Michelle Harris: The impact of instructional coaching

Michelle Harris, Senior Consultant at Instructional Coaching Group (ICG)

has spent almost three decades as an educator, starting as a Special

Education Paraprofessional in Salt Lake City, Utah before completing her

Masters in Teaching at Pacific University and teaching middle school in El

Cajon, CA and Beaverton, OR. She served as an instructional coach for

teachers and students in a comprehensive 6-8 middle school as well as a

K-8 school. She then became an administrator in a 6-12 IB school, and

two comprehensive 6-8 middle schools.

Michelle is a seasoned staff developer, certified in multiple Training of the

Trainer programs such as Sheltered Instruction, Data-driven Decision

Making, Effective Teaching Strategies, and Non-Fiction Writing. She has

worked for Jim Knight since 2012, after participating in a Coaching Study

with Jim through the University of Kansas in 2009-2011, and has facilitated

workshops, coached, and keynoted across the United States and Canada,

as well as in multiple European countries, Asia, and Africa.

Recently, Michelle partnered with Jim Knight, Sharon Thomas, and Ann

Hoffman to author The Instructional Playbook: The Missing Link for

Translating Research Into Practice and Evaluating Instructional Coaching:

People, Programs, and Partnership.

 

Through ICG, Michelle facilitates workshops, coaches, and provides

consulting for coaching programs around the world. She lives in Portland,

OR with her husband, two sons, and three cats, and one small corgi.

 

Episode Notes:

-Michelle has been in education for almost 30 years and was trained with Jim Knight in instructional coaching.

-A coach is a partner who opens up a physiologically safe space with time for thinking, reflecting, problem solving and ultimately turning all that talk into action in the classroom, promoting change. 

-Sometimes in coaching there is a lack of role clarity. If you do not have clarity on what you do and how you do it within the system, it is hard to do a quality job in coaching.

-Teacher evaluations do not fit coaching. 

-Coaches need an evaluation system that is 100 percent aligned to the outcomes we are seeking. It is critical to have role clarity as an instructional coach.

-We speak about surface coaching versus deep coaching. Both are vital to the role of coaching. Surface coaching helps to build rapport and enhance your street credit. Deep coaching is the impact cycle and doing coaching cycles with educators around specific goals. 

-Collect data on who is coming to you and what are they asking for, what patterns are we noticing, this helps us impact PD in our buildings or systems.

-Collect data on the impact cycle: where did you start? What was your goal?  What strategies did you utilize? What was your end goal? How long did it take kids to meet that goal? What tweaks did you make along the way?

-Collect data to show your coaching impact. Show the difference you are making. Collect that evidence of difference making. 

-Learning Architecture with support for the coaches is vital. 

-Coaching is not fixing people. We need an asset model. There should not be a stigma in education for using a coach. Think about sports: everyone uses a coach.

-The practice of video recording your coaching can be such a remarkable reflective practice for growth. 

-Respect the sweet purity of silence.

 

Connect with Michelle:

LinkedIn: MichelleRodgersHarris

Twitter: @harrismr1