Episode Notes: -Teacher, H.S. Administrator, worked for the State Department in Kentucky, and a middle and high school expert, and worked nationally with schools on instructional improvement and instructional leadership. -Coaching Redefined Book- instructional leaders can have a guide book of how to set it up effectively and all of the components that go into it: growing yourself to growing your school and thinking of the culture of the school. It came from a desire to make it work and from real...
May 01, 2025•47 min•Ep. 18
Episode Notes: -Education is what Christian’s journey revolves around. “I am most passionate about education. I want to imagine a time when everyone has access to excellent education.” That is what motivates him. He has reflected on how access to excellent education has impacted him, given him more opportunities, and his journey. -Discovering coaching was a transformational moment for me. Coaching is the most respectful way to support people’s learning and professional development. And it's the ...
Apr 03, 2025•45 min•Season 6Ep. 8
Episode Notes: -Served in a wealth of roles within education from teaching, coaching, to administration. -Contract work for curriculum companie and Senior Consultant for Learning Forward -Mentoring Program through Learning Forward- a learning cycle with three parts. 1. Diagnose 2. Coaching Support 3. Monitoring Progress and Reflect -The mentors only goal is to help the mentee grow professionally. You have to communicate effectively through listening, paraphrasing, questioning, and giving quality...
Mar 06, 2025•35 min•Season 6Ep. 7
Episode Notes: -High Tech High- PBL Based Leader -International Educator to move from teacher focused to student focused learning. -Moving from sage on the stage to the guide on the side. Where do you start? Look at the physical environment first. Eliminating the ‘front’ of the classroom and teacher desk, which changes the dynamics in the room. It makes any space in the room a learning space. -Have students help in the redesign process around what their needs are, the environment dictates what t...
Feb 06, 2025•31 min•Ep. 17
Episode Notes: -Thomas has had a wealth of experience teaching middle school and high school. Then he went to graduate school at the University of Chicago. He worked with Benjamin Bloom. He has had the amazing opportunity to learn from such remarkable minds as this. -We have to give credit to those brilliant people who came before us. Tom worked with Chicago Public School as a Curriculum Evaluator and the Director of Research and Development. Then he moved into a university position at the Unive...
Jan 09, 2025•53 min•Ep. 16
Jim Knight is a founding senior partner of the Instructional Coaching Group (ICG) and a research associate at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. He has spent more than two decades studying professional learning, effective teaching, and instructional coaching. Knight has written several books and his articles on instructional coaching have been included in publications such as The Journal of Staff Development, Principal Leadership, The School Administrator, and Teachers Tea...
Dec 05, 2024•38 min•Season 5Ep. 5
Carol Ann Tomlinson is William Clay Parrish, Jr. Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education and Human Development. Prior to joining the faculty at UVa, she was a public school teacher for 21 years. During that time, she taught students in high school, preschool, and middle school, and administered district programs for struggling and advanced learners. She was Virginia’s Teacher of the Year in 1974. Carol was named Outstanding Professor at Curry in 2004 and rece...
Nov 07, 2024•45 min•Ep. 15
Coaching is intentionally building skills, showing and modeling best practices, and intentionally training people to be better. -His work has been in some of the most difficult zip codes to work in. They see coaching in more of a model practice. They define clear directions. -Sky Rocket Your Teacher Coaching ( Skyrocket Education and Rebel Culture ) -Intentionally building the relationship, and finding out about them as a person, realizing there is an amazing human here. Their perceived resistan...
Oct 03, 2024•35 min•Season 6Ep. 3
There is nothing more powerful that we can do, than knowing our own selves. When we know ourselves, we know how our past affects our present, and forms our vision for the future, and we are so much more empowered! -Lonely and isolated, she entered into the profession feeling unsure of what she was doing. Belonging and acceptance was the core, as well as building community. That commitment continued in coaching, as a leader, and now as a facilitator of learning spaces. It is one continuous thread...
Sep 05, 2024•37 min•Season 6Ep. 2
-Coaching is seeing a person who is carrying the weight of life, and finding their way. This model is so respectful. It is about people making progress and positive changes. -Every industry needs coaching. -An expert is the person who experimented and failed the most. Seeing people as the experts in their lives. -Dialogic Orientation Quadrant ( DOQ) - organizes the content you are listening to. Its function is to map the conversation. Utilizing a time line and a preference line to map what you h...
