 Photo by Francesco Gallarotti on Unsplash  I am so delighted to be joining up with Knowledge Source Institute again for this webinar series where we will ask ourselves:
Session 1: Multilingual Mindsets Session 2: Facilitating Language Acquisition Through Content Session 3: Pedagogical Practices Session 4: Facilitating Discourse Register today! I'd love for you to join me.
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I had the pleasure of chatting with Sean and Wes at Smart Data for Schools this week. We chatted about bringing an equity and sociocultural lens to data and assessment. Take a listen!
 Not one but two exciting webinars this month. Delighted to be partnering with Knowledge Source Institute this April 20th. Click here to register! Let's learn together.
Who Should Attend Grade level/content area classroom teachers K-12, EAL Specialists, Instructional Coaches, Curriculum Coordinators, and Leadership Background International school teachers know that “all teachers are language teachers” and must embed explicit language instruction into their context. But what does that exactly look like? Language targets are a keystone element of nurturing the needs of multilingual students learning a new language. Language targets focus on vocabulary, grammar, and discourse needed to be successful in grade level expectations. Workshop Aim This workshop will examine principles of vocabulary, grammar/syntax, and discourse development and provide a toolkit of strategies for participants. Topics Covered
 I'm exciting to be partnering with Knowledge Source Institute this April 8th. Click here to register! Who Should Attend
EAL Specialists and their co-teachers K-12, Instructional Coaches, Curriculum Coordinators, and Leadership Workshop Overview This workshop will explore how strategic co-planning and coteaching is crucial to ensure educational equity for our multilingual learners in international schools. This workshop seeks to facilitate conversations and empower educators to work towards a cotaught classroom where multilingual learners thrive. Topics Covered
 Photo by Yeshi Kangrang on Unsplash Some schools and districts have large coaching departments and are committed to one approach to coaching. They invest deeply in a practice, training their leadership, their coaches, and their teachers in what coaching might look like.
I don't work within a big coaching department. I am a coach of one. Additionally, I've never been one to throw myself fully behind one approach to anything. My brain is thirsty for connecting ideas: finding the intersections of theories and practice from multiple frameworks. Perhaps, this is why I find great joy in being an EAL specialist in cotaught situations. It is a delightful challenge to merge all that we know about second language acquisition to content/grade level outcomes. The same can be said of my coaching. What is grounding my coaching practice? I am constantly seeking the "just right" zone for a coachee between directive and facilitative coaching. This explanation by Elena Aguilar was really helpful for me about when to use which mode. Directive coaching is what many people think coaching is; the coach tells you the strategy and gives you the resource and the coachee tries it. Of course, (I say of course-but really this was a hard earned lesson in my early coaching work) this is minimally effective if it is the default modus operandi. It creates walls that prevent the more vulnerable work of reflection. It doesn't help the perfectionist teacher and can at times breed resentment. Facilitative coaching requires a different set of skills. At the very core its listening deeply and using questions to facilitate thinking. Don't let that fool you though. It's not easy work. In growing my own coaching practice who have I turned to learn from? First, I was so lucky to have the opportunity to take a Cognitive Coaching seminar with Bill and Ochan Powell. I wasn't a coach then, still an EAL co-teacher and curriculum coordinator, so the lessons for me were early. From this I learned about the concepts and moves of pausing, paraphrasing, and questioning. I learned about the idea of self-efficacy and craftsmanship as what we work towards in our coaching conversations. I got to see what it looked like. Later, I learned about the work of Jim Knight, particularly his work around developing an Instructional Playbook and the Impact Cycle. These were the practical moves that created the day-to-day work of coaches. They helped me get organized and get systematic with my approach. I am influenced by the work of Zaretta Hammond. She does not shy away from real conversations around racial equity and their direct connections to classroom instruction. She discusses the coach's role in service of this charge. I'm not interested in any coaching that doesn't develop greater educational equity and doesn't develop a racial literacy lens. She looks deeply at all the opportunities within one lesson to maximize what we know about the brain and our kids. Finally, I am most greatly influenced by the work of Elena Aguilar. Her approach to transformational coaching emphasizes not just building trust, which all the aforementioned models do, but really how the behaviors (ie: instructional decisions) one makes are impacted by beliefs and ways of being. For me, this is infinitely helpful because this type of coaching acknowledges the feelings that come up within coaching conversations. It challenges me to listen to seek to understand in deeper ways. And it is never yielding in looking for the roots of what impacts our day to day decisions as educators. She extends this work to coaching for equity as well. Her work continues to challenge me, as I think about what my coaching is in service of and how to practically keep that at the heart of my day to day. Again, I have never been the type of person to subscribe to one approach or one way of thinking. My brain is thirsty for connections. My coaching practice is grounded in the constant dance of trying to apply all that I have learned. I love witnessing multilingual children thrive in classrooms that facilitate language acquisition while nurturing deep intellectual curiosity while tending to social emotional needs, while being just playful. This reminds me of why I coach. Making space for educators to pause, reflect, strategize, and find (or rekindle) their joy is a great privilege. |
