Pennsylvania Institute for Instructional Coaching — A Partnership Between the Annenberg Foundation and the Pennsylvania Department of Education
How Can a New Coach Build a Culture of Learning? PDF Print E-mail

By IU PIIC Mentors Cindy Shaffer and Teri Everett

Congratulations!  Your building administrator has just informed you that you will be an instructional coach for the 2014-15 school year.  The good news is Pennsylvania has a powerful network that supports instructional coaching across the state called The Pennsylvania Institute for Instructional Coaching (PIIC).

PIIC defines the role of an instructional coach as “someone whose chief professional responsibility is to bring evidence-based practices into classrooms by working with teachers and other school leaders.”

In your new role as an instructional coach, you will work with your administrator to build a shared vision and an action plan for what a culture of learning will look like in your school.  Once you create the vision and plan, you will need to share it with your staff so that they have clear expectations on how each of them will play a role in executing this plan.

How will you know you're successful?

  • Your colleagues will see you as a valuable contributor to the facilitation of leadership capacity across your school.
  • Your colleagues embrace the idea that they have a collective responsibility for improving literacy and student learning.
  • Your colleagues participate and contribute to one-on-one and small group job-embedded professional development that is on-going and sustained.
  • Your colleagues collect, analyze, and use data on a regular basis and collaborate on the results to inform instructional decisions.
  • Your colleagues begin to make significant changes in their instructional practices.
  • You and your colleagues engage in the regular practice of using the B, D, A (Before, During, After) cycle of planning, assessment and reflection.
  • You and your colleagues consistently engage in conversations and questions around instruction and learning that are evidence-based and non-evaluative.  

Take a moment to reflect on this statement by Dr. Lourdes Ferrer.  “The days for ‘heroes’ are over.  What we need now are Dream Teams.  Individual teachers alone can’t take an entire school to proficiency.  This kind of endeavor requires an entire faculty.”

Dream teams aren’t built overnight.  An effective PIIC coach can be an asset to an administrator who has this vision, a teacher who has a desire to grow professionally, and a school system that sets high expectations for all.  

Make no mistake, your role as an instructional coach will be challenging, but with support from your administrators, your PIIC mentor, and a powerful PA coaching network you will find that it will be extremely rewarding as you become an integral partner in building the ‘dream team’ who embraces and values a culture of learning..

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