never been significant improvement in education on any measure, in any level, in the absence of significant professional learning experiences offered to the educators you have involved. Not all professional learning is effective. But there has never been improvement with the absence of it.  -Need Surveys - Needs versus symptoms - analyze the situation well to address the true needs as opposed to symptoms. -If you manage learning well, you do not have to worry about managing your learners.  -What evidence do educators most want to gauge their effectiveness as educators? -Teacher Observation: Please don't watch me, watch my kids.  -Common Formative Assessment  -Bottom line - if my students didn't get it, it did not work, no matter how the educator ‘felt' the lesson went. -Whether or not it works is not defined by what we do, it is defined by what our students are able to do.  What can I do differently? What else can I try? -Teachers are the most dedicated professionals that I know, across all professions. They are dedicated to making a positive influence on their students.  -Ralph Tyler - Before you can teach anyone anything there are two fundamental decisions to make. What do you want them to know and be able to do? And you must decide what evidence you accept to verify they learned it.  -Success is tied more to motivation than anything else. -Students persist at activities in which they can find success. (Think kids with video games). -It has everything to do with success.  Every time they play that video game. They have a chance to improve their score. They had another opportunity for success. They can be successful by following this process. If you show kids they can be successful, they will be. You have to build it in, really early. Build that success into everything we do! We all want success. -How fast can you see results from a  new approach, curriculum, or program? -Two weeks! If we do not see results in two weeks then teachers will be reluctant to continue and likely go back to what they know as tried or true from before. What can we see in two weeks? -Coaches hold the key to give these individual educators exactly what they want to be successful with their students.  -Experience shapes attitudes and beliefs, changing the experience. There are direct relations between changes in student learning and the shifts in attitudes and beliefs of students. Show kids they can be successful learners, and they will believe in themselves that they are effective in the learning process. The same holds true in parents.  -Remember the Titans movie Connect with Thomas: -tguskey.com -Learning Forward -Education Week- regular blog -guskey@uky.edu -Twitter/x tguskey@gmail.com -Phone number on his website

Jim Knight is a founding senior partner of the Instructional Coaching Group (ICG) and a research associate at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. He has spent more than two decades studying professional learning, effective teaching, and instructional coaching. Knight has written several books and his articles on instructional coaching have been included in publications such as The Journal of Staff Development, Principal Leadership, The School Administrator, and Teachers Teaching Teachers. He directs Pathways to Success, a comprehensive, district-wide school reform project in the Topeka, Kansas, School District and leads the Intensive Instructional Coaching Institutes and the Teaching Learning Coaching annual conference.   Michael Faggella-Luby, PhD, is a professor of special education and core faculty of the Alice Neeley Special Education Research and Service (ANSERS) Institute at Texas Christian University. He is also a past president of the Division for Learning Disabilities (DLD) of the Council for Exceptional Children and an associate editor for the Journal of Learning Disabilities. His primary research embeds cognitive learning strategies into subject-area courses to improve reading comprehension for all levels of learners. He has received two national awards for his research, has written 59 scholarly publications, and has presented 90 sessions at national or international conferences.   –Impact Cycle- Universal model for change- Identify- Learn - Improve - ten years of careful study.   -Identify stage- Where you are? Where do you want to get to? And how are you going to get there?   -Improvement - Try things out and figure out what does and does not work. Data makes the invisible visible. Data tells you if you are on track or off track, it is your GPS through the coaching cycle for their learning.   -Data is data, there is no good data or bad data. Data tells us about student learning. Is the data somehow tied to professional learning? Data that is collected and chosen by the teacher. It helps to create that collective dialogue.    -The objective data could be around engagement, teacher to student talk, levels of questioning, or so much more. More heads analyzing the data is better than one. Keep making adjustments and improvements. Collect and review data frequently. Think about engagement or achievement.    -The data helped her see every student. No child was left behind.    -Big data - standardized tests can tell us who is consistently benefiting over time. Big data has a big view. Small data is the sweet spot. Teachers identify the data they want to collect to have those micro influences on the small data which can lead to changes in the big data over time. Small data can make a big difference.   -Engagement: behavioral engagement, cognitive engagement, or emotional engagement. All data is imperfect. Match your assessment methodology to the kind and level of learning you are wanting to see.   -A.I. and the ability for it to remember such huge quantities of information. It is good for specific tasks. Audio files of their teaching. ChatGPT is constantly evolving. It will always give you an answer but it may or may not be what you are looking for. It has enormous potential but it does have limits. It will never replace the teacher or the coach.   -Coaching is helping others unleash their potential. Coaching is also about keeping kids first and doing what is best for kids. Having an unmistakable positive impact on the lives of kids.    -A coach is saying I am right there with you. Just asking some questions helps you to be the very best of what you can be.   Connect with Jim and Michael: -https://www.instructionalcoaching.com/ -@Jimknight99 -@strategicdoc -https://coe.tcu.edu/about/faculty-staff/view/michael-faggella-luby -jim@instructionalcoaching.com

Carol Ann Tomlinson is William Clay Parrish, Jr. Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education and Human Development. Prior to joining the faculty at UVa, she was a public school teacher for 21 years. During that time, she taught students in high school, preschool, and middle school, and administered district programs for struggling and advanced learners. She was Virginia's Teacher of the Year in 1974. Carol was named Outstanding Professor at Curry in 2004 and received an All-University Teaching Award in 2008. In 2023, she was #16 on in the Education Week Edu-Scholar Public Presence Rankings of all university-based academics who are contributing most substantially to public debates about schools and schooling. In that same list, she was ranked as the #4 most influential voice in Curriculum & Instruction. Carol is author of over 300 books, book chapters, articles, and other educational materials including: (from ASCD) How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms (3rd Ed.), The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners (2nd Edition), and (with David Sousa) Differentiation and the Brain: How Neuroscience Supports the Learner- Friendly Classroom. Her most recent books are: So Each May Soar: The Principles and Practices of Learner-Centered Classrooms (ASCD, 2021) and Everybody's Classroom: Differentiating for the Shared and Unique Needs of Diverse Learners (Teachers College Press, 2022). Her books on differentiation are available in 15 languages. Carol works throughout the United States and internationally with educators who seek to create classrooms that are more equitable and effective for academically diverse students. -Never intended to be a teacher, but ended up a middle school educator. Traveled and commuted with a friend who became her learning partner. She had a diverse range of needs within her classroom of 40. -If we taught the whole class we were doomed, we needed to  try something new. -We wanted our students as our partners. They told us how to help them more, what they liked, what they disliked, and what we could tweak to make learning better. She remained in that school for 21 years. -Differentiation -is a teaching model and it has to do with everything we do within a classroom and within schools.It can give us guidance to be better in every aspect of how we teach. -Resistance is human. Our job is not to wallow in it but to circumvent it. Our job is to make this classroom better for whoever walks through the door that day. -Coaching should not be a revolving door schedule. There is more opportunity when coaches deeply understand differentiation first and let go of their, “yes, buts…” -Help a teacher move forward confidently and competently-Teaching is complex. A good leader needs to be a little ahead of the game. -Aspire to get better in all elements of teaching- one element at a time. -Voice and choice are important in their learning, they have things they can teach us. Use time and space and materials flexibility. We can reach out to  connect children's experience, their experience and their knowledge.  -Show us that you know this, understand this and then can you show this, and can make a choice in how you show me. Make your choice in how you can show what you know.  -There are many ways to be able to reach out to kids. Putting students at the center of their learning and teaching. What about these students? It is helping them to take charge from there. Scaffolding is so vital to so many learners.  -Grace, the bottom line is grace, everyone in education needs to give themselves and each other grace every single day.   Connect with Carol: Twitter-@cat3y LinkedIn-Carol Ann Tomlinson ASCD - Carol Ann Tomlinson So Each May Soar: The Principles and Practices of Student Centered Instruction or Everybody's Classroom

Coaching is intentionally building skills, showing and modeling best practices, and intentionally training people to be better.    -His work has been in some of the most difficult zip codes to work in. They see coaching in more of a model practice. They define clear directions.   -Sky Rocket Your Teacher Coaching (Skyrocket Education and Rebel Culture)   -Intentionally building the relationship, and finding out about them as a person, realizing there is an amazing human here. Their perceived resistance from this person was actually just them wanting to know how to get better and not liking conversations that felt cloudy, they liked straight talk. Knowing what works for people and what doesn't is needed. It is powerful being able to connect with people and have them trust you.   -Relationships are at the heart of our model.   -Expertise is something that builds relationships. When someone can put their trust in you. No teacher wants to waste their time. Relationships are built when one person feels like they are in very safe care with the other.    -Accountability, a promise that we make to each other, it is important, like any relationship. I can count on you and you can count on me. Shared expectations for success can be pivotal. Set those expectations to be able to hold each other accountable.   -We think of schools as high reliability organizations, like airlines or hospitals, when adults make mistakes people get hurt - short term or long term. To hold people accountable, we have to do that on the front end. Let's discuss what we previously agreed to.   -Shared accountability to maximize time.   -We need to commit to doing these things together, and then we can hold each other accountable. It can be the kindest thing you can do for someone.    -It is never too late to set shared expectations in a coaching cycle. What do you need from me to be successful? Or just start this in the next cycle.   -AI and coaching   -Coaching vs. support   -What is the problem you are trying to solve right now?   Connect with Michael: -Skyrocketed.org or Rebelculture.com -michael@skyrocketed.org or michael@rebelculture.com -Instagram @michael.sonbert -LinkedIn - Michael Sonbert

