Teacher-to-Teacher: Coaching, Collaborating, Consulting, and Calibrating Skills for Improving Practice

Designed for educators whose role is to develop and expand instructional and content expertise in others, this seminar series offers practical tools, specific templates, and technical tips for developing learning-focused relationships between professional colleagues.

Topics Include:

Being growth agents not change agents

Define and enhance the colleague-to-colleague support relationship by developing skills to respectfully promote adult learning and work through resistance to changes in practice. Learn how to balance three functions of learning-focused relationships; offering support, creating challenge, and facilitating professional vision to promote teacher growth and development. Learn how to transfer expertise, encourage experimentation, and develop habits of reflection in the teachers you support.

Navigating a Continuum of Interaction

Develop the verbal and non-verbal tools for skillfully navigating a continuum of interaction from coaching (a non-judgmental interaction which promotes reflection and develops professional capacity), to collaborating (shared planning and problem-solving), to consulting (sharing expertise and providing technical assistance), to calibrating (framing expectations, clarifying standards, and articulating success criteria).

Applying templates for learning-focused conversations

Employ templates to guide conversations that engage teachers of all experience levels with instructional planning, reflecting and problem-solving. Learn to use time-effective structures in one-to-one and small group interactions that focus conversations, maintain momentum and develop targeted thinking skills.

Providing feedback

Develop methods for standards-driven conversations that provide feedback to improve instructional practice. Learn how to foster teachers’ capacities for self-assessment and increase your skills and confidence with using data to structure and facilitate difficult conversations about tough to talk about issues.