The Coaching for Results Initiative is the ABPC’s work at the district level, where we are currently partnering with the Tarrant City Schools, Auburn City Schools, Talladega County Schools, Jefferson County Schools, and the Shelby County Schools. The ABPC works with these districts to improve their capacity to serve their schools to improve teaching and learning.
Schools from all five districts are active participants in the Powerful Conversations Network. Currently, our most intensive partnerships are with the Tarrant City Schools and the Auburn City Schools, where we provide ongoing, targeted professional development to district and school administrators. For the 2009-2010 school year, the book, Instructional Rounds in Education: A Network Approach to Improving Teaching and Learning, by Elizabeth City, Richard Elmore, Sarah Fiarman, and Lee Teitel, is guiding participants.
The interactive professional development sessions are preparing both districts to identify and/or strengthen strategies to ensure effective teaching and learning, and to introduce “problems of practice” to their improvement regime. A Problem of practice is an issue or practice that individual schools care deeply about and that, if improved, would result in improved student learning. Identification of a problem of practice is a precursor to conducting an instructional round, where colleagues participate in a protocol to look for, identify, and discuss evidence related to that problem of practice, so that they school can more effectively act on it.
Our longest district partner is the Talladega County Schools: two schools were 21st Century Learner Schools, virtually every school participates in the Powerful Conversation Network, and ABPC provides tailored professional development sessions to administrators on an annual basis. In Jefferson County, the ABPC works with its impressive Central Office Collaborative, where district-level administrators coach and support their local schools in their continuous improvement effort. Shelby County administrators identified their desire to improve their coaching skills when working with school-based educators and used Peter Block’s Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used (Second Edition).
Schools from all five districts are active participants in the Powerful Conversations Network. Currently, our most intensive partnerships are with the Tarrant City Schools and the Auburn City Schools, where we provide ongoing, targeted professional development to district and school administrators. For the 2009-2010 school year, the book, Instructional Rounds in Education: A Network Approach to Improving Teaching and Learning, by Elizabeth City, Richard Elmore, Sarah Fiarman, and Lee Teitel, is guiding participants.
The interactive professional development sessions are preparing both districts to identify and/or strengthen strategies to ensure effective teaching and learning, and to introduce “problems of practice” to their improvement regime. A Problem of practice is an issue or practice that individual schools care deeply about and that, if improved, would result in improved student learning. Identification of a problem of practice is a precursor to conducting an instructional round, where colleagues participate in a protocol to look for, identify, and discuss evidence related to that problem of practice, so that they school can more effectively act on it.
Our longest district partner is the Talladega County Schools: two schools were 21st Century Learner Schools, virtually every school participates in the Powerful Conversation Network, and ABPC provides tailored professional development sessions to administrators on an annual basis. In Jefferson County, the ABPC works with its impressive Central Office Collaborative, where district-level administrators coach and support their local schools in their continuous improvement effort. Shelby County administrators identified their desire to improve their coaching skills when working with school-based educators and used Peter Block’s Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used (Second Edition).