There is nothing more powerful that we can do, than knowing our own selves. When we know ourselves, we know how our past affects our present, and forms our vision for the future, and we are so much more empowered!   -Lonely and isolated, she entered into the profession feeling unsure of what she was doing. Belonging and acceptance was the core, as well as building community. That commitment continued in coaching, as a leader, and now as a facilitator of learning spaces. It is one continuous thread as a result of my experiences as a kid.    -I value that commitment to creating community as well as belonging and a sense of acceptance.   -I work from a way, the actions take help to build to reflect  and the connection or community.    -I am aware of the fundamental need for psychological and social safety and connection.   -My commitment and vision in my work is to help  people thrive. The core needs are belonging and connection.   -I have created a community in my life. Classroom community is everything. Feeling valued is everything.    -Knowing and  Doing Gap - We know we want this but not sure how to make this a reality.   -Arise Book- Tell people exactly how to say this and what we do. We need granular instruction.    -We are humans, we get activated, we have emotions. My work comes in when we have to get very specific with people. Try this, say this, do that, shift these beliefs, explore this way of being that you may be acting from.   -Transformational Coaching Rubric: The rubric and model differs from traditional models as it is way more holistic. It encomapasses what it means to be a full range of what it means to be human working in schools both personally and professionally. The new rubric reflects the expansiveness of the model. It is intended to be a guide to cultivate their own growth and development. The rubric names what is most important.    -Cultivate your own responsiveness within the model.   -Emotional Intelligence?- Explore your why!   -Window of presence - indicators of emotional intelligence.   -How do we bring our past into our presence?   -How do we schedule ourselves? Physical movement between coaching sessions.   -Build trust and relationships as a coach.   -Resistance is fear.   -Empathy and compassion - activate   -Be appreciative and curious - build resilience!   -With resistance- build resilience and your perception of others. Let's find a place in ourse;lves where we feel compassionate!    -Let's be human with each other…   -What is possible? We can have conversations.. We can have real connections…   -Resistant vs. showing up defensively, because they are afraid.   -Let's get curious. Empathy. Humility. Curiosity. Be Open.   -Cultivate awareness of yourself. Say things like “Am I getting this right? Can you help me to understand? I am appreciative of that!   -Strategies of resisting trust - always at stake- true honesty and courage. Repair trust . -Cultivate awareness of yourself, be compassionate and aware!    -Naming can be powerful.   -Be appreciative, curious and most importantly listening.   -Build resilience when the well seems low !- Let's start with your perceptions of others. Recognize resistance is fear and can we find a place in ourselves that is compassionate? Feelings of fear are the worst!    -Can we be human with each other?   -We need educational transactions, where there are partners and curiosity and compassionate.Let's reflect on how we interact with one another. Let's consider these possibilities   -What's possible here  and who cares? Who do I partner with? What is possible?   -Learning Library consists of skill sessions.    -Connect with Elena: Twitter: @brightmorningtm Podcast: BrightMorningPodcast Website: https://brightmorningteam.com/  

  -Coaching is seeing a person who is carrying the weight of life,  and finding their way. This model is so respectful. It is about people making progress and positive changes.   -Every industry needs coaching.    -An expert is the person who experimented and failed the most. Seeing people as the experts in their lives.   -Dialogic Orientation Quadrant ( DOQ) - organizes the content you are listening to. Its function is to map the conversation. Utilizing a time line and a preference line to map what you hear. Preferred future, resourceful past, troubled past, and dreaded future are the quadrants. Which quadrant do you want to grow?   -Coaching A to Zed - Extraordinary Use of Ordinary Words We use many of these words every single day to create that extraordinary shift.   -Rest as resistance    -Suppose that did change, what difference would that make for you? What do you want instead? Better to approach what we want, than avoid what we don't want. Let's suppose instead of impose. Keeping the conversation anchored in reality.   -You don't know. You don't know, yet. What do you think would be useful to know? What can you do about it?   -Supposing and scaling questions. Ask how you get up to that number. It helps them to see their progress of how they have gotten to this number. How do we honor their existing progress while not pressing on for more?    -Coaching is curating, not narrating, but curating and co-authoring the preferred stories of our client's purpose, possibilities, and progress.    -What did I just hear the person say that they want?   Connect with Dr. Moon- LinkedIn -Haesun Moon  https://www.briefcoaching.ca/hsm

-Art and Bob have worked together for over 40 years at California State University at Sacramento. Cognitive Coaching was born through this relationship. ‘We have these things in common, let's talk further.' -A coach is used in many different ways, typically in an athletic realm. There is a distinction between these types of coaches and cognitive coaches. A coach is a person who, alongside the person being coached, helps mediate between the person and the experience. The coach helps the coachee pay close attention to the actual experience and all of its dimensions including their own thinking processes, as well as results. The coach is like a median on a highway.  The coaches' intention is to support self-directed continuing learning for individuals. The coach intervenes in the thinking process of the educator.  -Teachers have a map in their mind of where they are and where they are going. They have a plan of action and want some outcomes and have a vision of their kids in their head. A coach tends to illuminate that and make it more explicit,  more refined and bring forth thought processes that the teacher may not have thought about. This would happen before the teaching or after the teaching has happened. The coach could discuss with the teacher prior to teaching, after the lesson to reflect on the lesson and learn from it to carry forth their learning. It is a continuous growth cycle. The coach facilitates this cycle to plan and reflect to engage in ongoing learning.  - Deeply buried in the teachers' experiences, knowledge and passions they have answers to their own questions. Teachers can find the answers within themselves. The goal is to build autonomy. Coaches do not need to supply answers. Eventually the goal is that the teacher takes over this reflection and they coach themselves in order to turn over the coaching to the educator. We don't want to build dependency and instead we want to build autonomy. Cognitive Coaching is a developmental process that keeps on going. We are building self efficacy to be self-sufficient with their own innovations, creativity, and generate new and exciting ideas.  -States of Mind: Flexibility, Efficacy, Craftsmanship, Interdependence, and Consciousness. Coaches help others develop these capabilities.  -Positive Presupposition is needed. People act the best way they can in the moment. Communication is a vehicle for important messages. We pay close attention to the total message of what we are receiving. We can detect exactly when someone has moved from distress to eustress or had an ‘ah-ha moment'. We have to live in a place of deep trust and rapport to do Cognitive Coaching well.  -New technology and A.I., as well as great demand on diversity in schools, made it so they are re-examining where Cognitive Coaching fits. The role of the coach is being shifted by A.I. What does Cognitive Coaching look like for the 22nd century? They are under study on how to adjust to those changes while never losing the human capacity to relate to one another.  -We are learning in Cognitive Coaching how to be true, deep listeners. We don't interrupt, we do not agree or disagree. It is an expression of love and humanity. It is an expression of you are not alone as we move through this crazy world. We believe that Cognitive Coaching goes well beyond the schools or the coaching setting. It helps to create a more loving environment and a better humanity. We dedicate ourselves to that goal as it is what the world needs now.  -They have a new book coming out this year. It hones in on key principles and values of Cognitive Coaching and how they apply in different settings: business, health sciences, clergy, and other differing fields.  -We need to make an effort to maintain our best intentions and best services.  -Advice to a coach - The transformation when you learn Cognitive Coaching is like a new illumination and a real mind shifter. You give up old ways and adopt new and more powerful ways. It builds strengths, fortitude, and commitment. It is a gradual transformation and builds a new coherence in your life.   It gives you a new outlook. It is a transformation of your thinking.  -Have patience with one's self, patience with how it takes time to learn some of these skills, and patience in finding collaboration in the journey. There is something about learning in a group, in which the group is learning to help each individual, and simultaneously each individual is learning to help the group. Each profits from each other's thinking. The interchange is so important.  -Coaching is a service leadership type of role. We believe if the other person comes first, the learner. Then we all learn as a result of that process. -The Thinking Collaborative is an organization mechanism in which people are trained to coach, learn aspects of coaching relationships, seek support, and spread this work. Connect with Art and Bob- -https://www.thinkingcollaborative.com/

  -Connections Over Compliance- Our nervous systems are social systems. The educational system consists of us being with other people all the time. COVID created a huge social loss. It is even more relevant in this time.  -Attachment builds the brain. “We work for people we like; we respect people who respect us.”-  Rita Pearson -Touchpoints where you resonated with each other, student and teacher. It was through relationship and discipline. Relationships are key to making forward progress. - Trauma logic, relationship resistance. Patterned, repetitive experiences learning how to create, serve and return between two people.  -Neuroplasticity - every experience that we encounter has the ability to structurally and functionally change us. Growth mindset and accessing the executive functioning. -All behavior is a form of communication. All behaviors are indicators and signals from the nervous system. ‘I can learn a bit more.' -Modeling, Co-teaching, and support for educators. Walking side by side with educators. -Connections over compliance through revelations in education. -Self-reflection: retreat and take some breaths to compassionately detach so you can be fully present. Connect with Lori: Website: revelationsineducation.com New Book: Intentional Neuroplasticity Body and Brain Brilliance Book - Coming soon

Tricia McKale Show Notes: -Preparedness meets lucky opportunities - Middle school teacher turned Instructional Collaborator via Jim Knight.  -Working with adults with a lot of trial and a lot of error. Found that the behavior management system was getting in the way of us doing instructional coaching. Behavior is where my life is at and I was a Tier 3 student in school. -C.H.A.M.P.S. - Conversation. Help, Activity, Movement, Participation, Success.  Think about different modes of learning throughout the learning day. That is one portion of a really comprehensive behavior management plan is your expectations for instructional activities.  -Moving toward and a real emphasis on the S.T.O.I.C framework. S.T.O.I.C. is a culmination of all the variables of some level of power and control over. How do we set up a system of observation to provide feedback to children? An umbrella under which C.H.A.M.P.S. belongs. -All the acronyms - We need to clarify and unpack all the packages of those acronyms for our new teachers and all of us. We need to find a  way to navigate through them fluidly to best serve the needs of our kids and educators.  -Creating a system or framework of support for all staff. We want teachers to apply it in order to have an unmistakable impact. Truly MTSS as leaders and coaches- comprised of both evaluators and nonevaluators to create that for staff. Let leadership teams proactively build that staff support.  -Behavior support is an underpinning to good instruction. However, if you have good instruction that may eliminate many big behavioral issues within your classroom. How to leverage Coaches within Tier 1? Where are we having system challenges? Systemic change is the key to change over time.  -Interdependence between honoring your administration, your system goals, and your educators, “How do we navigate this system-rich environment?” How do I actively engage this group of kids? - Can you create a sense of urgency without a sense of overwhelm? Is that possible?  What are the small steps? What were the expectations not being met? -If you were to coach someone who was going into coaching and you could only say what you could say,  what would you say?  -Lets look at the system in which coaching was occurring. - If you were to say someone was headed into coaching and they had one hard thing to face, what would you tell them?  How do you find the interdependence between balancing administration and system goals while honoring them,  as well as the teacher in front of you, and respecting the finesse, and nuance to help each other all see each other's perspective and build that remarkable synergy? -Validate all entities, and rock the boat, while staying in it. What are our true beliefs? What are those really big challenges? How might we master the communication challenges to make that happen? We have much more in common than we have in different. Shut off the advice monster. -You have to suspend the idea that you have all the answers to push forward. - We do the best we can. Of course, it is difficult to receive constructive feedback of any kind”: we have to stop thinking of ourselves as perfect  entities. If we think of ourselves as “goodish entities” then we are on the right path!” -Stop solving, start asking, efficacy! Our goal is to bring out the efficacy in others. Stop solving, start asking. -STOIC Screener in the book to help provide that data as a third point in a coaching conversation. How to coach various coaching situations.  -It is not us, it is always them. You took the tools, ran, and put them into place. Small changes made such a huge difference. Use a solid research-based approach through a coaching dialogue.  -Holding the individual and the system all in one is pivotal. -Meet attack with inquiry. -We tried. Master the starfish effect. Make a difference to that one. The day-to-day wins have to be enough to sustain you.  Connect with Tricia: safeandcivilschools.com  

