Wednesday 11 July 2012

Learning Coaches for Professional Development

I'm thrilled to hear my district is increasing the amount of learning coaches!  Long term relationships, with skilled teachers focused on long term goals, for increasing student achievement, using classroom and district data, is the best model for children and teachers.  Literacy coaches, as a research-based model,  show improvement in student learning and teacher effectiveness, when followed with children and teachers guiding the way.  In the Collaborative coaching modeled designed by learning experts Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, master teachers move to a higher level of instructive specialization.


"Educators involved in the Literacy Collaborative program say that emphasis on developing in-school expertise helps foster instructional coherence and focus. . . As an instructional program, the Literacy Collaborative is oriented around intensive lessons and purposeful teacher-student interactions. Its framework requires schools to schedule daily 2½ hour literacy blocks, with the time divided between word-study instruction and reading and writing workshops. Rebora, Anthony."Turning Teachers into Coaches" Education Week. February 29, 2012, July 11, 2012. 


The literacy coaches in our district are getting professional development from the TCRWP Teachers College Reading and Writing Project.  The information they will have to build on will be invaluable for my school district as we look toward implementation of the CCSS (Common Core State Standards) and differentiating our instruction to meet the needs of our diverse students. 

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