Coaching Leaders

What do you do when you want to get better at something? 

Practice?

Study?

Train?

Ask for help from the experts?

That’s right.  As Linn-Mar rolled out our plan for leadership, we knew what we needed as a strong foundation:    coaching and training future coaches to help build capacity and promote change within our schools.  To help us head down the right path, we did a little research and found Chrysann McBride from Thinking Collaborative, an organization known for great training and coaching. 

The mission of Cognitive Coaching^SM is to produce self-directed persons with the cognitive capacity for excellence both independently and as members of a community. Research indicates that teaching is a complex intellectual activity and that teachers who think at higher levels produce students who are higher achieving, more cooperative, and better problem solvers. It is the invisible skills of teaching, the thinking processes that underlie instructional decisions, which produce superior instruction. Cognitive Coaching^SM is a research-based model that capitalizes upon and enhances teachers’ cognitive processes. 

Forty-one staff members, comprised of administrators, district leaders, teacher leaders, and classroom teachers participated in the eight days of training. 

In the eight-day seminar, participants learned how to build trust and rapport, developed tools and conversation structures for planning, reflecting and problem resolving.  Participants worked on developing higher levels of efficacy, consciousness, craftsmanship, flexibility and interdependence.  There was also heavy emphasis coaching, evaluating, consulting, and collaborating.  Participants worked extensively on utilizing the coaching tools of pausing, paraphrasing, and posing questions.

These skills will be invaluable to building capacity and changing the climate and culture of our schools.  We are fired up about our experiences and look forward to continued practice in coaching to help our staff continue to:

 Inspire Learning.  Unlock Potential.  Empower Achievement.