Category Archives: school coaching
Instructional Coaching for Equity: Starting the School Year Right
At the National Equity Project, we believe that equity-focused instructional coaching begins with developing a caring and meaningful learning partnership between the coach and teacher. Bringing a genuine curiosity about who this teacher is – as an educator and as … Continue reading
Instructional Coaching | Beyond Best Practices
“Coaching is becoming popular, in part, because many educational leaders recognize the old form of professional development, built around traditional in-service sessions for teachers, simply doesn’t affect student achievement” (Knight 2006). Instructional coaching alone doesn’t necessarily support teachers to be … Continue reading
5 Coaching Skills Every Manager Should Use
1. Listen without judgment. Being able to listen without judgment is key to any relationship – coaching or otherwise. Two forms of listening we encourage coaches and managers to employ are constructivist listening and active / reflective listening. Constructivist listening … Continue reading
Teacher of the Year testimony
I’Asha Warfield was named one of two Teachers of the Year for Alameda County California, encompassing 23 districts serving over 200,000 students, 40% of them low-income. She is an English teacher at Frick Middle School in Oakland Unified. She worked … Continue reading
A policy in need of turnaround
This is a share from the Public Education Network weekly news blast: In a commentary in Education Week, [National Equity Project Advisory Board member] Pedro Noguera and Alan Blankstein lament the approach to school turnarounds prescribed by the DOE, which they … Continue reading
The Growth of Coaching
Great overview at the Ed Week Teaching Now blog on the new piece by Atul Gawande in the New Yorker about coaching. After looking at sports and performing arts, Gawande examines teacher-coaching programs to see how “regular professionals” can use … Continue reading
Equity Conversations among Mentors and New Teachers: Partner Profile
Last year we engaged in a yearlong partnership with the San Mateo County Office of Education (SMCOE) Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) program. This new video provides an overview of that partnership and how new teacher mentors (“support providers”) … Continue reading
The “Missing Link in School Reform”
This Stanford Social Innovation Review article may turn out to make a big impact on the education change conversation. It endorses several aspects of the National Equity Project’s general approach, especially our emphasis on developing relationships, trust, and collaboration among … Continue reading
Collaboration, Vision, and Learning Process
I found a useful powerpoint presentation on school turnaround challenges by a Dave Weaver at a regional SIG conference that focused on cultural and systems blockages to fostering collaboration in schools trying to turn around. It references a book that clearly … Continue reading
Teach Like an Equity Champion
A partner school has been using a book called Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov (a leader at Uncommon Schools) in their school-wide professional learning. Different teams were responsible for different sections, they read together, observed and videotaped each other’s … Continue reading