Over the past four years as an Instructional Coach, I sent out monthly newsletters to the teachers with which I worked. I collected all sorts of resources for them in a Wakelet collection throughout the month, then sent a link in an email at the beginning of the month, then began collecting resources for the next month. I loved doing this! Each teacher (or team) sets student achievement goals for their classroom (or grade level). I would try to incorporate their goal in my searches so I could help them in meeting their goals. Wakelet is great for newsletters, as you can set up columns, one for each category. You can then place links under each category. Here's the last Wakelet newsletter I sent out in May/June. If you'd like to see my whole collection, here's a link to that. And, if you'd like more information about how you could use Wakelet with your students, there are a lot of possibilities! Here is a link to their page on Wakelet for Education. If you scroll to the bottom, you'll find even more goodies! Enjoy!
Thursday, June 22, 2023
Monday, May 29, 2023
It's been a hot minute since I posted! In August of 2019 I took a position as an Instructional Coach within my school district. I love my job working with our amazing teachers! I get to observe them in their classroom and reflect with them, reminding them of all the great things they are doing with their students!
Cognitive coaching is definitely a skill which took time to get used to, and some teachers really prefer to have a more direct approach - tell me what I did which was good, and what I need to improve upon. Cognitive Coaching is more than that. It's about having teachers reflect on their own practice, getting them to see those skills for themselves. Unfortunately, our schedules are so tight, it's hard to do coaching justice in the amount of time we have.
One of my favorite parts of my job is to share with others what I've seen in other classrooms. We do Peer Visits in our district. Our certified staff are required to do 1 peer visit, and then have an optional 2nd Peer Visit (this is all part of our Q Comp system). When teachers ask who they should visit, I ask them what they want to improve on in their practice. Because I visit around 110 people, I have a lot of amazing people for them to observe from birth through fifth grade!
I will try to continue updating what I've been working on as an instructional coach over the next few weeks. It's been a busy four years!
I hope you're having a great day!
Best,
Gloriann