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How Teachers Can Be Their Own Best Coaches

How Teachers Can Be Their Own Best Coaches

Source: Getting Smart

Phenomenal-Friday-Teacher-of-the-Week

 

By Dr. Kandace Bethea

I’m the superintendent of Marion County School District, a rural district with low income and high unemployment compared to neighboring communities. We are surrounded by communities with wealthier tax bases and the ability to pay teachers higher salaries than we are. More generally, our state tends to struggle at producing college graduates with teaching degrees. Taken all together, it creates a situation in which it’s very difficult to recruit highly-qualified teachers into the district.

But when you ask people what’s important to them about their job, they don’t always say “money.” Often times they care a lot more about the climate and culture of their workplace and, while we may not be able to pay teachers more, we can create an environment they want to be in, where they know we’re building capacity, and where they see opportunities for growth.

Here are a few creative ways we’ve been working to bring our instructional coaching into the future, with help from a Department of Education Teacher and School Leader Incentive Program Grant, by changing the way we look at developing our teaching staff, from recruitment through professional development, to ensure our district is an environment where teachers can grow.

Increased Structure for PLCs

In the past, our professional learning community meetings were somewhat unstructured. They would often turn into staff meetings or department or grade-level meetings. To help PLCs focus a bit more, we’ve adopted the Supporting Teacher Effectiveness Project (STEP) model. STEP is teacher-driven and designed to help educators identify effective innovative practices within their own schools and districts, then encourage wider adoption.

The new framework does provide structure and focus, but the teachers still own those meetings and the process. We believe it’s important to give teachers autonomy because they’re the ones who best know what is going on in their classes and where the challenges and bright spots are. When you give them the power to make decisions and share positive practices with one another, you allow collaboration to flourish.

To read the entire article, visit Getting Smart.