We want to give you a peek inside our Coach Certificate & Mentorship Program. Coaches taking part in this academic-year-long journey have graciously given us permission to post some of their learning and reflections from the private coursework they are undertaking during this program. Where possible, we have shared the course and the action task to give context for the guest post.

The Topic: In Practice: Setting a Goal with Your Coachee

The Task: In collaboration with a teaching colleague, select a focus for working together, including a lesson to observe in the next week. Have a pre-observation coaching meeting and use a coaching strategy in your conversation.

The teacher I am working with wanted to focus on guided reading. Through our initial conversation, she shared that she does not feel her guided reading lessons are as effective as they could be. She wants to focus on student engagement and comfort in our virtual guided reading environment.

During our pre-observation meeting, I focused on asking questions to learn more about her goals and what she was looking for. Before meeting with her, I looked for some key questions that might help her arrive at a goal. After my initial question, “How are your classes going?”, she already knew what she wanted to focus on. I was able to rephrase what she was saying into a goal by saying, “what I hear you saying is…” The rest of the questions I prepared then helped us get more specific about what she was looking for. I asked, “What is working well for you? What is working well for the students? What are the challenges? What is next?” She identified student engagement and comfort level as something she wanted to work on.

We then shifted into discussing what she would like me to focus on during the observation. During our discussion about engagement and comfort levels, I asked, “What does that look like and sound like?” This gave me specific things to look for during the observation.

Overall, I think the initial meeting went well. I did a good job of asking questions to gain more information from her. Because she already knew what she wanted to work on, it made it easier to have this initial discussion.

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Read more from The Coach participants as they share their learning from the certificate & mentorship program…

Amy’s post: Planning for a Coaching Pre-Observation Meeting

Karli’s post: The Coach-Principal Partnership

Kate’s post: The Coach Approach

Cate’s post: Seeing Yourself as a Leader

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Level Up Your Coaching with The Coach!

If you are ready to dive deep into your coaching practice, to help you #coachbetter and build a thriving coaching culture in your school, please join us for our next cohort of The Coach!

Wherever you are in building a coaching culture in your school, The Coach will give you the strategies, skills and tools you need to make coaching a success and will empower you to confidently apply instructional coaching strategies in any situation – from building a coaching program, to having coaching conversations, to being a leader in your school community. We facilitate only one cohort each academic year so we can offer individualized support for each participant.

Coaches of all levels are welcome: you’ll start the program with a self-assessment to determine exactly what the next steps are for you!