Creating a Coaching Culture

How would you describe the culture of your school? How did your school arrive at this culture? Organizations of all sizes and types exhibit their own culture, which is developed intentionally or perhaps by default or inattention, or past practices. Realizing the importance of intentionally creating a culture of openness, engagement, fairness, trust, and reflective practices is…

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Perfecting our Reflective Feedback

Some of the most compelling reasons to practice reflective feedback come from the TNTP study called The Irreplaceables, which focuses on the real retention crisis:  failure to retain the right teachers. The study’s conclusions demand our attention with regard to feedback. Defined, the irreplaceables are “teachers who are so successful they are nearly impossible to…

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Choosing When to Give Feedback

As educators, our days are full of opportunities for giving reflective feedback. Typically, one of two situations appears as the time for giving feedback. One is the cycle of listen and give feedback; the other is observe and give feedback. Both are opportunities for growth. Listen and Give Feedback. Listening and giving feedback is an…

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Moving “Listen For” to a Paraphrase

The ezine this month concluded with the reminder of what we “Listen For”: What the person wants Emotion Passion Options, possibilities, potential What is already working Reframes Negative to Positive Problem to Solution Complaint to Commitment Now, let’s put “listen for” together with paraphrasing which we learned in our first book. We learned three kinds of…

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Shifting Conceptual Thinking through a Paraphrase

Earlier this month, you practiced how Listening For can be paraphrased by acknowledging or clarifying what the person wants or by summarizing or organizing the thinking of the person. This practice will focus on the third kind of paraphrase – shifting conceptual thinking which has the potential to accelerate and advance the movement of another’s thinking.…

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