Sherry St. Clair is the founder of Reflective Learning LLC, an educational consulting agency based in Kentucky. Her organization works with schools around the world, creating specialized training and coaching services for school administrators and educators. She holds a master's degree in Instructional Leadership and a Rank 1 in Instructional Supervision. Sherry has served as a Senior Consultant for the International Center for Leadership in Education and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. As an international consultant, Sherry draws from her rich experience at various levels of public education–teaching elementary school, being an administrator in a high school of 1,300 students, working as a state consultant, and creating and facilitating virtual courses. Sherry is a highly regarded national speaker and consultant, providing educational agencies with expertise in instructional leadership, effective classroom practices, classroom walkthroughs, effective use of data, and guidance on how to create structures for successful classroom coaching. Coaching schools to best meet the needs of all students is Sherry's passion. Sherry is a contributing author to Effective Instructional Strategies Volume 2 published by the International Center for Leadership in Education and 100 No-Nonsense Things that All Teachers Should Stop Doing. She has published numerous professional learning activity guides and facilitated webinar series focused on leadership and effective instructional practices. Additionally, Sherry developed virtual instructional workshops for the CTE Technical Assistance Center of New York. In partnership with the Successful Practices Network, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and The School Superintendent Association (AASA), Sherry has recently been a part of bringing innovative practices to scale. Her publication, Coaching Redefined: A Guide to Leading Meaningful Instructional Growth, was released in June of 2019. Show Notes: -Intentional coaching is to help both teachers and coaches think about the intentional steps needed to grow in a given area.  -Take smaller steps towards those big goals and be intentional with those steps. What is one small change you can make? Go on a journey to grow from where we are and keep moving forward. -Student discourse- If we don't have student discourse in a classroom then where do we start? If we have a little, how do we start? The book's purpose is to look at what is out there in research around proven ways for students to learn and think about how we can help teachers implement those effectively in their classrooms. -Students need to feel safe and have time for those academic conversations. Coaches need to think of the small incremental steps a t teacher can do to meet the true student discourse and big gains in student learning. -When we don't layer on so many things on our teachers' plates and instead have an intentional focus on those small steps, we see huge growth. -Coaches have to be a filter for things happening within their school system and it is truly an honor. You have to keep in mind the broader goals of the school. How do I pull all of that together? -We only keep trying to get better and better. Just keep swimming. Let it go. Shake it off. Just keep moving forward. Just keep improving a little bit more each day. There are some days you can run fast towards your goal. There are some days you can walk towards it. And there are some days you need to just rest. And it is all about moving forward.  -Be mindful of the listening tour as a coaching superpower. Being female is powerful. We are compassionate as instructional leaders. -Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose Connect with Sherry: Website: Reflective Learning, LLC Twitter: @Sherrystclair Facebook: Sherry St Clair Instagram: Sherryst.clair

-Leading Impact Teams: Building a Culture of Efficacy and Agency  -New book - we wanted to share more of the explicit ‘how', as well as making sure equity is up front and present in this edition. It is infused with culturally responsive sustaining education practices that are asset based, where we look at assessments through the theme of culture. We all have different cultures and are coming together in a classroom. We can honor the cultures of the different people within our classrooms or we can deny them and assimilate and be one. It is better if we honor each person's cultural backgrounds and we make more connections and we learn more. -What is inquiry? What is it and what is it not? If we want our students to have agency, then our teachers have to have agency too, all while meeting school goals but having flexibility. How are we going to contribute back to where and how we learn? -At Core Collaborative we practice what we teach. We are always learning and reflecting. We are taking input from so many different sources, a massive learning community.  -Efficacy's 4 sources: safety, models of success/success criteria, feedback, and mastery moments. Agency is the opportunity and ability to take control of your own life. To make decisions that help yourselves and help others. Looking towards collective teacher efficacy. -Teachers have influence and agency over their classroom. Goal consensus, teachers gathering with the principal. Are we actually looking at the data collaboratively together, brain storming what our goals could be as teachers, and creating those goals collectively? Having cohesion, where are we going three years from now? We need agency over what we are doing within our schools. Are our interventions quality? Self efficacy moving to teacher collective efficacy.  -Design thinking to enhance PLC work. Starts with the core, empathizing with your client- your students, parents, and teachers. We started doing a lot more empathetic interviews to  be better and be able to understand the root cause of the problem because we were talking to the people who the problem mostly impacted. Empathy and prototyping phases really set this inquiry apart. This work really excelled our work within high school PLCs. -We have to honor parents on their terms, honor their culture and the way they see education. We need not to make it about what we need, but about what do you need? What can we do better for you? - As educators, we need to acknowledge the cultural strengths that kids already have. These strengths can be used as a source of knowledge to build from. The asset based approach is vital. -They are already whole. We have to speak about them as whole people. No one in the room is broken, you all are totally whole. The system is broken. The more that we look at our deficits, the more we find.  -Learning is  a partnership and it happens socially before it happens academically. At the heart of the model is to develop self empowered learners and that is another way to think of agency. Students who are able to live in the world with a belief that they can have an impact on their lives and the lives of others with the power and spirit to take chances and try that.  -Teaching kids how to learn to learn.The better you understand yourself, the better you are able to understand others. Connect with Peter and Isaac: www.thecorecollaborative.com @thesocialcore or @corecollaborative Facebook - Search Leading Impact Teams

-Building thinking classrooms- around the notion that students spend time in classrooms not thinking. Many structures are not designed for thinking, and instead for conformity and compliance. 15 years of research before the book, and the research continues. -One of the least conducive places to have students do thinking is at their seat writing in their notebook, but one of the most conducive spaces for students to do thinking is standing in random groups of three, at a whiteboard or something vertical and erasable. It is about getting them up and thinking.  -Task in relation to the student. If we want our students to think we have to give them something to think about. To be a thinking task it needs a particular relationship to the student. -The whiteboard is a better space for that thinking to manifest. Everyone has to be able to access the task. -Whiteboard- Everyone is oriented with the work the same way, they can see other students' progress, I can access their learning more readily, I as the teacher can intervene right now. Standing is just so much better than sitting. When students are sitting they feel anonymous. The further from the student, the more anonymity. When they feel anonymous they are more disengaged. -More engagement from a question if written on a whiteboard, as opposed to printed on paper.  -You have five minutes. They are with you on your feet and talking to each other. Research shows beyond five minutes, the more passive students become and the transition to being an active learner is harder. - In a thinking classroom you say the minimum possible to start question number one. Then we can give them another question and another. We can never unsay what we say at the beginning. The moment we tell them how to do it, we have sucked the thinking out of the task. Need to bring order to their thoughts. -Mimicking: Template for exactly how to do this problem. Mimicking is not the same as thinking or learning. It is mastering or memorizing routines that they truly need to make meaning. Students take the process and plug it into the template teachers present. Mimicking always runs out. How do we break these habits? How do we help students and ourselves break these habits? We have to break the habit ourselves and then support them and give them success. -Students don't listen to what we say, they listen to what we do. When teachers are too perfect, students try to be too perfect.  - I can't hear what you are saying, your actions are too loud.  -Divergent vs. convergent thinking - Gallery walk. The teacher is the guide and we are taking a tour. We are going to look at little portions of the boards. Present the tentative learning with students. Others talk about the board work, we invite them to think about it and draw conjectures about what it is, and then that creates a thinking discussion about this and engages in a variety of different boards this way. Are they thinking? - We are the educators, we are creating the experience. We are very deliberate about what that experience is.  -Random groups - creates a space where students can actually learn from each other. Random groups is the engine to make all of this work. -How can I help teachers' notice things? -Try to pull from teachers something that is absolutely positive about what they already do. What is the best lesson you ever taught? How do we amplify their successes instead of the urgency of the immediate? Connect with Peter: Buildingthinkingclassrooms.com Facebook: Groups→ Search “Building Thinking Classrooms” and find your group 50+

Gretchen is a National Board-certified elementary school teacher from Charlotte, NC. In 2006, Gretchen received her bachelor's degree at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. In 2010, she received her master's degree in Curriculum and Supervision from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Gretchen taught grades 2, 3, and 5 before transitioning into the role of a New Teacher Development Coach for The New Teacher Project [TNTP]. During this time, she also published her first book for new teachers called “Elementary EDUC 101: What They Didn't Teach You in College” to help prepare future teachers for the realities of life in the classroom. For more than a decade, Gretchen has passionately mentored and coached educators, led professional development experiences for school building staff, and presented at district and national conferences as the owner of Always A Lesson. Her impact continues to amplify serving educators worldwide through her blog, Empowering Educators podcast, classroom resources, professional development courses and personalized coaching opportunities. She has since co-authored a book with over a dozen other elite educators called “Teachers Who Know What To Do- Experts In Education” to share proven strategies that transform classrooms and leaders around the world as well as written her third book “Always A Lesson: Teacher Essentials for Classroom & Career Success” that comes out Spring 2024. Whether you're teaching a lesson or learning one yourself, there's Always A Lesson. Show Notes: -Strategies for super collaborative relationships, being an actual coach, under your leadership, and with your style.  -Time and consistency are key- -What worked in coaching? What can we replicate? -Coaching debriefs: no tangents, time-stamp, be open and honest. We are protecting our time.  -That was a textbook example- super focus. You have to keep laser focus. Know what you are trying to accomplish and keep it consistent. Always connect it to the evaluation rubric.   -Name the thing that you notice, and add one thing they can do to improve it. The important piece is to reflect on what happened, and also name one thing to improve it! -Transparency and understanding that we are both learners is so huge! 4 aspects of instruction and order matter, pay attention to the sequencing. Lesson design as opposed to lesson planning.  Do you do them consistently at a high level? Logistics and details? -Get to know your teachers and see where they are at. Please be present in the building. Be aware of the culture, keep tracking, and build in results. If you can set the system up for yourself, especially in a quantifiable way, make sure to show your impact! -GO BE GREAT! - You are now empowered more than before!!! Do it and do it well! -Truly listen and ask deep questions. Connect with Gretchen: Alwaysalesson.com New Book Coming Soon: Teacher Essentials for Classroom and Career Success

