This course, Professional Learning and Technology Innovation, has benefitted me as a “Teacher-Leader/ITEC Coach” in so many ways! I always felt like I was a “people-person”, but from reading Knight’s book, I have gained a lot more insight. I would like to think that I had a “Partnership Approach” before I even knew it had a name. Knight helped me put my “people-person” instincts into logical, intellectual research findings. The best example I can think of to describe this is Knight’s focus on Partnership Communication. Knight (2007) explained that coaches must know their teachers’ learning preferences, and a great tool to determine this is the MBTI self-reporting instrument. This added a real science to my “people” skills. I knew that certain people respond better to certain approaches (this applies to students, also), but I was excited to find an actual science that had it all figured out. This took some of the “trial-and-error” out of reaching my colleagues, which has made me grow as a coach.
Quite honestly, I saw this course as a relief because I just got tasked with leading technology professional development for our faculty. This course has given me guidance to meet the needs of our teachers. I felt as though I was doing a lot of “educated” guesswork before, but now I have a lot more confidence in my coaching abilities. As far as on-going development, I will (hopefully) have this same task of leading technology professional development next school year. I fully intend to keep the Partnership Approach and will most definitely refer back to Jim Knight! I’m already following him on Twitter =) Knight, J. (2007). Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press
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July 2017
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