To have a productive relationship, teachers and coaches need to trust one another, respect each other professionally, commit to keeping their partnership agreements, and clearly define the work they will do together.

 

  • Rethinking Classroom Observations, Educational Leadership, May 2014 introduces the idea that teachers learning from teachers is a powerful model for professional development.  Peer-to-peer observations are one way to open a faculty dialogue about instruction.  This method, similar to learning walks or classroom walkthoughs, represents a more powerful way to engage faculty in teacher observation and professional development.

Teacher-driven observation addresses these problems by empowering teachers with a classroom-embedded process to refine their instruction.  Through teacher-driven observation, teachers engage peers in gathering and analyzing classroom data–data that speak to the unique context of their own classroom.

 

 

 

  • Collective Genius, in Harvard Business Review June 2014, illustrates the link between leadership and innovation.  The authors, Linda Hill et.al., make the cast that:

innovation usually emerges when diverse people collaborate to generate a wide-ranging portfolio of ideas, which they then refine and even evolve into new ideas through give-and-take and often heated-debates.

From their perspective, innovation emerges out of community. It doesn’t typically emerge from top-down structures.

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for?

This is just one of the memorable pieces she references from his letters to a friend, Oskar Pollak.

I hope you find some of these pieces enjoyable to read.  Share some of your reading that “wounds or stabs you.”

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