Adam Geller is the founder of Edthena and author of Evidence-Based Practice. He started his career in education as a science teacher in St. Louis, Missouri. Since 2011, Adam has overseen the evolution of Edthena from a paper-based prototype into a research-informed and patented platform used by schools, districts, teacher training programs, and professional development providers.   Adam has written on educational technology topics from various publications, including Education Week, Forbes, and EdSurge. He has been an invited speaker about educational technology and teacher training for conferences at home and abroad.   AI Coaching is a video on the left, and the AI Coach acts as a guide on the side to help teachers observe themselves. It is a (chat style of communication), not telling a teacher what to do, but rather asking questions and opening the doors so that they can walk through them and learn about themselves. Lack of bias with AI Coach, never switches from facilitative to directive coaching. This is the coaching that can happen between real life coaching. It helps to empower educators to own their own professional growth.  The coaching conversation can start and stop as needed for the educator who is investing in coaching. A real pause button. Double take moment for Adam: Survey information was presented, a 30-year veteran, was skeptical and was also impressed with the process and learned about her students in her classroom.  “Ah- ha,” moments analyzing video - seeing the things we don't see. It highlights the true goal of professional learning. We all want to continually increase effectiveness. The power of this tool is huge and given what they have been asking for all the time.  -Continuous improvement over time… improve small nuances. Creating a place of safety for those teachers and professional learning contacts and coaching contacts. Creating a private space. I am human and I have opportunities to be better. AI is impartial and has no bias. Challenges- how do leaders ask to have AI-powered tools in our schools or classrooms? How are these moderated? How are these being implemented? It is asking me questions as opposed to telling me what to do. Personalization of PD - In-person and AI Coach Edthena - AI Coach - what is coming for the next decade? It is coming, ... Subject-specific, Pedagogically sound, questioning related exact things happening in that classroom? Respect teachers as professional adults, and learners as well as give them a lot of agency! FREE TRIAL OF EdthenaAI: tryaicoach.com/c3podcast   Connect with Adam Geller Website:https://www.edthena.com/ pltogether.org Twitter:@edthena Evidence of Practice Book

Learner Agency: A Field Guide for Taking Flight is a boots-on-the-ground resource for those who wish to foster greater agency for students and adults alike within their classroom, school, or school system. Written by practitioners who have experienced the triumphs and struggles first-hand, the book offers a framework for moving from building knowledge to making meaning and applying the understanding of practices and systems that support agency.    -Aspired to write this book based on our common work within a district where the three authors came together. Our hope with agency is for students to understand themselves as learners, build their identity as a learner, and learn what to do when they don't know what to do, as well as learn what to do with a bit of independence and understanding they need to  move it forward. Kids need time and practice! Fail, learn, and get up and try again! That was the fuel of this project. -Building a recipe to accelerate learning. We wanted to share the experience and spread the word about what we found that worked. Every time we shared it worked for them too. We wanted to bring that food for thought, and how do we reframe what learning should look like, when we have the opportunity.. -COVID has taught us to think more about our learners. To think about who is in the seat and their means they need to learn anything. How to learn and the dispositions they need in this ever-changing world.  - Push learners to the deep! We have to be ok with that. We need dialogue and discourse. -We need clarity about what success is. What does it look and sound like? -When kids have clarity about what is expected of them they are much more likely to take on a challenge and their anxiety goes down. -Let us know what good learners do. -What will this look and sound like in my classroom? -Secret Sauce: Accountability with students and what they were learning. Where are you, where are you going, what do you do when you are stuck? -The heart of the student agency is building efficiency at every level. -Mindset shift - get stuck and unstuck all the time. -Honor the learning process = the more successful the learning is. -Sharing your story is so important. -Does a learner know where they are and speak to this? -Mastery moments with upward spirals. -Tell your story to build capacity. -Does it align with your graduate profile? -Celebrate every step of progress! -Dialogue and discourse. -Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Permission to ask questions that are hard. wE have permission to try another way. We have permission to give ourselves time to learn something, before we have to do it. -Mastery Moments -We are doing so much right, and we need to fixate on that, not the small errors along the way -If we shift our focus, everything shifts! -Celebrate the wins. -Permission needs to be granted. What are you learning? And what does that look like? Does the learner know what that looks like? -You are changing outputs not inputs. Connect with the authors: @TheSocialCore @MimiToddPress -Affirm, push, inspire to make a difference in the life of learners - Katie Martin! -Be the learner, you want all to be! -Mastery moments happen, celebrate! -Still, I am learning. -Listen authentically and give authentic feedback. -Listen. Ask questions to get to listen.

Suzanne Dailey is an instructional coach in the Central Bucks School District, where she has the honor and joy of working with over 500 elementary teachers and 8,000 students. She teaches model lessons, facilitates professional development sessions, and mentors teachers to be the best for the students in front of them.            Suzanne is Nationally Board Certified, a fellow of the National Writing Project, and has a Masters Degree in Reading. She is dedicated to nurturing and developing the whole child and teacher and presents these topics at a local, state, and national level.         Suzanne is the author of Teach Happier this School Year: 40 Weeks of Inspiration & Reflection and the host of the popular weekly podcast, Teach Happier.       -Suzanne has spent 10 years as an instructional coach. She coaches over 500 educators in 15 elementary sites, currently. Prior to that, she was a 4th grade educator and a reading specialist. -”As an instructional coach I get to impact more students, by impacting their teachers. Knowing that there are really big ripple effects happening between fifteen buildings is a huge responsibility but also such a wonderful privilege and opportunity each day. No two days are the same but I feel the impact is more widespread.” -Professional Development and Personal Development - teachers need personal development. We need to affirm who we are, and what we need, as the person behind whatever our role is.  -Teachers are not superheroes, we are real humans who need to take care of our own selves and families at home, before we can really show up beautifully for kids.  -Approach tasks in the two pronged approach of personal development and professional development. -Adaptations have been so huge since March 2020 - look at that list, but look at the trends that will move us forward! -Science of Reading- small tweaks to make our instruction so much more impactful. Phonics explicitly and systematically - building readers!  -Knowing more, so we get to be a little bit better for the kids in front of us! -Student and teacher wellness- student and teacher readiness. -Small shifts, Big gifts - Teach Happier. -What is in your diet? - What podcasts are in your ears? What news feeds are in front of our faces? What can we control and navigate with small shifts? What is within our realm of influence? -How might we celebrate our brand new teachers in a similar way to our retirees? We all have fought through the year, how might we make everyone feel acknowledged? How do we overtly  honor and acknowledge teachers making it through their first year? -How do we get someone from, year one to year 30?  -Do your work and also, gather yourself beyond the role. -Every year is a huge journey! Honor that all the way through! -Conscious Acts of Kindness -”I don't know if I've done enough!” - Master Teacher - Goes to show no matter how great we are, no matter how impactful as teachers we are,  we carry so much with us as teachers. And that emotional lift, day in and day out, is a real thing. But I think it is finally being acknowledged and we are getting a little more space to share that.” -When we know we have each other, that is the key to gaining and retaining great educators!  - People, People, People - are we seeing the person behind the student, teacher, educators, or administrator? How can we flex? -Little shifts of language - as inclusive as possible - I can't wait to work together…we, us, let's - just softens every interaction.  -HAVE A WONDERFUL SCHOOL YEAR!   Connect with Suzanne: Twitter: @DaileySuzanne https://suzannedailey.com/ https://suzannedailey.com/podcast

Nita Creekmore is an Instructional Coach who lives just outside Atlanta, GA. In the 19 years, she has been in education, she truly believes that in all aspects of the field, relationships must always come first. She has obtained a Bachelor's in English, Master's in Elementary Education, and Educational Specialist in Supervision & Leadership. She currently works for Bright Morning Consulting as a Presenter. Nita is also an Instructional Coach Consultant through her business, Love Teach Bless, LLC.   Nita is married to Michael Creekmore, Jr., and has four children. In her free time, she loves spending time with her family and friends,  attending her kids' activities, practicing yoga, and relaxing with a good book.        Episode Notes: -Coaching is embedded professional development that is transformational. Coaching is supportive, it is being in community with one another, but also learning as a coach alongside the coachee. -Reflection starts with yourself. The coach needs to self-reflect and build a relationship to build space for vulnerability in order to do deep reflection. The things you ask your coachees to do,  you should do every day as well. Use journaling and coaching conversations with yourself to do that reflection work. -Reflection with educators can be stretched with the conversation with a coach. There needs to be a lot of trust and relationships built to make this successful. What emotions are coming up for you? What did you feel like in the observation? What constitutes joy for you in teaching?  - The 5 Whys - use these to deepen the reflection. -If you do not have a coach, you can use your team to reflect. You can even dig into the 5 whys with yourself. Try to elicit the reflection. Offer yourself grace and self-compassion. Try celebratory reflection! -Closeout conversations, having the space to reflect on their big wins or their goals for moving forward. These are so important to tie up the year and think through the areas that they felt that they were winning and trying to grow more in. Coaches can also do this for themselves on paper in order to reflect for themselves to become even more transformational as a coach. -Inspired Educators, Inspire Educators -When you think that you are having a teacher that you cannot reach, always go back to yourself and look at how you are showing up. And also look at how you started that relationship. What could have been done differently? How can it be restored, if needed?    Connect with Nita: Instagram: LoveTeachBless https://love-teach-bless.com/

Keith Young is an education coach, trainer, and writer. Keith was raised in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains of northern Alabama. After a short stint at seminary, he pivoted to teaching secondary students for the U.S. government in Germany. In his first years of teaching, he developed a knack for leading and training colleagues. Eventually, Keith shifted full-time to training teachers and leading school improvement efforts at the school district level. Later, he became a principal, leading school turnaround work and regularly increasing student outcomes by double digits in Colorado, Puerto Rico, and Arizona. Along the way, Keith picked up a multiplicity of advanced education degrees. Nowadays, Keith lives on the coast of South Carolina and trains and coaches administrators, school leadership teams, and teacher coaches. As a coach, he's known for “telling it like it is” and using a blended coaching model. The schools Keith coaches across the United States and internationally produce significant increases in student outcomes academically and affectively.   Episode Notes: -Keith has a varied background and is in about 1,000 classrooms a year coaching educators, modeling coaching with coaches, as well as modeling coaching for administrators and doing model lessons with students. -What is a coach? - A coach is a professional who prompts a teacher,  trains a teacher, or instructs a teacher. Think of your piano teacher, your baseball, or gymnastic coach. Those effective practices inform our coaching. -The Instructional Coaching Handbook: A one stop shop to look at those trouble spots in coaching. Give ideas, try, and see what works! It is a place to grab ideas around anything troubling you in coaching. -Knight, Aguilar, and Marzano were pulled from and influenced these amazing authors. -Coaching is about empowering educators, this is for your whole life. This is for the whole generation of students you teach. -Dot and circle analogy- focus on what you can control. -Teach teachers to curate- curate a strategy to get past this hardest to teach ideas, concepts, and skills. -Coaching is a professional conversation with a goal and don't forget to be kind. -Brainstorming is a super power.   Follow Keith: Twitter: @a_keithyoung Website: Akycinsulting.com LinkedIn & Facebook: akeithyoung Instagram: akyconsulting

