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Clarity of instructional vision 

5/28/2014

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Week 3 of Coaching Teachers: promoting changes that stick and this week we are examining the role of a clear instructional vision in the coaching process.

'As a teacher coach your job is not just to get teachers to change behaviours but to promote changes that will have meaningful impact on student learning'.

This is one of the biggest time and effort wasters I think I've experienced both as a teacher and in supporting other teachers. If you don't focus on things that really impact student learning, then what is the point? You put in a lot of work for little results because you're not making tha changes that are most effective in terms of student learning. But sometimes that can be really tough. Teaching (not to mention learning) is a really complex activity. Knowing which areas to focus on, in what combination and at what time is one of the hardest things to get right.
PictureImage courtesy of Match Education
Clarity of instructional vision is not just a vision of what teachers are doing, but a clear vision of what students are doing, thinking and saying in an optimal class period of learning. A coach should make links for the teachers between their actions and efforts and how that is affecting students. And ultimately the vision of what the teachers are doing needs to driven by a vision of optimal student learning.

PictureImage courtesy of Match Education
Central to the process is a vision for effective teaching and Orin (the course instructor) advocates the use of a rubric to avoid coaching sessions becoming a grab-bag of  topics related to teaching which are great conversations but not necessarily focused on the things that will have greatest impact on classroom practice and student learning. Coaching sessions should focus narrowly on skill acquisition – on developing the types of skills that a teacher needs to advance the instructional vision that you have laid out in your rubric. If you are able to bring urgency and focus to the time you have in coaching teachers you are going to shorten the skill acquisition loops.

1 Comment
https://idohomework.net/ link
3/28/2016 12:15:32

'As a teacher coach your job is not just to get teachers to change behaviours but to promote changes that will have meaningful impact on student learning'.

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    I'm an educator driven by the desire to see people realise their potential by gaining the tools they need to be successful.  I love being part of a community of learners for whom there is always more to be known and understood. For me, learning and teaching is cognitive, social and emotional and takes the whole self.

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