Coaching as a School Leader

Coaching as a School Leader

Can school administrators also be coaches? The short answer is “yes” but with certain caveats. Our job as leaders is to develop our people, and coaching is a big part of that. And yet we also have the role of evaluator. How do we reconcile the two tasks of coaching...

When Lesson Plans Flop in the Classroom

When Lesson Plans Flop in the Classroom

I'm willing to bet that if you’ve ever been a teacher for more than, say…a week, then you’ve seen a lesson plan fail spectacularly. One of my personal favorite lesson plan failures involves my apparent inability to count two-digit numbers: I tried to put the kids in...

CoachFest 2021 Was Just What the Doctor Ordered

CoachFest 2021 Was Just What the Doctor Ordered

Many of us, especially those of us in education, were hoping the pandemic would be behind us by now. We cancelled CoachFest in 2020 and weren’t sure we would even be able to host the event this year, but we kept hearing the message, “We need this.” So with limited...

Cold-Calling is Awkward and Amazing

Cold-Calling is Awkward and Amazing

I started cold-calling at the recommendation of a teacher down the hall. He was a Chemistry teacher who used popsicle sticks to guarantee equity in calling on students in his classroom, and it seemed like an awesome idea to me. One immediate roadblock I encountered...