Starr Sackstein has been an educator for 20 years and is currently a full-time educational consultant, instructional coach, and speaker. Starr received National Board Certification in 2012 and was recognized as an outstanding educator that year by Education Update. Association and served as the New York State Director for JEA. She was named an ASCD "Emerging Leader" class of 2016 and had the opportunity to give a TEDx Talk called "A Recovering Perfectionist's Journey to Give Up Grades" and has spoken on The Red Dot Cafe in affiliation with TEDx San Antonio about grading practices.   She is the author of many educational books  She also blogs on Education Week Teacher at "Work in Progress" and has contributed to several other publications.   Episode Notes: -When you are deciding whether to take on a leadership role, make a pros and cons list. What are you most afraid of losing? What are the things you love? Evaluate what is important to you. -If you are ready to leap to leadership, put on your best face when interviewing. Just as they are interviewing you, you are interviewing them to see if it is a good fit. Try to ask a  lot of strategic questions when you interview. Just because you interviewed, it does not mean you have to accept a position. Are you philosophically aligned with the role you are moving into? Find a home that is a good fit, do not worry about damaging your future by making a move in your career. -You will likely hit a state of overwhelm when you move to a leadership role. Be ready with an open mind and utilize others as your teachers. Be mindful of what you say and how you say it. Build relationships and listen first. -You know you are making an impact when the early adopters are taking you up on your offers to coach or collaborate.  -You can still be a leader within the classroom: mentor, join a committee, be a coach, state run or regional organizations, Find your own way to lead at your site! -Be mindful of how and when you share information as a coach. Apologize when you make a mistake, be clear and own your actions. -Changing the world one mind at a time!   Connect with Starr: Twitter: @MsSackstein Website: https://www.mssackstein.com/ Masteryportfolio.com

Michelle Harris, Senior Consultant at Instructional Coaching Group (ICG) has spent almost three decades as an educator, starting as a Special Education Paraprofessional in Salt Lake City, Utah before completing her Masters in Teaching at Pacific University and teaching middle school in El Cajon, CA and Beaverton, OR. She served as an instructional coach for teachers and students in a comprehensive 6-8 middle school as well as a K-8 school. She then became an administrator in a 6-12 IB school, and two comprehensive 6-8 middle schools. Michelle is a seasoned staff developer, certified in multiple Training of the Trainer programs such as Sheltered Instruction, Data-driven Decision Making, Effective Teaching Strategies, and Non-Fiction Writing. She has worked for Jim Knight since 2012, after participating in a Coaching Study with Jim through the University of Kansas in 2009-2011, and has facilitated workshops, coached, and keynoted across the United States and Canada, as well as in multiple European countries, Asia, and Africa. Recently, Michelle partnered with Jim Knight, Sharon Thomas, and Ann Hoffman to author The Instructional Playbook: The Missing Link for Translating Research Into Practice and Evaluating Instructional Coaching: People, Programs, and Partnership.   Through ICG, Michelle facilitates workshops, coaches, and provides consulting for coaching programs around the world. She lives in Portland, OR with her husband, two sons, and three cats, and one small corgi.   Episode Notes: -Michelle has been in education for almost 30 years and was trained with Jim Knight in instructional coaching. -A coach is a partner who opens up a physiologically safe space with time for thinking, reflecting, problem solving and ultimately turning all that talk into action in the classroom, promoting change.  -Sometimes in coaching there is a lack of role clarity. If you do not have clarity on what you do and how you do it within the system, it is hard to do a quality job in coaching. -Teacher evaluations do not fit coaching.  -Coaches need an evaluation system that is 100 percent aligned to the outcomes we are seeking. It is critical to have role clarity as an instructional coach. -We speak about surface coaching versus deep coaching. Both are vital to the role of coaching. Surface coaching helps to build rapport and enhance your street credit. Deep coaching is the impact cycle and doing coaching cycles with educators around specific goals.  -Collect data on who is coming to you and what are they asking for, what patterns are we noticing, this helps us impact PD in our buildings or systems. -Collect data on the impact cycle: where did you start? What was your goal?  What strategies did you utilize? What was your end goal? How long did it take kids to meet that goal? What tweaks did you make along the way? -Collect data to show your coaching impact. Show the difference you are making. Collect that evidence of difference making.  -Learning Architecture with support for the coaches is vital.  -Coaching is not fixing people. We need an asset model. There should not be a stigma in education for using a coach. Think about sports: everyone uses a coach. -The practice of video recording your coaching can be such a remarkable reflective practice for growth.  -Respect the sweet purity of silence.   Connect with Michelle: LinkedIn: MichelleRodgersHarris Twitter: @harrismr1

  Episode Notes: -Lindsay comes from a family of educators. Lindsay's first coach was trained in Jim Knight's Instructional Coaching and she was asked to replace her years later. She had the opportunity to go to Kansas to learn from the Instructional Coaching Group. She found her passion for coaching in this time.  -Lindsay is very connected with Jim Knight's work. She also has bounced back and forth from coaching to the classroom and back again. She purposefully chose to go back to the classroom in 2020. Her definition of a coach has evolved through this time. -A coach is a collaborative partner that will help to set and meet goals. They will help to enhance  teaching practices as well as  student achievement.  -The EduCoach Survival Guide -Eisenhower Matrix Strategy - Four quadrants, prioritize everything you have to do by urgent, not urgent, important, not important. Sticky notes for each item and put them up based on each component. WIth less priority items, think about how you can eliminate it or delegate it. Lindsay tried this tactic on a white board and made it visual for herself, students, and other staff members. -As coaches it seems like there are so many urgent or busy work requests, so we need to align our work with what is going to have a large impact. -Be clear about your role with the people you coach. Do you set coaching agreements? She highly recommends setting these in order to avoid falling into the friend zone with a coachee. -Find your network! In order to improve our practice we need our peers. Visualize, journal, and sketch what you want from your learning network. #educoach Be creative and take the lead. -The most important thing coaches  can do is be listeners, be listeners to the story of what teachers are telling.  -Good coaches listen and funnel the conversation with good questions. By the end, the teacher feels that they got some of the most pressing business out, but also found a plan as to what to do next. -Coach retention- What do you really love about coaching? What do you hate? Think about journaling or sketching this out. How can you adjust things to make it more about what you love? -Smile File - portfolio of things that bring you back to your coaching happy moments. -Who are we to tell anyone what they can or can't do?    Connect with Lindsay: https://educoachsurvivalguide.com/ The EduCoach Survival Guide on Instagram or Twitter Twitter: @TheRealLindsay2

Valentina Gonzalez, the co-author of Reading & Writing with English Learners: A Framework for K-5, is a longtime educator who has served 20+ years in education in her own classroom, as a district facilitator for English learners, a professional development specialist for ELs, and as a consultant. Her work's primary focus has been on literacy, culture, and language. Valentina delivers professional development and works with teachers of multilingual to support language acquisition and literacy instruction.    Episode Notes: -Background as an elementary classroom teacher as well as ESL educator. She also supported ESL Teachers at their campuses as well as she is a professional development specialist. -Took a long time to learn what was best for the multilingual learners in the classroom. -Her book is Reading & Writing with English Learners: A Framework for K-5: A Framework for K-5   -It is essential to write your core beliefs as an educator no matter what content or population that you serve. Doing this as a team is powerful. Utilize those in the daily planning and align everything to those core beliefs. - Literacy in any language holds value and can be leveraged to support learning and acquiring English. -Student choice in reading and writing is essential. When we have a choice we are more motivated.  -We can be most effective when we start from the heart and build from there.Center ourselves around students and what they need first. The only way to avoid assumptions is by being super curious.  -We need to talk less and listen more to our students and their families. -Keep learning as much as you can about the kids, and center everything we do around those students. That is the secret sauce. -Be a listener, get them talking! -Mini-lessons are super effective with multilingual learners. It can increase the comprehensibility of the lesson by breaking it down into smaller chunks. We still need to have checkpoints to stop and check for understanding with our students. - Picture Word Inductive Model - learning content while also embedding speaking, listening, reading, and writing. -Stay tied to the curriculum but infuse language into the lesson as well. See and hear at the same time. -Excellence for multilingual learners does not happen by accident; we design it! We have to! -Focus on students; focus on the child! What are the kids doing?    Connect with Valentina: Twitter: @ValentinaESL Website: www.ValentinaESL.com www.ReadingwritingELs.com New children's book coming soon!

Matt Renwick is an elementary principal in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. Previously he served as an assistant principal, athletic director, coach, and classroom teacher in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. Matt was recognized as a Friend of Literacy by the Wisconsin State Reading Association in 2020 and received the Kohl Leadership Award in 2021. His books include 5 Myths About Classroom Technology: How do we integrate digital tools to truly enhance learning? (ASCD, 2016), Digital Portfolios in the Classroom: Showcasing and Assessing Student Work (ASCD, 2017), and Leading Like a C.O.A.C.H.: 5 Strategies for Supporting Teaching and Learning (Corwin, 2022). You can find Matt on Twitter @ReadbyExample.   -Matt has always enjoyed coaching children and athletics. He found his way into many roles in education and fostered a strong interest in literacy as well as engagement with readers and writers.   -What have I learned around literacy and leadership? This is where this book was born, Leading Like a C.O.A.C.H.: 5 Strategies for Supporting Teaching and Learning.   -Educational Improvement- Matt used to have more of a linear approach. Coming into administration, he thought he could present an idea, then teachers would adopt them, and schools would improve. He realized everyone is coming from a slightly different angle as to what is best practice. It is way more complex than this. He has learned he has to engage with every teacher and build deep trust. Therefore, knowing where each teacher is and being able to work from there is the best starting point for improvement.    -Instructional walks are powerful.We need to be leading as a learner, in a more reciprocal and mutually beneficial relationship with faculty, which has better results with everyone's learning, including his own.   -Leading like a C.O.A.C.H.-  Matt likes to: Pay attention to myself and others. Be mindful of how he is feeling. Listen first and hear where they are coming from. Use paraphrasing. Shift from giving advice and needing to know everything to asking more questions, listening deeply, and being the listener first. Allow others to solve their problems when possible.   C-Creating Confidence through Trust O-Organizing Around a Priority A- Affirming Promising Practices - noticing and naming strengths already present C- Communicating Feedback H- Help Teachers Become Leaders and Learners - Support self directness   -Building confidence and trust is always at the forefront. When we are clear on what we are working on in order to press forward together more progression is made.    -Make sure we honor the difficulties and loneliness of teaching. Be empathetic and also provide perspective.    -Instructional Walks - Take a photo and put it in a brief email to follow up with that educator. It is his opportunity to build context. Write down what you see and hear as a narrative. Give that feedback from an affirming stance. - Collects the narrative and notes in a digital drive in order to show educators the wins they are having with their kids. He documents how he is in their corner, and also is able to build from moving forward. We need to recognize the good first, and then hear the feedback. We help them to create an artifact of what they do everyday and a case as to how they are effective. We share the wins they are getting with kids. Teachers also collect artifacts for themselves.   -If you are recognized first you are much more receptive to feedback.   -Get into classrooms and just start to document five or six words of what you noticed. Get to every classroom, then take the time to reflect on your own as an administrator, or with a coach around trends or patterns we are seeing. Then communicate these to staff. From there, we can design professional learning around those goals. This is where collective commitments can come into play and have tremendous power.    -Leaders need to know literacy - Regie Routman   -Pausing is the superpower. I have never gotten in trouble or made a mistake when I did not say something. It has always been when I said something and wished I could have taken it back.    Connect with Matt Renwick: -Twitter: @readbyexample -Newsletter: Readbyexample.substack.com

