Who Learns Most?

 

So, who learns the most in a school?

Is it high academic students who focus so hard on excellence and achievement?

Is it struggling students with their smaller class sizes and differentiated support?

Is it the new teacher who is planning the night before just to keep her/his head above the water?

A good case can be made for all of the above.  Personally, I think there is a new contender in the mix.  As the  educational world begins to see the importance of collaboration and collegiality in the development of teachers, as PLCs meet, plan and refocus their thinking on teaching and learning and as teachers take on the challenge of transforming the way we approach curriculum delivery, many schools have moved towards an Instructional Coaching model.  There is the person that I think has the lead in learning in a school.

Instructional Coaches have the largest opportunity to learn simply due to the fact that they have the great advantage to work with teachers, shoulder to shoulder throughout the day.  As they sit in the back of classrooms gathering data, co-plan lessons with their colleagues or research new initiatives in education to explore with the staffs, they are exposed to greatness of thought and practice. They watch master teachers as they explore the curriculum with their children. They build a synergetic bond with their colleagues as they build lessons together to increase student engagement and achievement. They delve into how to best get kids to think critically, act morally and problem solve practically.  There is a lot of learning going on in their lives.

If that is the case, which I believe it to be, what can we learn from this to bring to the table to improve our own learning as teachers as well as to our students?  Instructional coaches work in collaboration – do we? Do our students? Instructional coaches ask questions of those they work with – do we? Do our students? Instructional Coaches find the best way to solve problems, not the quickest.  Do we look for rich solutions to our classroom issues?  Do students look rigorously at the issues that are presented in their curriculums?

I have great respect for Instructional Coaches.  They are hard working, engaging, and life-long learners.  It’s the best gig in the world.  And, at the end of the day, they affect students.

Keep on learning,

Dave

 

Interesting Reads

Mindsets - Carol Dweck
Teaching Boys who struggle in School - Kathleen Palmer Cleveland
Drive - Daniel Pink
Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell

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