Just like a teacher sets up a classroom, an instructional coach needs to set up their coaching space. The process is very similar in terms of what you must consider about those you lead, whether it be students or teachers. Not every coaching space is identical in size and shape. Most commonly, instructional coaches utilize…

The summer is the perfect time to prepare for the upcoming school year.  There are 2.5 months, on average, where teachers are able to work at their own pace gathering ideas and preparing their classroom for instruction in the fall. The following 10 tips are tried-and-true strategies veteran teachers use to prepare for the upcoming…

One challenge teachers face is the lack of quality text talk in the classroom. This means teachers are struggling to get students excited to engage in meaningful conversations with each other about the books that they are reading. It is important for students to develop text based discussion skills because it increases reading comprehension while…

The idea of an overly-engaged parent in your classroom can bring feelings of anxiety to some teachers. An overly-engaged parent can be defined as one that desires access to the teacher often, whether in forms of communication or collaboration. From the perspective of a teacher, in order to appease this type of parent, it requires…

Teacher leaders are often creating professional development [PD] sessions for the staff that they lead. These PD sessions historically have been meetings that are lengthy, rarely applicable, and have a “sit and get” mentality. This is an ineffective way to equip teachers with instructional best practices and knowledge of current pedagogy. Teachers need opportunities to…

Expert teaching should be accessible to students on a daily basis, but it should also be available for teachers.   They need to see great teaching in action and hone their craft. It is one thing to learn instructional pedagogy and another to see it implemented live in front of students. Live teaching demonstrations allow teachers…

There is an art to conducting a classroom observation that fairly depicts a teacher’s performance in the classroom. Nothing is more frustrating for a teacher than having an outsider watch you teach for a small snippet of time, come to a conclusion about your instructional proficiency and then put that rating score in your permanent…

If instructional coaches want to be successful in impacting teacher proficiency and student achievement in the classroom, they have to prepare. Just like teachers write lesson plans by studying and researching content, instructional coaches study too. They take notice of the habits of those they mentor. They research teaching best practices to model and develop…