"The purpose of coaching is to help people change." (Bacon & Spear, 2003)

Have you ever wondered what to say next to a colleague in their first year of teaching who is asking for help? Perhaps they are encountering a complex problem that they can't seem to solve by themselves and need "you" as the coach, to direct them towards actionable steps. Maybe they just need a thought partner to share their ideas. Or they just need someone to listen. We hope that this website is a helpful resource for you to help guide your conversations, as well as a starting point to codesign the structure of your conversations with your colleague, who is arguably going through one of the most challenging years of their professional career.

The mission of this website is to outline several key strategies that can help you bring your coaching to a new level through active, intentional listening, which enables the ability to notice the most "simple interactions" with your client and their practice (Li, 2022). We hope to guide your practice and help build a strong relationship with those who you are serving as a coach.

We have chosen to highlight first-year teachers because the power of coaching can dramatically shift practices in ways that can impact the trends that have existed around teacher retention. According to the US Department of Education (2011), nearly 50% of teachers leave within the first 5 years of their career. These trends continue to impact our schools, especially as the world recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic. Our goal is to provide the means by which coaches, mentors, and colleagues can enhance their practice and successfully support new educators in the field. We are imagining a world in which teachers receive the types of support that best suits their needs and practices.