Dr. Nathan D. Lang-Raad is an educator, speaker, and author. He is the Vice President of Strategy at Savvas Learning. Throughout his career, he has served as a teacher, elementary school administrator, high school administrator, and university adjunct professor. He was the Director of Elementary Curriculum and Instruction for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, as well as education supervisor at NASA's Johnson Space Center. He was also the Chief Education Officer at WeVideo. He serves as the US State Ambassador for the Climate Action Project, a collaboration between the United Nations, World Wildlife Fund, NASA, and the Jane Goodall Institute, and an advisor for TAG (Take Action Global).   Nathan is the author of Everyday Instructional Coaching, The New Art and Science of Teaching Mathematics co-authored with Dr. Robert Marzano, WeVideo Every Day, Mathematics Unit Planning in a PLC at Work, Instructional Coaching Connection, The Boundless Classroom (with James Witty), and The Teachers of Oz, co-authored with Herbie Raad.   Nathan received a bachelor of arts degree in general science-chemistry from Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, a master of education degree in administration and supervision from the University of Houston-Victoria, and a doctorate of education degree in learning organizations and strategic change from David Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee.   He resides with his husband, Herbie Raad, in beautiful Maine.   To learn more about Nathan's work, follow him on Twitter: @drlangraad   To book Nathan's services for keynotes and workshops, contact him at drlangraad@gmail.com.   -Coaching is a partnership. A coach is a cheerleader and consummate listener who guides and helps to further teaching and instructional practices.   -Nathan first noticed the value of a coach's role during his first year of teaching.  The experience of trust, and non-evaluative support, helped guide him though that year, paving the way forward as he grew as an educator.     -To give meaningful feedback while staying non evaluative, there has to be a deep level of trust. The relationship has to be organic and build over time. The goals and purpose need to be clearly articulated. Establishing that coaches are working with you not in some sort of hierarchical position.    -Building empathy comes from a  place of honesty and vulnerability. The coach needs to show they do not have all the answers. Every coach is still a learner, being honest about that can help with empathy building, in large ways. There is a power in numbers, and helping teachers to not feel like they are in it alone.   -Coaches can support effective team meetings by making sure they are extremely purposeful and well structured. Have meetings that have defined autonomy to accomplish agreed upon outcomes is key. There must be clear norms. Don't meet unless there is a clear agenda and purpose for that time together.   -There is this idea of success that it is the teacher or coach who never stop working. They are go, go, go! That level of productivity cannot be sustained, nor should it be. Our well being should always be the priority, meaning taking care of ourselves at home. You have to feed your soul. Then you can come back and be more productive and creative when you return to work.   -”Be loyal to yourself” - Be yourself, and out of digging into yourself, you will grow and thrive in that process.   -Asking questions - “I have some ideas about that, but I want to hear your thoughts first.”   Connect with Nathan: Social Media: @drlangraad Email:drlangraad@gmail.com Books: Instructional Coaching Connection New Book out next spring: Never Stop Asking

Episode Notes: -Student Centered Mentoring Book: Keeping Students at the Heart of New Teachers' Learning -4 Core Beliefs for Success: Empower others to grow, Learning is Process and so is Teaching, Relying on others, and Setting Goals as well as keep trying. -Student Centered Mentoring - a collaborative approach for mentors and mentees that focuses heavily on the impact of students' learning with layers of support. -More focus on what students are doing as opposed to the more traditional watching of what the teacher is doing. It is less evaluative. When doing observations keep the focus on the students. -Partnership is key, we can't do our work alone. -Utilize Directional supports- to help narrow down the support for the new teachers. -Being a model of listening, another layer of support. -Use the lens of the mentor for more tips. -Natalie- “Question until you know, instead of faking it until you make it!” -Tina - As a mentor she jumped in and did a coaching cycle in order to stretch her own learning. Do the mentor cycle and be vulnerable to show the learner side. -Strength Based Feedback- thinking about how you implement it has to do with your relationship. Beware of how much clarifying you are doing. Can you celebrate? Collect good language and sentence stems to utilize in the future. -In order to retain teachers we need to have conversations with each other around, how can we help all students learn? Do we still hold those same expectations for all students? We need teacher efficacy but also collective efficacy. These should work in tandem together.  -With all of these things in place it helps build our belief that we can make that impact on our kids. -To keep educators in the profession we can try out the directional supports outlined within the book. Providing many different options of support for our educators. Don't assume, and ask the good questions. -Keep questioning as mentors, and try to be specific with those questions of support. Try to uncover the beliefs and continually check in with your mentees.  -”Empower others to make and impact” -Ask questions.   Connect with Amanda: Website: www.AmandaBrueggeman.com Twitter: @ACBrueggeman YouTube Videos - more coming soon

-The PD Book: 7 Habits that Transform Professional Development by Elena Aguilar and Lori Cohen  The PD Book -This book grew organically out of leading PD and reflecting on leading PD. It felt like the next thing to work on and bring to the front. -Imagining PD like a party - wanting PD to not be draining, but instead enlivening, exciting, and nourishing. What if PD could feel more like a party or a gathering or experience when you connect with people? Where are you energized?  -There is so much in this book and her work that is research based. When we look at conditions that are essential for people to learn, it is psychological safety. A place where you can ask questions, or discuss, elaborate, and acknowledge things.  -7 Habits that transform Professional Development -Cultivate psychological safety. - How do people interact? -Accept it or fight it.  -Use the strategies and systems from within the classroom and that honor learners as students or adults. -Storytelling: An endless resource for connection and bringing people together. I often guide others in identifying their experiences in their lives to be able to relate to and tell. -A story to share with listeners: Facilitating a beginning of year retreat with conversations around equity. Elena felt, “I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this!” I was literally on the floor and at my low as a facilitator. In some ways it helps me to see my own growth and learning. To recognize the low points and to mine them for lessons, and wisdom is huge. We share these moments so others can hear I have been there. Your growth or learning  is powerful. -High points: when facilitating PD. -Responsible cultivators of adult learning - 1. DeterminePurpose - why? 2. Engage Emotions 3. Navigate power 4. Anchor in adult learning  5. Design intentionally. 6. Attend for details 7. Facilitate adaptively -Conditions necessary for people to learn and understand and strategize to facilitate the learning. -Tell me more about what you are actually concerned about? -#1 question: How do you deal with resistance? Only resistance if there is force in two ways. -Resistance is a mask for fear at times.  -We can make every conversation count towards a more just and equitable world! -Disposition is authenticity and transparency: Sometimes people are most moved by me saying, “I want to stop and I am feeling nervous. Can we hit pause for a second? And figure out how we move forwards? If I can be brief and honest, people appreciate this.”    Connect with Elena: Twitter: @brightmorningtm Podcast: BrightMorningPodcast Website: https://brightmorningteam.com/ Next Book Coming Soon - 2023 Art of Coaching 2.0 Book - 2023 Arise, How to Thrive as a BIPOC Educator

Michael Bungay Stanier helps people be a force for change. He's best known for his book The Coaching Habit which has sold over a million copies and has thousands of 5-star reviews online. His latest book How to Begin helps people be ambitious for themselves and for the world and, find their Worthy Goal, and start something thrilling, important and daunting. He founded Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that helps organizations move from advice-driven to curiosity-led. They've trained hundreds of thousands of managers to be more coach-like and their clients range from Microsoft to Salesforce to Gucci. Michael left Australia about 30 years ago to be a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University … where his only significant achievement was falling in love with a Canadian … which is why he now lives in Toronto, having spent time in London and Boston. Balancing out these moments of success, he was banned from his high school graduation for “the balloon incident” … was sued by one of his Law School professors for defamation … and his first published piece of writing was a Harlequin Romance-esque story involving a misdelivered letter … and called The Male Delivery Episode Notes: -Trained with CTI but also connected with coaching as a teenager with his friends as well as being a youth crisis telephone counselor. The first answer is not the only answer. -Living in England and graduating from university, discovered ‘coaching' - intrigued and got transferred to Boston. -Called himself a coach despite not knowing everything about it.  -Trained in 2000 and started a practice, didnt love coaching all the time. Then started writing books, The Coaching Habit, as well as Box of Crayons. MBS.works is also helping others be a force for change. -At a young age, Mum told him it helps if you ask a good question when interacting with girls…may be the start of it all!  -How to Begin's inspiration - Stemmed from The Advice Trap, wanted to add onto the topic. How do you actually change your behavior? It is so hard. -”We unlock our greatness by working on the hard things” - MBS. A nice restatement of an old truth. -When we go out to the edges of who you are and what you are, that is where you learn more about yourself and grow in your confidence and capacity.  -How do you think about goal setting to bring out the very best in you, as well make a contribution to the world. -Worthy goal: thrilling, important, and daunting. -Cheeky cartoon- originally for The Advice Trap Book but it was not a good fit, but he still loved the character.  It helped him to become the obvious guide for this book.  -It is helpful to be the strongest signal in the room.  -Two worthy goals: stopping being the CEO, as well as launching a podcast. -How to Begin: 3 parts, each part has three chapters Part 1: Draft and redraft your goal - examine, poke, interrogate, and redraft it.  Part 2:Understand what you are committing to - When you are saying yes to a worthy goal you are saying no to other stuff. Wrestle with it for a bit and get very clear on this. Part 3: Getting you going- Crossing the threshold. What is important is that you begin the journey. Do not do it alone, and don't think it will be three big leaps and you will be there. Find support, keep working towards the best version of yourself, and keep taking small steps to make progress.  -Find your right band and check out the pilot light appendix -Many goals? Hierarchy to organize your life. Prioritize. -MBS vision: Infect a billion people with the possibility virus  -What is my best way to achieve this bigger vision or mission? -Aspire to one worthy goal, one great project! Tactics, strategies, project, vision, and worthy goals. - “Plans are useless but planning is useful” -Eisenhower - You are doing the planning and that is where the power lies. -So many chapters - what do I want to accomplish within each chapter? -Worthy Goal for this year- Write three books! - 2023-2024 -Stay curious a little bit longer, and rush to action and advice giving a little bit more slowly. -And what else? Because the first answer is never the only answer. -I can translate knowledge to make it feel accessible for people. Taking the abstract and translate it for you!  Connect with MBS: Twitter: @mbs_works Website: MBS.works Year of Living Brilliantly - 52 weeks HowToBegin.com

