Professional Development
If you are interested in learning more about this content area, but don’t know where to begin or would like a suggestion, take a look at these items recommended by our staff:
The Impact Cycle: What Instructional Coaches Should Do to Foster Powerful Improvements in Teaching
When it comes to improving practice, few professional texts can rival the impact felt by Jim Knight’s Instructional Coaching. For hundreds of thousands of educators, Jim bridged the long-standing divide between staff room and classroom offering up a much a more collaborative, respectful, and efficient PD model for achieving instructional excellence. Now, one decade of research and hundreds of in-services later, Jim takes that work a significant step further with The Impact Cycle: an all-new instructional coaching cycle to help teachers and, in turn, their students improve in clear, measurable ways. Quintessential Jim, The Impact Cycle comes loaded with every possible tool to help you reach your coaching goals, starting with a comprehensive video program, robust checklists, and a model Instructional Playbook. Quickly, you’ll learn how to \* Interact and dialogue with teachers as partners\* Guide teachers to identify emotionally compelling, measurable, and student-focused goals\* Set coaching goals, plan strategies, and monitor progress for optimal impact\* Use documentary-style video and text-based case studies as models to promote maximum teacher clarity and proactive problem solving\* Streamline teacher enrollment, data collection, and deep listening\Jim writes, “When we grow, improve, and learn, when we strive to become a better version of ourselves, we tap into something deep in ourselves that craves that kind of growth.” Read The Impact Cycle and soon you’ll discover how you can continually refine your practice to help teachers and students realize their fullest potential.
Stop Leading, Start Building: Turn Your School Into a Success Story with the People and Resources You Already Have
Each year, Robyn R. Jackson helps thousands of administrators stop wasting time and energy on flawed leadership approaches that succeed only with the right staff, students, parents, budget, and boss. As they have discovered, it's possible to transform your school with the people and resources you already have. The secret? Stop leading and start building! In this book, you'll learn to use Jackson's breakthrough Buildership Model™ to escape the "school improvement hamster wheel" and finally create the school your students and teachers deserve. The work involves a few simple shifts in how you approach your school's purpose, people, pathway, and plan. Get back to the basics!
The PD Curator: How to Design Peer-to-Peer Professional Learning That Elevates Teachers and Teaching
One of the best ways to learn how to be a better teacher is by watching, listening to, and experimenting with the practices of great teachers, including those in your own school. The PD Curator is about how professional learning experiences can become more inclusive, participatory, cohesive, and effective—and about the role teachers and leaders can play in creating those experiences. The practical tools and protocols in each chapter will help you plan professional learning that taps into the expertise and interests of a diverse staff. Canned sessions that don't connect with teachers' actual needs will be a thing of the past. Instead, you'll discover ways to support teachers in sharing ideas and trying out new practices that advance student learning. In doing so, you'll empower teachers and students alike.
The Distance Learning Playbook for School Leaders: Leading for Engagement & Impact In Any Setting
Effective school leadership is effective leadership, regardless of where it occurs. In March 2020, there was no manual for leading schools and school systems during a pandemic. School leaders had to figure things out as the crisis unfolded. But starting now, leaders have the opportunity to prepare for leading schools through distance learning with purpose and intent--using what works best to accelerate students' learning all the while maintaining an indelible focus on equity. Harnessing the insights and experience of renowned educators Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie, The Distance Learning Playbook for School Leaders applies the wisdom and evidence of the VISIBLE LEARNING research to understand what works best.
The Instructional Playbook: The Missing Link for Translating Research into Practice
In schools, every day is "game day." Every day, teachers need the best resources and forms of support because students deserve the best we as educators can offer. An instructional playbook aims to serve as that kind of support: a tool that coaches can use to help teachers match specific learning goals with the right research-based instructional strategies. Coaches have enormous potential to help teachers learn and implement new teaching practices, but coaches will be effective only if they deeply understand the strategies they describe and their explanations are clear. The Instructional Playbook: The Missing Link for Translating Research into Practice addresses both issues head on and offers a simple and clear explanation of how to create a playbook uniquely designed to meet teachers' instructional needs.