Coaching
I was first introduced to coaching back in 2021 at SCIS in China, and I instantly fell in love with the process! It was such an eye opener, or ear opener as the main take away for me was that I just need to listen more. So far, I have completed a cognitive coaching course with Thinking Collaborative, an instructional coaching course with the Instructional Coaching Group, and I was coached for a year by an amazing coach from the Collective Change Institute.
Cognitive Coaching
Cognitive coaching will alwys be myfirst love as it was the first time i was introduced to caoching. One of the facilitators was Ochan Kusuma Powell, who is the most calm and measured person I have met. If coaching is a jedi art, then she should be the equivalent of Grand Master Yoda. It was as if she was born to be a coach. This course dug up the earth, using the force, to lay the foundations for how empowering coaching can be. It lays down the framework for educators to realized their hidden potential and ability to accomplish complex tasks by themselves.
Instructional Coaching
I completed an instructional coaching course with the incredible Jim Knight and Brian Sepe. The course design was vastly different to cognitive coaching. Cognitive coaching focussed a lot more on the conversation, whereas the instructional coaching course focusses a lot more on the tools that teachers could use in the classroom to improve learning for their students. I feel that this course was more akin to the different contractors coming in to complete their different jobs on a building project, in this accidental construction metaphor that I have formed.
Collective Change Institute
My buddy recommended that I check out Collective Change Institute (CCI), after telling her I was lacking direction upon leaving China during the Shanghai lockdown in 2022. Thus began a 10-session coaching course, where I was coached by Chris; very much in the style of cognitive coaching. It was life-changing, and it resulted in me expanding my professional network, securing an independent contracting role with an ed-tech organisation based in the States, as well as putting in place the necessary steps to start an ed-tech conference in Cambodia.
Cognitive Coaching
All the resources below are inspired from the book Cognitive Coaching by Costa and Garmston, 2015. The authors have pain stakingly produced a comprehensive guide to cognitive coaching, with plenty of practical tips that coaches can use immediately. I found the book really accessible, and I still use it today.
The cognitive coaching course was sublime, through the practical guidance we received from the trainers. I had so many take aways from the coaching sessions, but the one that remains with me the most is during conversations don’t use the word ‘I’; the reason being that this takes the focus away from the coachee to the coach.
Aside from COETAIL, this is be best pro dev I have done in 19 years, and would recommend it to anyone wanting to know how to listen more and to help others tap into their potential. What follows are some graphics I made on principals covered during the course. You can download them here on Teachers Pay Teachers for free.
States of Mind
One of the main concepts of cognitive coaching is to help teachers increase both knowledge and skill within the so-called 5 states of mind
.
Coaching Map
This particular coaching map is for the planning conversation that you will have with your partner, with 5 key areas to be explored.
Support Functions
There are 4 main types of support services that we can use to support teacher development: evaluating, collaborating, consulting and coaching.