Formerly a high school English teacher and a new teacher coach in Palo Alto Unified School District (Palo Alto, CA), Jennifer Abrams is currently a communications consultant and author who works with educators and others on new teacher and employee support, being generationally savvy, effective collaboration skills, having hard conversations and creating identity safe workplaces.    Jennifer's publications include Having Hard Conversations, The Multigenerational Workplace: Communicate, Collaborate & Create Community, Hard Conversations Unpacked - the Whos, Whens and What Ifs, and Swimming in the Deep End: Four Foundational Skills for Leading Successful School Initiatives.  Her newest book is Stretching Your Learning Edges: Growing (Up) at Work.     Jennifer shares her work in other mediums as a featured columnist on growth and change for Learning Forward's The Learning Professional journal as well as contributing to The International Educator (TIE) focusing her writing on adult development and collaboration skills.    Jennifer has been invited to keynote, facilitate and coach at schools and conferences worldwide and is honored to have been named one of the “18 Women All K-12 Educators Should Know,” by Education Week's ‘Finding Common Ground'' blog.  More about Jennifer's work can be found at her website, www.jenniferabrams.com, and on Twitter @jenniferabrams.  Episode Notes: -High school English teacher for 9 years, then a New Teacher Coach, professional developer, Education, and Communications Consultant. -Finding your voice around what matters- her mission -Coaching in its purest sense is I am a thought partner, a cheerleader, a raw fairy godmother, all in service to whatever goal that the people I am working with have, which is to support students. -Can you find your voice in a way that matters, in a humane and growth-producing way? -It is about the development of the other person so that they feel more assured and grounded in how they want to make those changes.  -New teachers need just-in-time training that is ongoing and that is an intentional experience. -There is no one thing that helps to retain new teachers or any teachers. It is more about looking at your context and the challenges that you are facing in your area and saying how might we look at that. How do we go to the balcony to look at things with people? -Stretching Your Learning Edges: Growing Up at Work -Purposeful, ongoing support for the development of an adult in a school will be so helpful, and something that needs to be focused on. -Mrs. Kalman, “ Somebody is learning how to be a person by watching you.” -We need to keep growing and developing, we are not done! -We have credentials in how to teach, but we do not have credentials in how to talk to one another. We need to develop our skills in this area: being coaches, being a facilitator, being a team member.  -We need to own our own development. -Changing arenas in education can be a tough road.  -Top 5 things to remember: Your development needs to continue. Grow Yourself! Know your identity and how you see the world differently than others. Know my biases and limitations. Suspend my certainty that I have it the right way. Where can I inquire more? Be quiet. Watch and listen.  How can I be a more effective person in collaboration? How can I build up my skill set to be even more of a value add to my team members? -Find your voice around what matters! -Be quiet: Let people talk! The pause, the pause, the pause! Connect with Jennifer: Twitter:@JenniferAbrams Website: JenniferAbrams.com Email: jennifer@jenniferabrams.com Instagram: @JenniferFAbrams  

Rebecca Frazier, Ph.D., has centered her professional career around learning and sharing how to become an effective coach in a variety of situations. When teachers feel encouragement and love as well as being supported by a technically skilled and competent coach, both the positive energy to persevere and the skills needed to meet difficult challenges are produced. This holistic way of delivering coaching, which includes a focus on personal development, benefits all involved in the process: students, teachers, coaches, and leaders. Rebecca's doctoral research included a qualitative and quantitative study dedicated to answering the question, “What makes an effective instructional coach?” The answers she found became the foundation for her book, The Joy of Coaching: Characteristics of Effective Instructional Coaches. Her years as a classroom teacher, an instructional coach, trainer of instructional coaches, district facilitator for coaching program development, and a K–8 principal have provided her with a multi-tiered perspective of the coaching process. Rebecca sees coaching as the “go to” professional development a strategy that, when delivered with warmth and power, can inspire joy and professional success. Episode Notes: -Rebecca was a substitute in  K-12, became a K-12 instructional coach, was a 4th/5th-grade teacher,  a K-8 principal, Teacher coaching teachers program, district coach, coach, and coordinator as well as a trainer of coaches. -Jim Knight's work, What makes an effective instructional coach? Doctoral study focus and ten years as an instructional coach. -Joy of Coaching Book, Coach Happy business -Characteristics identified through research that would be helpful for coaches to incorporate into their lives and coaching practices: caring, competent, collaborative, authentic, a quality communicator, flexible, trustworthy, planned, able to provide models and inspiration. -Team of coaches who were ready to dissect what was and what was not working. -Caring and competency were needed for effective coaching  -Needed intentional relationship building -Add caring practices to our coaching due to the  data was  showing it was needed -Processes for goal setting and progress in regards to data collection and softer skill protocols involving motivation,  commitment,  and connection. -Dissertation: 69 coached teachers and 70 non coached teachers. Analyzed growth in teacher competency,  job satisfaction, and student growth. -Taking a risk to gather this data, but coaching teachers outperformed non coached teachers in 22 areas of instructional practice by 4 to 5 times – More growth in reading than non coached -Teachers are struggling in so many ways, we need to walk with them forward -Bite-size chunks of video reflection and video coaching -New coaches, you were hired for a reason. If you have been hired as a coach you are good, don't doubt yourself! Think back to what worked within your own classroom. -Note specific things within the classroom. Praise what you want to see more of, and bring chocolate! -Practice self-compassion -Chip's Tips- Coach Happy Inspirational Pup -Coach happy, where caring and confidence meets Connect with Rebecca: The Joy of Coaching: Characteristics of Effective Instructional Coaches Book - Corwin and Amazon  Twitter- @coachhappy Website- coachhappy.com Hello@coachhappy.com Email to be added to the mailing list

Kyle Schwartz is in her tenth year of teaching, this year as a reading teacher at Doull Elementary in Denver, Colorado. Her first book, I Wish My Teacher Knew: How One Question Can Change Everything for Our Kids focuses on realities that students face and how educators can respond to their students' needs by building relationships. Her second book, I Wish For Change: Unleashing the Power of Kids to Make a Difference is a guide for educators, families, and mentors to help young people find a personal sense of power and use it to better their communities.   In addition to teaching, Kyle is a dedicated advocate for students. She has spoken nationally and internationally about supporting all students, differentiating instruction for students learning English, building strong classroom communities, and helping young people create change.   Episode Notes: -Unlikely teacher, grew up hating school, who became her arch-nemesis, an elementary school teacher. But wanted to provide an experience she never had for students after falling in love with tutoring as well as teaching and learning. -The ‘I Wish My Teacher Knew' lesson went viral on Twitter - “I wish my teacher knew I did not have pencils at home to do my homework with”- grew into an international movement. -Wrote the book, I Wish My Teacher Knew: How One Question Can Change Everything for Our Kids as well as I WIsh For Change: Unleashing the Power of Kids to Make a Difference. -The truth and vulnerability of seeing the words in kids' handwriting struck a chord with educators. -Kids pulled her to share with the class, kids were invited and not required to share notes, the power of community building came through. One child said, “I wish my teacher knew that I did not have friends to play with.” Yet, the students banded around this child and built connections with her. -Kids are experts on childhood, we must understand that expertise. They are problem solvers and will engage with one another. One student never shared, but later spoke to Kyle that she never knew other people's parents were divorced. She saw herself in others and was able to build empathy through this practice. -Teachers, we see you and all you are juggling right now. -Have the courage to value all the things that are not being measured on a rubric right now: the relationships, the empathy, the connections - respond to what kids give you and hold sacred those times. - A shift in education to meet kids where they are and look at the whole child. -Impact story: trying this lesson, other strategies, and how kids take it over, as well as other industries all the way to the Vice-Admiral of the U.S. Coast Guard! -We are a nudge in children's lives! -” Be the nudge you wish to see in the world!” -” Notice what kids want you to see and be really thoughtful about noticing that.” -Find the connection with kids! -Let kids be experts no matter what, build one on one connections! -Tips: -Make it about the community in any way you can. Kids have to be vulnerable, so you should too. Be honest with kids about mandated reporting. Be honest with kids, Give them options about how they participate or add their name or share, serious or silly. Really round it out with community too and building connections and caring.   Connect with Kyle: Instagram: @Kylemschwartz Twitter: @Kylemschwartz

Becca Silver is the founder and CEO of The Whole Educator. She is a highly energetic and knowledgeable trainer who approaches leadership development with transformational coaching skills and strategies. Becca is a former educator, instructional coach, life coach, and executive coach. Her training programs and customized one-on-one coaching work focuses on fostering teacher buy-in and bridging knowledge gaps between leadership and staff. She believes that, when coaching teachers, adult mindsets and motivations matter.   The Teachers S.T.A.Y. Program is a group coaching, cohort-based 6 module program for school coaches. It systematically builds coaches' skills to understand and impact teachers' underlying motivations and mindsets that impact their behavior, buy-in, trust and resilience. This immersive program does not "add another thing onto the plate" of coaches. To inquire about a school or district-based cohort, message becca@thewholeeducator.com.   Episode Notes: -Educators and coaches are whole human beings. We want to coach and lead them as whole human beings. -The Whole Educator.com -Teachers as diverse learners -Top tips for supporting new educators: identify the speed of approaching growth and change, spend time listening to their concerns and build trust, and look for limiting beliefs or mindsets. -Treat others the way they want to be treated. -Use active listening or reflective listening, reflect back on what they are saying. -Identify why they teach, what motivates them, and measure against that each day. -Embrace your why -Sorting needs: content knowledge, skills, or mindset issues. -Utilize the mindset that people are diverse and complex, build trust authentically, treat people how they want to be treated. -Assess what they need so you can individualize professional development. -Mindsets and Motivations Matter -Hear the limiting beliefs Connect with Becca: becca@thewholeeducator.com Twitter: @BeccaSilver_edu

This episode is a compilation of ‘Dear Coach Letters' for you to enjoy and to help wrap up this year right for all our favorite coaches!    Hear from our special guests: Adam Geller Website:https://www.edthena.com/ Twitter:@edthena Suzy Evans Twitter:@SuzannahEvans2 Betsy Ball Twitter:@1BetsyBall  Mary Phillips Twitter:@growinglearners Dr. Sean Corey Twitter:@LegacyElem David Baker Twitter:@David63Baker Miriam  Guerrero Cheuk Website: www.EmpowermentCoachingMC.com Instagram: EmpowermentCoachingMC Linkdin: Miriam  Guerrero Cheuk Twitter:@MiriamCheuk Clubhouse: EmpowermentMC

Karen Smith is an Elementary Language Arts Coordinator in St. Vrain Valley School District and is Cognitive Coach trained. Episode Notes: -Model of coaching to onboard for literacy depends on the individual she is coaching and the context. -Pull from Jim Knight's Impact Cycle - Identify, Learn, and Improve -Minimum Skills Competencies - What do our Students need to know, understand and be able to do. -Elevation, refinement and improvement of instruction. -Observation protocols -Cognitive Coaching - conversations around goals and practice being the mediator of thinking -Diane Sweeney's Student Centered Coaching - Data driven coaching process around student work - needs to cultivate, look at data, talk about practice, and engage in teaching and learning cycle -What is the most high leverage model to impact practice? -All components of Scarbrough's Reading rope are vital and teachers understand the synthesis of all of the components. Word recognition and language comprehension rungs are interconnected. We are cultivating the synthesis between all components and owning the science of reading. -Support in the pandemic is acknowledging the work is hard right now. Opportunity to talk about high yield instructional practices -Learning did happen last year, honor that. -3 stages of Literacy proficiency: 1. MultiSensory instruction 2. Knowledge Stage 3. Automaticity Stage -Are their literacy skills transferable? -Being able to coach and mediate another person's thinking brings her to her core. -Impact teams story 5th grade -Coach, Collaborator, and Consult - intentional as to when and how we navigate these roles. -The future relies in the science of reading and giving time for shifts in practice. -Stay present in the moment, remain present in that moment! -Pause, paraphrase, and pose a question Connect with Karen: Twitter: @smithkaren51

