Blog
Let the coaches coach
In various forms, instructional coaching initiatives have cropped up all across the educational landscape over the past few decades. Based originally on research from Joyce & Showers (1980) and reinforced in multiple studies since, instructional coaching is the...
Clarifying the Roles of Instructional Coach and Administrator
A Cheat-Sheet for Instructional Coaches and Their Administrators I’m often asked, “Where should we draw the line between coaches’ duties and admin’s responsibilities?” It’s a fair question, since so many instructional coaching programs and initiatives have popped up...
The Power of Principal Mentoring
Too often, principals are handed the keys of the school-house and told, “Good luck!” The principalship is arguably the most influential, and most challenging, position in today’s educational landscape. Serving as middle-management (supporting district and state...
Walk-throughs? Why?
When I was a newer principal, I was advised to get out of the office and into the classrooms of my school. “Go do walk-throughs,” my advisor said. “Lots of them. They’re a great tool.” Seemed like a good idea, but soon a problem arose. You never announce, “I’m going...
Watching Game-Tape: Video and professional growth
What do successful quarterbacks do when they come off the field? Not blow-dry their hair and sign autographs; that’s for later. The successful ones grab a tablet and immediately begin to analyze video footage of the plays they just ran. They analyze their opponent’s...
Are you mission-driven? Really?
What drives you? When I ask that, I mean this: Really, truly, what drives every decision you make? Many of us identify goals we’d like to accomplish and then take actions, by and large, that are pretty darn similar to what we would have done before we set the goals....
“They” – the most dangerous word in education?
As I sat with a school’s leadership team recently, their plan to calibrate staff members’ mindsets and align team expectations called for a monthly staff “huddle,” a departure from their “no staff meetings” practice. The principal sat back and sighed. “It seems like a...
It’s more than relationships
Relationships, relationships, relationships. We’ve heard this refrain from educators for a while now – learning starts with relationships. I had the good fortune to chat with two high school students recently about their experience with a particular teacher who had...
What do I focus on?
In a garden-variety classroom, there are about a million different things going on at any given moment. They’re all important, right? So what draws our attention? What do the best teachers focus on? The answer is so unambiguously obvious it might startle you:...
There’s nothing more powerful than a made-up mind
What’s the difference between doing something and doing something well? What is the variable that takes implementation and turns it into excellence? If you were to brainstorm a list to answer those two questions, it might take a while. However, there is one force that...