Coaching Resource Project

As you may have noticed, my experience at HGSE made a profound impact on me. Of the many courses I took during my time there, I loved working with Dr. Allison Pingree in her A011H course on developing coaching skills. 

Through this course, I also met close friends who I still keep in touch with years after we took the course. One friend was Sara, who I shared a similar teaching background and desire to find community in the Boston area. We both began our teaching careers in the San Francisco Bay Area. I started in the same district I had once attended as a child, a small district in the wealthy suburbs of Marin County, while Sara began working for Teach for America in a Title I school in the East Bay. Although our circumstances, schools, and student demographics couldn't be more different, our experience as first-year/new teachers and the ability of the system to adequately prepare teachers in the classroom were far too similar for comfort. 

Through our mutual experiences and desire to help improve the system of teacher preparation, we began to look at ways we could leverage the skills and knowledge from Dr. Pingree's course to support up-and-coming teachers entering the profession. Creating a digital toolkit with informational videos to support coaches seemed like a good first step toward meeting our vision of how to improve teacher/mentor experiences for newer educators. 

We wanted to focus these tips and strategies to focus on three key criteria:

1. Listen deeply and empathize.

2. Understand how power, privilege, and identity impact coaching conversations.

3. Build self-awareness and presence.

Let me know what you think! Were we able to meet our goals?