Sunday, August 26, 2012

Welcome!

Welcome to my first adventure in blogging!
My decision to begin blogging about my pedagogical ideas and those of others coincides with the beginning of a new career path for me. After 12 years in the classroom (as a secondary ELA department head), I am now an instructional coach for a public school district in a suburb of Boston, MA. Instructional coaching has been a dream job for me ever since I began the doctoral program at Northeastern University three years ago. Since then, I have learned a lot about this up-and-coming position in school districts nationwide. The professional development opportunities that instructional coaching affords are exciting!
In the district I'll be working in, instructional coaching is for everyone, be it a teacher in his or her first year or in his or her fortieth year. Teachers will be electing to work with me on goals formulated by them and for their classrooms. What is most exciting to me about instructional coaching is that it is truly authentic, job-embedded professional development that differs greatly from the types of "one-shot" workshops teachers have been used to. Instead of attending a two-hour workshop and then being left alone to try out a new teaching strategy or innovation (amidst all the other day-to-day concerns and decisions teaching presents), teachers who choose to work with an instructional coach (in this case, me!) will have support throughout the duration of their implementation of a new strategy in their classroom.
This support can include the following: reflecting, creating, and thinking together; modeling new strategies; observing (as a second set of eyes, not as an evaluator); gathering and collaboratively exploring classroom data; and preparing materials, easing the transition into a new teaching strategy. Teachers can choose to collaborate with me one-on-one or in teams. And what will we collaborate on? The possibilities are endless: classroom management, unit planning, essential questions, Understanding by Design, differentiated instruction, Response to Intervention, authentic assessment, formative assessment, interdisciplinary units, project-based learning . . .
It is these matters of pedagogy (as listed above) that I'll blog about here. I'm sure that as I begin and continue my work instructionally coaching and collaborating with teachers, I will find myself constantly reflecting on such pedagogical and instructional issues. This blog will be a forum to share my reflections.