Instructional Coaching Conference 2009

The details for next year's Instructional Coaching Conference are coming together.  The conference will be hosted at the Eldridge Hotel and Liberty Hall in Lawrence, Kansas on October 12, 13, and 14. So I thought I'd share some information here.  First off, I'm thrilled to share (in no particular order) that Stephen Barkley author of Quality Teaching in a Culture of Coaching , Gary Bloom  author of Blended Coaching and Powerful Partnerships, MC Moran author of Differentiated Literacy Coaching ,and Mary Vreeman and Cheryl Jones authors of Instructional Coaches and Classroom Teachers  have all agreed to present at next year's conference. Additionally, we plan to include a track of presentations called Coaches Sharing with Coaches, where the Pathways to Success coaches will share their experiences using the the Big Four Comprehensive Model for Improving Instruction (my next book after Partnership Learning).  Beta versions of all the tools will be given away at the conference; many are already up, and more will be posted as they are created.  The formative assessment tool manual is going up next week.  If you check back soon, you'll be able to download it.

Other topics to be covered include Culturally Responsive Instructional Coaching, Research on Instructional Coaching (if you are interested in presenting your research please let me know), Twitterpalooza (where Twitter folks from around the country share ideas and talk about expanding our network of coaches through Twitter ) as well as a series of Pecha Kucha presentations given by coaches. Pecha Kucha presentations are ones that where the presenter is allowed to use 20 images each shown for 20 seconds. You can learn more about Pecha Kucha here, or see a Daniel Pink Pecha Kucha here.  If you'd like to give one of these presentations, please contact me jimknight@mac.com, as the Kansas Coaching Project will waive the conference fees for all presenters.   

There will be more news soon, but I am very excited about this information and wanted to get the word out. I should add that each year our conference sells out by August, and we will get the application up online by next Friday.  

What is Instructional Coaching Institute Level 2

Some of you have asked about Instructional Coaching Institute Level 2, so I've included a quick description below.  On October 15 on our website we will be releasing new tools for coaching these practices and you'll be able to download them for free.

Instructional Coaching Institute Level II has been created for coaches and other educators who wish to deepen their knowledge of coaching tools and teaching practices that improve teaching practices in the Big Four areas of instruction—classroom management, content planning, intensive explicit and constructivist instruction, and assessment for learning. Participants   in this institute will learn high-leverage teaching practices that coaches can share with teachers to have a quick, powerful, positive impact on instruction and ultimately student achievement.

This session will cover

·       Classroom management teaching practices such as developing and teaching expectations, improving praise to correction ratios of interaction, increasing students’ opportunities to respond, correcting students fluently, and increasing time-on-task

·       Content planning teaching practices that include developing essential questions for lessons, units, and courses, and developing lesson, unit, and course maps to provide a living study guide for students

·       Instruction--Intensive explicit teaching practices are designed to ensure students master essential information, strategies and proceedures. These teaching practices include pretest, describing content, learning by watching, sharing, practicing, post-tests, and generalization.

·       Instruction--constructivist teaching practices are designed to ensure students master construct their own understanding of information, strategies or procedures being learned. These teaching practices include cooperative learning, project-based learning, thinking device, high-level questioning (HLQs), reflection learning, and stories.

·       Assessment for learning—teaching practices empower teachers and students to carefully monitor student learning and progress.   These practices involve identifying teaching targets, developing propositions, identifying and implementing checks for understanding.

3rd Annual Coaching Conference

Third Annual Instructional Coaching Conference: Perspectives on Coaching
October 13- 15, 2007

This year’s Instructional Coaching Conference will be a three-day event celebrating Coaching: Approaches and Perspectives a new book I'm lucky enough to edit and which will be released at the conference. Coaching: Approaches and Perspectives contains chapters written by a veritable “who’s who” of leaders in the fields of coaching research and study providing their perspectives on what coaching is and what it can be. Almost all of the authors of Perspectives on Coaching plan to present at this year’s conference.