Aug 08, 2024•42 min•Season 6Ep. 1
-Art and Bob have worked together for over 40 years at California State University at Sacramento. Cognitive Coaching was born through this relationship. ‘We have these things in common, let's talk further.’ -A coach is used in many different ways, typically in an athletic realm. There is a distinction between these types of coaches and cognitive coaches. A coach is a person who, alongside the person being coached, helps mediate between the person and the experience. The coach helps the coachee p...
May 02, 2024•47 min•Season 5Ep. 9
-Connections Over Compliance- Our nervous systems are social systems. The educational system consists of us being with other people all the time. COVID created a huge social loss. It is even more relevant in this time. -Attachment builds the brain. “We work for people we like; we respect people who respect us.”- Rita Pearson -Touchpoints where you resonated with each other, student and teacher. It was through relationship and discipline. Relationships are key to making forward progress. - Trauma...
Apr 04, 2024•28 min•Season 5Ep. 9
Tricia McKale Show Notes: -Preparedness meets lucky opportunities - Middle school teacher turned Instructional Collaborator via Jim Knight. -Working with adults with a lot of trial and a lot of error. Found that the behavior management system was getting in the way of us doing instructional coaching. Behavior is where my life is at and I was a Tier 3 student in school. -C.H.A.M.P.S. - Conversation. Help, Activity, Movement, Participation, Success. Think about different modes of learning througho...
Mar 07, 2024•50 min•Season 5Ep. 8
Sherry St. Clair is the founder of Reflective Learning LLC, an educational consulting agency based in Kentucky. Her organization works with schools around the world, creating specialized training and coaching services for school administrators and educators. She holds a master’s degree in Instructional Leadership and a Rank 1 in Instructional Supervision. Sherry has served as a Senior Consultant for the International Center for Leadership in Education and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. As an interna...
Feb 01, 2024•31 min•Season 5Ep. 6
-Leading Impact Teams: Building a Culture of Efficacy and Agency -New book - we wanted to share more of the explicit ‘how', as well as making sure equity is up front and present in this edition. It is infused with culturally responsive sustaining education practices that are asset based, where we look at assessments through the theme of culture. We all have different cultures and are coming together in a classroom. We can honor the cultures of the different people within our classrooms or we can...
Jan 04, 2024•44 min•Season 5Ep. 6
-Building thinking classrooms- around the notion that students spend time in classrooms not thinking. Many structures are not designed for thinking, and instead for conformity and compliance. 15 years of research before the book, and the research continues. -One of the least conducive places to have students do thinking is at their seat writing in their notebook, but one of the most conducive spaces for students to do thinking is standing in random groups of three, at a whiteboard or something v...
Dec 07, 2023•53 min•Season 5Ep. 5
Gretchen is a National Board-certified elementary school teacher from Charlotte, NC. In 2006, Gretchen received her bachelor’s degree at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. In 2010, she received her master’s degree in Curriculum and Supervision from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Gretchen taught grades 2, 3, and 5 before transitioning into the role of a New Teacher Development Coach for The New Teacher Project [TNTP]. During this time, she also published her first book for ...
Nov 02, 2023•38 min•Season 5Ep. 4
Adam Geller is the founder of Edthena and author of Evidence-Based Practice. He started his career in education as a science teacher in St. Louis, Missouri. Since 2011, Adam has overseen the evolution of Edthena from a paper-based prototype into a research-informed and patented platform used by schools, districts, teacher training programs, and professional development providers. Adam has written on educational technology topics from various publications, including Education Week, Forbes, and Ed...
Oct 05, 2023•35 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Learner Agency: A Field Guide for Taking Flight is a boots-on-the-ground resource for those who wish to foster greater agency for students and adults alike within their classroom, school, or school system. Written by practitioners who have experienced the triumphs and struggles first-hand, the book offers a framework for moving from building knowledge to making meaning and applying the understanding of practices and systems that support agency. -Aspired to write this book based on our common wor...
Sep 07, 2023•45 min•Ep. 14
Suzanne Dailey is an instructional coach in the Central Bucks School District, where she has the honor and joy of working with over 500 elementary teachers and 8,000 students. She teaches model lessons, facilitates professional development sessions, and mentors teachers to be the best for the students in front of them. Suzanne is Nationally Board Certified, a fellow of the National Writing Project, and has a Masters Degree in Reading. She is dedicated to nurturing and developing the whole child ...
