Improving teaching and learning is a complex task. Shifts in instructional models, new standards and a lack of time drive educators and school districts to find new ways to help teachers grow their practice.
Rebekah Kim, principal of Midway Elementary School in the Highline Public Schools district in Burien, Wash., faced a similar challenge: How to maintain the sacredness of her time with teachers, while providing meaningful, personalized feedback to grow teaching practice.
Together with the University of Washington Center for Educational Leadership (CEL), the school district developed job-embedded coaching and an inquiry cycle process among its school leaders, principal supervisors, and instructional coaches to identify the most pressing improvement needs and to provide structures for support.
In the May/June 2016 issue of Principal magazine, CEL Project Directors Donna Anderson-Davis and Diane Smith show how coaching as a collaborative, strengths-based process combined with inquiry cycle structure can be a powerful tool to support leadership development.
Topics: Teaching Effectiveness, Classroom Coaching, Instructional Leadership, Inquiry Cycle
