Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Instructional Coaching topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Kings Local instructional coaches outline curriculum work, personalized learning and teacher coaching cycles
Summary
Three instructional coaches presented a year-two review of coaching, curriculum alignment, adoption plans for Wit & Wisdom ELA, math-focused units, personalized learning cohorts and new-teacher supports at the Kings Local Schools work session.
Three Kings Local instructional coaches gave the school board an overview of year-two coaching work and next steps, emphasizing job-embedded professional development and curriculum alignment.
The coaches told the board that their primary goal is to support teachers’ professional growth so students’ learning is maximized, centering their work on the district’s culture blueprint, personalized learning and the district’s “power 5” instructional practices.
Coaches Andrea (Instructional Coach), Erin (Instructional Coach) and Tracy (Instructional Coach) described multiple curriculum projects and professional-development strategies they said produced measurable classroom changes this year. They cited work in elementary gifted and general math (fourth- and fifth-grade units focused on fractions), a K–12 ELA vertical-alignment project, cohorts for personalized learning and a new-teacher academy.
"The best professional development is job-embedded professional development with teachers who willingly set goals and seek feedback," one of the coaches said, describing the coaching-cycle process in which teachers set goals, coaches co-plan or co-teach, the coaches observe and the teacher and coach reflect together.
Nut graf: The coaches told the board the intent is to align curriculum changes, PD and classroom practice so students get repeated, scaffolded exposure to essential standards; they asked the board to support continued investment in coaching and rollout of the selected ELA curriculum.
In ELA, a cross-grade “design team” conducted a K–12 vertical alignment of standards arranged by grade bands (K–2, 3–5, 6–8) and recommended the district adopt Wit & Wisdom for K–5. The coaches said K–5 teachers piloted Wit & Wisdom during the year and that the unanimous teacher recommendation led to a planned multi-session professional-development schedule: a summer training day, grade-level planning in September, module training in October, lesson-study work in December, follow-up PD in February and a year-end review in March.
"Every module is spiraling every single standard," a coach said of the program’s approach to repeated exposure for students.
On math, coaches said they focused on targeted curriculum work in fourth-grade gifted math and a fifth-grade fractions unit identified through data as the highest-leverage improvement area. Strategies emphasized student thinking, manipulatives, visuals, vocabulary and pacing; coaches said teachers practiced lessons with coaches before returning to classrooms.
Coaches also described professional-development cohorts for personalized learning following Ohio’s framework for personalized learning. Examples shown to the board included student-led reading groups, student-created classroom operating procedures, choice boards in high school science and lab-classroom plans to model personalized learning for other teachers.
The new-teacher academy served first- and second-year teachers with on-site PD, classroom visits and debriefs; coaches reported participants said classroom-management confidence and instructional organization improved.
Coaching-cycle examples included a high-school internship course redesigned to teach job-interview hard and soft skills, with mock interviews and a rubric created by a teacher and a coach; a literature-based newspaper project for a unit on The Crucible; and building-level work to use a new data dashboard for monthly data conversations and instructional adjustments.
The coaches said next-year priorities are continuing the new-teacher academy (with focus on year-one teachers), expanding personalized learning and lab classrooms, focusing curriculum work on grades 4–12 math, supporting the Wit & Wisdom rollout and strengthening content-area literacy and monthly data meetings.
Board members praised the presentation and thanked the coaches for the work; the superintendent commended the coaches and the board for supporting the initiative.
Ending: The coaches asked the board to continue backing coaching time and professional development as the district implements Wit & Wisdom and progresses on math-alignment work in the coming year.