Among those scheduled to present are the following:

Cathy Toll on Literacy Coaching
Carolee Hayes on Cognitive Coaching
Joellen Killion on the roles of coaches
Lucy West , Content Coaching
Randy Sprick, Wendy Reinke, and Jim Knight, Coaching Classroom Management
Jane Kise, Differentiated Coaching
Karla Reiss, Leadership Coaching
Jim Knight, Instructional Coaching
Jake Cornett and Jim Knight, Research on Coaching

In addition to presentations by all the authors, this year’s conference will feature many of the learning experiences we have offered in the past, including Open Space Dialogues, Lightning Round (6 minute presentations by practitioners with cool new ideas), panel discussions, and other opportunities for sharing and learning.

Also, as has taken place in the past, this year’s conference will be held at Liberty Hall and the historical Eldridge Hotel in downtown Lawrence. If you are interested in staying at the Eldridge, we strongly advise that you make your reservations soon.

The fee for the conference is $450.00 per participant, and each participant will receive a copy of Perspectives on Coaching. All profit generated from the conference supports ongoing research on coaching completed through the Kansas Coaching Project at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning.

All in all, we are very excited about this year’s conference, and we hope to see you in October. If you have any questions regarding the conference, please feel free to contact Carol Hatton at chatton@ku.edu.

By the way, you can find video clips from last year's conference on the www.instructionalcoach.org website.

Second Annual Instructional Coaching Conference

I am very excited to share our plans for the 2nd Annual Instructional Coaching Conference. Last year’s conference was a wonderful success with great presenters, meaningful and fun coaching dialogues, and many, many learning opportunities for everyone. I truly think this year’s conference promises to be even more successful.

Our list of lead presenter/authors is a who’s who of the nation’s experts on instructional coaching
• Joellen Killion, Deputy Executive Director of the National Staff Development Council, has graciously agreed to return to our conference and share insights from her new book Taking the lead: New roles for teachers and school-based coaches as well as information on how the NSDC standards can inform the work of instructional coaches.
• Jane Kise, will elaborate on many of the ideas in her book, Differentiated Coaching, and lead us through our own Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment. Individualized assessments will be available on line for all registered conference attendees.
• Lucy West will explain many of the central ideas in her book Content-Focused Coaching. Lucy, one of the leaders establishing the highly successful coaching program in District Two in New York City, consults with numerous districts and state agencies across the nation.

Other features of the conference include:
• A learning carousel with all eight coaches featured in Instructional Coaching: A partnership approach to improving instruction. Conference participants be able to listen to short presentations and share ideas with each of the experts featured in the book
• Cutting-edge information on coaching research conducted at the Center for Research on Learning
• “Open Space” sessions for participants to engage in dialogue with other coaches and educators on the topics that are of most interested to them
• Panel discussions describing instructional coaching programs around the country
• An instructional coaching bookstore
• Release of our first “beta-versions” of instructional coaching strategies available free to all participants

The conference fee is $450.00 total for the three days. Registration forms for the conference are available online at www.instructionalcoach.org.
Since last year’s conference sold out by late August we suggest you register soon to ensure you are able to attend.

Should you have any additional questions regarding this conference, please feel to contact Carol Hatton at the Center for Research on Learning. Carol can be reached by calling 785-864-0629 or through email at chatton@KU.EDU.

Best wishes,

Jim Knight

Conference Ideas: Coaches who teach

Over the next week or so, I'll share a few of the cool ideas I heard at the First Annual Instructional Coaching Conference. In one panel discussion, someone asked what the panel members thought of coaches who also teach. Evan Lefsky mentioned that in some schools in Florida, coaches teach one class, perhaps a special reading strategies class, which can function as a learning lab for other teachers. That is, the coach can use the class as a setting for demonstrating evidence-based practices, and other teachers can drop in to the class to see those practices being used every day. Most of us on the panel agreed that asking someone to teach and coach is asking a lot, but this idea was one that many considered interesting.

I'll be writing more ideas soon. If you attended the conference, and you have anything you'd like to share, please post it here as well. In total we had more than 130 participants, with the conference selling out two months ahead of time. We're already looking forward to next year.