Coaching and Professional Development Midyear Reflection

This post is my reflection (and brainstorm) for creating a 21st century learning district, specifically through developing our Collaboration Coaches. I’m asking for your feedback.

The focus for Year 2 Collaboration Coaches

This is the second year we’ve had Collaboration Coach training in the district. The first year training module is closely adapted from Microsoft Peer Coach Training developed by the Peer Ed Team.

Since there isn’t a continuation training module, I’ve created my own based on surveys, reflections, and four areas of focus:

1. Communication, collaboration, and coaching skills 
2. 21st century learning, pedagogy, and lesson design
3. Best practices with technology integration and resources
4. Staff development

The professional development plan for Year 2 Collaboration Coaches

• August: Setting goals and overview of year -- for the purpose of kicking off the year
• September: Web 2.0/Coaching Smackdown  -- focusing on best practices; resources; and ideas for staff development to try at sites
• October: Communication, collaboration, and coaching skills -- focusing on coaching skills
• November: Edublogs Serendipity Webinar focusing on PBL -- focusing on communication, collaboration, coaching skills, 21st century learning, pedagogy, technology integration, resources, and it gives them another idea for staff development
• December: Midyear reflection
• January: Communication, collaboration, and coaching skills -- focusing on coaching skills
• February: Use student and coaching artifacts to create a video to show others what coaching looks like at AJUSD -- this is using all four focus areas at the highest level of thinking on Bloom's Taxonomy
• March: Reflecting and setting goals for staff development and building learning communities with principals and Year 1 Collaboration Coaches -- focusing on staff development for 2012-2013
• April: Completing, reflecting, and sharing their portfolios
• May: Helping Year 1 Collaboration Coaches reflect by being their audience for their portfolios

Feedback for improvement

Some of the feedback for improvement was repeated by several coaches. I organized them into topics:

Created in xmind

Ideas I'm pondering to improve Collaboration Coaching

I’m brainstorming ideas to improve the coaching based on the feedback from above and our goals. In no way is this list a final draft or even a rough draft. It’s just a brainstorm to collect ideas.

• Time collaborating and learning together: 

• Meet more than one hour a month to bond, share, and learn together.
• Invite continuing coaches to meet the new cohort of coaches, and have them participate in Session 1 -- setting site and individual coaching goals with the principals.
• Join Year 2 and Year 3 coaching cohorts as one learning group.
• Have one day of sub release (or a Teacher In Service Day) to work together on lesson improvement and PBL (either have it for all the Year 2 and Year 3 coaches, or have it for the teams that work together with a coach).

•  Time to go in teachers' rooms:

• Could we give Year 3 coaches an extra prep hour for 7th-12th grades, and K-6th coaches 1 sub day a month or a rotating sub to give the release time?
• What other options are there for allowing teachers to leave their classroom and go into another teacher's room?

• Site Goals--Blogging: Could the principal dedicate staff development to develop a blogging learning community? If not blogging specifically, then authentic learning or 21st century learning, and have blogging as one of the options.

• Site Goals--CCJH: Since there are no longer pure teams, the coaching focus should be on content area for PBL, 21st century learning, and improving lessons. The house team, or team that has the same prep hour focuses on management and digital citizenship.

• Specific Coaching Goals for PBL, 21st Century Learning, Global Collaborations:

• Set a goal each quarter with their coaching team to share with one another. -- Possibly measure that goal by having them reflect with a quick survey to measure their/our progress towards that goal?
• Have site sharing of these goals with the leadership (and staff?).
• Set goals based on ISTE's NETS-S and/or NETS-C.

• Incentives for others to collaborate with coaches on 21st century learning:

• Offer 301 or inservice professional development hours during the contract time, and non-contract hours if outside school day.
• While we still have Career Ladder, have those portfolios options on form to check off during the orientation meeting at the beginning of the year.

• Other ideas:

• Leadership book study: One of the best trainings I had was when Larry LaPrise took me under his wing, and challenged me to read various leadership books. I grew so much from reading a chapter, then debriefing in a quick meeting every week.
• NETS-S: Incorporate ISTE NETS-S or the Learning Activity Checklist into their collaboration logs or into an agenda as a template (I've read many times that their coaching meetings are much more focused when they create and share the agenda ahead of time) -- Which idea would work better?
• Relationships: A fun, informal gathering of coaches to build relationships outside of school time
• Connecting the training from the end of the year reflection to the beginning of the year's setting goals: In the Peer Coaching training, Session 7A has the coaches and principal reflect and set staff development goals, and in Session 1A the coaches and principal set site goals, and then they set personal goals. It didn't seem to flow smoothly into one another because the training is set up for the first year only. So, I'd like to modify to have it fit together better. Suggestions?

• Measuring effectiveness 
• Build NETS-C into goals/reflection.
• Survey Collaboration Coaches on what has worked well and changes for next year.
• I have not asked for feedback from the team being coached and their reflection of the effectiveness.
• Continue to survey Collaboration Coaches on what has worked well and changes for next year.

Final Thoughts

Collaboration Coaching is definitely helping us open doors and support one another as we create 21st century, learning-centered classrooms. Pausing to reflect on the effectiveness of what we've done, and looking ahead to what we can do to improve is necessary.

The purpose of this post is to gain insight from others. Whether you are part of AJUSD or not, I encourage your feedback to help us improve.

• What ideas stand out to you here?
• What questions do you have?
• How would you improve coaching?
• What have I missed?