What a beautiful gift we have at Bismarck
Public Schools. Instructional Coaching. I am not celebrating me or my job here, I’m
celebrating the coaching model. I’m
celebrating coaching cycles and the most valuable resource each teacher
has—each other!
Every child deserves a high-quality
education and every teacher deserves resources to accomplish that goal. The challenge is providing continuous
opportunities to increase student success and build teacher capacity. One way teachers receive ongoing support is
through instructional coaching. Instructional
coaching increases the achievement and engagement of every student by bringing
out the best performances of every teacher.
Coaching supports teachers as they take risks and try new models and instructional
strategies.
As a coach I get the opportunity to
learn new strategies that I can bring back to my building. Coaches use both student-centered and
teacher-centered methods to help teachers improve the decisions they make about
their instruction. Many coaches use a
coaching cycle with their staff. Cycles
can be designed by the teacher and coach for the specific learning. Since
coaching is ongoing and different for every teacher and every building, it is
useful to set up a model to keep the communication and cycle going.
Most coaching cycles are in the
following form:
·
Pre-conference
·
Model/Observe/Feedback
·
Debrief/Plan
·
Collaborative teaching/Debrief
·
Observe/Feedback
Many times the gradual release model
is used within a coaching cycle. The
excitement is that the cycle is ongoing and is happening with many individual
teachers and/or groups of teachers at any given time.
I am blessed in my position as a
coach to celebrate growth on a daily basis.
I am lucky enough to be in a kindergarten room one minute of the day,
and a fifth grade room the next. I get
the opportunity to think and reflect with all of the Solheim staff which allows
me to learn from so many teachers. What
we are working on is the collective potential within our building. Every teacher is a coach, with, or without
the title of instructional coach.
Without collaboration our growth is limited to our own perspectives. Again, what a gift we have here at BPS. Each other.
Keep calm and Coach on!