Coaching Principals to Develop Their Capacity as Instructional Leaders: Insights from Two SEED Grants

Details:

• Resource Type: Brief
• Estimated time: 1 team session

Purpose:

Engage with this resource to gain insights into the experiences and lessons learned over the course of implementing a job-embedded principal coaching program.   

A key strategy in both Illinois State University’s (SEED 2017) and Western Michigan University’s (SEED 2017) grants was job-embedded coaching to strengthen principals’ roles as instructional leaders. This brief was designed for audiences who are providing support to principals to improve their instructional leadership. Links to relevant resources are also provided within the brief and in an appendix.

Directions:

1. Share Coaching Principals to Develop Their Capacity as Instructional Leaders with your team.
2. Convene the team and invite members to consider the reflection questions to generate discussion about how you currently support or would like to support principals to develop their skills as instructional leaders.
3. If you are an educator preparation program or educational organization that supports pre-service teachers, convene your team to explore Levers 3 and 5.
   1. Discuss if and/or how you are developing teacher candidates’ collaborative learning and leadership skills.
   2. Discuss if and/or how you are developing teacher candidates’ ability to ask about and identify indicators of supportive work cultures.
   3. Note any follow-up actions your team may wish to take.

Reflection Questions:

1. What instructional leadership competencies do you or would you focus on supporting?
2. How do you (or can you) ensure the competencies are aligned to the principal evaluation framework?
3. How do you (or can you) ensure the competencies are aligned to an existing school improvement model?
4. If you are implementing or would like to implement a principal coaching program focused on instructional leadership, discuss the following questions:
   1. What coaching model do you or would you implement?
   2. How do you (or can you) ensure the model aligns to specific instructional leadership competencies?
   3. How do you (or can you) ensure the model supports competencies found in the principal evaluation framework and/or school improvement model?
   4. How do you (or can you) select coaches whose mindset and skillset align to your coaching model?
   5. What ongoing supports do you (or can you) provide to coaches?
   6. How do you (or can you) monitor coaches’ continued alignment to the coaching model?

1. As a team, identify steps you can take to integrate new understandings or new practices into your grant work.
2. Examine the remaining resources in this entry point based on recruitment and retention practice concerns you are interested in addressing.