Aug 03, 2023•33 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Nita Creekmore is an Instructional Coach who lives just outside Atlanta, GA. In the 19 years, she has been in education, she truly believes that in all aspects of the field, relationships must always come first. She has obtained a Bachelor’s in English, Master’s in Elementary Education, and Educational Specialist in Supervision & Leadership. She currently works for Bright Morning Consulting as a Presenter. Nita is also an Instructional Coach Consultant through her business, Love Teach Bless,...
May 04, 2023•29 min•Season 4Ep. 10
Keith Young is an education coach, trainer, and writer. Keith was raised in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains of northern Alabama. After a short stint at seminary, he pivoted to teaching secondary students for the U.S. government in Germany. In his first years of teaching, he developed a knack for leading and training colleagues. Eventually, Keith shifted full-time to training teachers and leading school improvement efforts at the school district level. Later, he became a principal, lea...
Mar 30, 2023•28 min•Season 4Ep. 9
Starr Sackstein has been an educator for 20 years and is currently a full-time educational consultant, instructional coach, and speaker. Starr received National Board Certification in 2012 and was recognized as an outstanding educator that year by Education Update. Association and served as the New York State Director for JEA. She was named an ASCD "Emerging Leader" class of 2016 and had the opportunity to give a TEDx Talk called "A Recovering Perfectionist's Journey to Give Up Grades" and has s...
Mar 02, 2023•32 min•Season 4Ep. 8
Michelle Harris, Senior Consultant at Instructional Coaching Group (ICG) has spent almost three decades as an educator, starting as a Special Education Paraprofessional in Salt Lake City, Utah before completing her Masters in Teaching at Pacific University and teaching middle school in El Cajon, CA and Beaverton, OR. She served as an instructional coach for teachers and students in a comprehensive 6-8 middle school as well as a K-8 school. She then became an administrator in a 6-12 IB school, an...
Feb 04, 2023•38 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Episode Notes: -Lindsay comes from a family of educators. Lindsay’s first coach was trained in Jim Knight’s Instructional Coaching and she was asked to replace her years later. She had the opportunity to go to Kansas to learn from the Instructional Coaching Group. She found her passion for coaching in this time. -Lindsay is very connected with Jim Knight's work. She also has bounced back and forth from coaching to the classroom and back again. She purposefully chose to go back to the classroom i...
Jan 05, 2023•31 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Valentina Gonzalez, the co-author of Reading & Writing with English Learners: A Framework for K-5, is a longtime educator who has served 20+ years in education in her own classroom, as a district facilitator for English learners, a professional development specialist for ELs, and as a consultant. Her work’s primary focus has been on literacy, culture, and language. Valentina delivers professional development and works with teachers of multilingual to support language acquisition and literacy...
Dec 01, 2022•30 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Matt Renwick is an elementary principal in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. Previously he served as an assistant principal, athletic director, coach, and classroom teacher in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. Matt was recognized as a Friend of Literacy by the Wisconsin State Reading Association in 2020 and received the Kohl Leadership Award in 2021. His books include 5 Myths About Classroom Technology: How do we integrate digital tools to truly enhance learning? (ASCD, 2016), Digital Portfolios in the Class...
Nov 03, 2022•35 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Dr. Nathan D. Lang-Raad is an educator, speaker, and author. He is the Vice President of Strategy at Savvas Learning. Throughout his career, he has served as a teacher, elementary school administrator, high school administrator, and university adjunct professor. He was the Director of Elementary Curriculum and Instruction for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, as well as education supervisor at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. He was also the Chief Education Officer at WeVideo. He serves as the ...
Oct 06, 2022•23 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Episode Notes: -Student Centered Mentoring Book: Keeping Students at the Heart of New Teachers’ Learning -4 Core Beliefs for Success: Empower others to grow, Learning is Process and so is Teaching, Relying on others, and Setting Goals as well as keep trying. -Student Centered Mentoring - a collaborative approach for mentors and mentees that focuses heavily on the impact of students’ learning with layers of support. -More focus on what students are doing as opposed to the more traditional watchin...
Sep 01, 2022•33 min•Season 4Ep. 2
-The PD Book: 7 Habits that Transform Professional Development by Elena Aguilar and Lori Cohen The PD Book -This book grew organically out of leading PD and reflecting on leading PD. It felt like the next thing to work on and bring to the front. -Imagining PD like a party - wanting PD to not be draining, but instead enlivening, exciting, and nourishing. What if PD could feel more like a party or a gathering or experience when you connect with people? Where are you energized? -There is so much in...
Aug 04, 2022•38 min•Season 4Ep. 1