Episode Notes: -Formative Assessment Expert started as a Band Director and Musical Performance specialty. -Dr. Shelby Wolf - Children's Literature -Leading Impact Teams Building a Culture of Efficacy with Barb Pitchford -Collective work of many coaches going in and seeing that on some teams one member may be doing most of the work, looking to create collective efficacy. It was always about what the teacher was doing, where the focus should be learner centered. -At the center of everything needs to be the learner -Formative assessment is a process, not a product and something that you partner with learners in. -Take kids for who they are, see their potential, and we do anything to set ambitious goals with our kids and have clarity about what success looks like.  -Impact Teams: Teams of educators that partner with students and families. They innovate to expand student ownership. They scale their collective expertise to make a difference for all.  -Inviting parents into this process and into the protocols - Partnering in this process -Impact teams work has grown across the world. -Focus on the strengths- appreciative inquiry into the strengths they already have. -Partnership principles - Jim Knight -Coaches can help scale this important work -Takes time to do this work well and have quality implementation. Use your feedback loops -If you trust the kids they will always lead the way -“If you trust the students, they will always lead the way!” - Paul & Mimi Erickson -Look for the positive in others- strengths finder approach Connect with Paul: Twitter: @bloomberg_paul YouTube: The Core Collaborative TheCoreCollaborative.com

Kathy Perret is an instructional coaching consultant and co-author of The Coach Approach to School Leadership (ASCD 2017) and Compassionate Coaching (ASCD 2021). As the founder of Kathy Perret Consulting, she empowers school leaders, instructional coaches, and classroom teachers in their professional growth. With over 30 years of experience in the field, Kathy hosts onsite and virtual professional learning for educators across the world. Educators directly impact student growth and performance, and Kathy is dedicated to improving experiences and outcomes for both adults and kids. She believes everyone deserves a coach - and that includes teachers, instructional coaches,  and school leaders! Find out more at https://www.kathyperret.org/. Kathy is also the co-founder of the longest-running Twitter chat for Instructional Coaches. Join #educoach every Wednesday at 8 pm CST. You can find Kathy on Twitter @KathyPerret.   Kenny McKee is the co-author, along with Kathy Perret, of the 2021 ASCD title, Compassionate Coaching: How to Help Educators Navigate Barriers to Professional Growth. He currently works as a Content Designer for NWEA. Kenny has also served as a social media and professional learning consultant with Student Achievement Partners. Kenny's coaching experience comes from working as a high literacy and instructional coach for eleven years in Asheville, NC. Kenny is a National Board Certified Teacher who has taught middle school and high school English language arts. He has also taught reading courses for college students in teacher preparation programs.  He has authored educational blog posts for Student Achievement Partners, SmartBrief, Virtual Job Shadow, Sibme, TeachThought, and NEA. In 2014, Kenny was selected as an ASCD Emerging Leader, and he is still an active member in ASCD's Emerging Leaders affiliate.  

Tyler Tarver, Ed.S is the Dean of NLC College. Tyler speaks at conferences across the country on various topics related to teaching, administration, efficiency, technology, social media, and culture. He has amassed over 14 million views on YouTube and 60k subscribers. Tyler is a Dean of an HBCU College located in Arkansas. He also created and maintains TarverAcademy.com, where he helps students/teachers with math, tech, and an assortment of educational needs. He's written 3 books, produces podcasts, made award-winning short films, is an Apple Distinguished Educator, Google Innovator, Google Certified Trainer, Google Level 1 & 2 Educator, Apple Foundations Certified Trainer, Google Forms Expert Team Member, has been featured on PBS, and also been featured on Tosh.0 four times. He's been a teacher, facilitator, principal, and Director of Curriculum, Instruction, Communications, Personnel, and Technology. Tyler loves teaching students, helping teachers, and building community and conversation around improving and innovating education to help students. Episode Notes: We spoke to the charismatic Tyler Tarver about his experience in education, speaking, and also engaging other educators to support them in any way he can! Being a maker, but how do you become a person who spreads resources. The resources find the people who need it. Baller Teacher Playbook Engagement: What makes kids check out? Why do they stop watching a video? Two reasons they check out: A. They are confused about what is happening or they don't see how it applies to them? Flipped classroom to meet students needs, starting with an iPod then moving to YouTube Connect with Tyler:  Twitter: @tylertarver https://www.tarveracademy.com/ Tik Tok: @SirTylerTarver

We talk to Dr. Diane Lauer, Dr. Sean Corey, Kelly Addington, Mandy Warren, and Nicholas Meyer to reflect back on the last year of coaching and teaching to hold onto our new learnings. We analyze a year of pandemic learning and pull out the positives that we want to pull forward to next year's teaching.   Episode Notes: Teacher’s Perspective: Explore various learning models from this year: in-person, hybrid, online, and online all year and our own growth as educators. Students’ growth in self-reflection, creativity, and self-advocacy. “We can’t choose what happens to us in this world, but we can choose what kind of people we are going to be. We are going to be strong and brave.” Shared vulnerability and increased compassion  Intentionality with technology Renaissance of teaching Coaching parents and teammates - active listening Coaching behind the scenes: support, validation, checking in, and growing towards thriving. Learning Coach’s Perspective: Draw from relationships- build upon Shared vulnerability- model as a coach Vary the type of coaching as needed Not a clear coaching map States of Mind - growth in flexibility Intentional reflection Administrator Perspective: The reality of the last year Change models essential for systemic change Focused goals - time-bound - accelerate and deploy support Intentional use of times and supports Listening to the individual, whole group Keep the focus the focus Time is a gift. Educators are heroes and we need to not take anything for granted. Trust, rapport, and then get to the focus Video coaching - Webex, Edthena, phone - reflection space Innovation across the system - not bound by time or space, they meet more and are more cohesive Innovation = clarity of purpose/shared sense of purpose One pandemic per lifetime Take nothing for granted moving forward  Bring our new instructional practices  and innovation forward into the coming years   Connect with Dr. Diane Lauer Twitter:@MrsLauer Connect with Dr. Sean Corey Twitter:@LegacyElem Connect with Kelly Addington Twitter:@MrsKellyAdd Connect with Mandy Warren Twitter:@4thwmrswarren Connect with Nicholas Meyer Twitter:@meyer4th

Sherry St. Clair is the author of Coaching Redefined and founder of Reflective Learning LLC, an educational consulting agency based in Kentucky. Her organization works with schools across the country, creating specialized training and coaching services for school administrators and educators.  Additionally, Sherry serves as a Senior Consultant for the International Center for Leadership in Education and a Senior Consultant for Houghton Mifflin.  Episode Notes: We talk to Sherry St Clair around her experiences as an instructional coach ,administrator, and her strategies for coaching in various capacities.  3 Big Pieces to Coaching: strong relationships, leadership aspect/building leaders, content The more alignment we have as a system the more success we will have in meeting our goals. Coaches need to see themselves as leaders. Positivity in coaching and being mindful of coaching humans. Focus the conversation on the positive so that they can progress forward. Why do people change? Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose -Daniel Pink Teachers do not need fixing,we need positive feedback. Coaching Groups: Have protocols in place, equal voices, grow the group together,  and growing leaders in the group. “In classrooms we want to see students doing the thinking and the work, in coaching we want  teachers doing the thinking and the work. It doesn't have to be all on our shoulders.” Measuring impact: Look at how well that organization is growing together, listening, building leaders, depth of questions, and achievement scores. “Strive to see the strength in others!” From Finding Nemo: Just keep swimming! Connect with Sherry St Clair Website: https://www.reflecttolearn.com/ Twitter:@Sherrystclair  

Miriam  Guerrero Cheuk is a certified Life and Leadership Professional Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation and is currently working towards her Master Certified Coaching (MCC) Accreditation and is the founder of EmpowermentCoachingMC.com.  Episode Notes: We talk to Miriam about the power of coaching in education. She shares her values around deep relationship building, trust, self care, and enhancing instruction. Miriam provides a wealth of ideas on how to build a coaching culture, tips for building your coaching PLN, as well as how to leverage digital tools to meet educators where they are at this time.  “Coaching is a process not an event. It is being a think partner and catalyst for change and growth in others.” “Coaching is a live giving conversation. When we empower others we build their confidence, efficacy, and autonomy.” “The quality of the relationship is congruent with the quality of the results of the outcomes.” “The most effective coaching is really the one that goes under the iceberg. We don’t just coach behaviors, we coach the values, we coach the beliefs, the needs, the ways of being because that is truly what drives behaviors.” Increasing capacity and reducing dependency while meeting the coachee where they are. “Surround yourself with people who bring you light and inspire you”- PLN 3 Ps- paraphrasing, pausing, and posing evocative questions Use metaphors to make things come alive and can make complex things simple. Connect with Miriam  Guerrero Cheuk Website: www.EmpowermentCoachingMC.com Instagram: EmpowermentCoachingMC Linkdin: Miriam  Guerrero Cheuk Twitter:@MiriamCheuk Clubhouse: EmpowermentMC

Adam Geller is the author of "Evidence of Practice: Playbook for Video-Powered Professional Learning" and the founder of Edthena. He started his career in education as a science teacher in St. Louis, Missouri, and since 2011 Adam has overseen the evolution of Edthena from a paper-based prototype into a research-informed and patented platform used by schools, districts, teacher training programs, and professional development providers. Adam has written on education technology topics for various publications including Education Week, Forbes, and edSurge, and he has been an invited speaker about education technology and teacher training for conferences at home and abroad.Episode Notes:We talk to Adam Geller around how to video coaching and how best to build this practice with your educators.“Don’t do video to teachers” - Adam GellerMany ways to integrate video especially in COVID times. How can we leverage our video platform recordings to elevate practice.Tagline: “How are your doing? , really?”Super Power: “ Is there anything else I can be helpful with?” “Are there any questions I should ask that I do not know to ask?”Connect with Adam GellerWebsite:https://www.edthena.com/pltogether.orgTwitter:@edthenaEvidence of Practice Book

We talk to Delia E. Racines, Ph.D. about her coaching journey. 

Educators from around the globe share their thoughts around self-care and finding joy.

Christian Van Nieuwerburgh talks with us about the importance of coaching and his marriage or positive psychology and coaching. 

Season 2 Episode 2