Falling Into Instructional Coaching

I recently fell into instructional coaching. I say fell because coaching was not on my radar. Eight months ago, I accepted a position as a project manager in a central office for a public K-12 school district. It was my dream job, or so I thought. As my first year in this position drew to a close, it became evident that the dream job I was hired for wasn't what it seemed. On paper, I was qualified. Still, I came to see that it just wasn't the right fit for me, nor was I the right fit for the position.

Thankfully, I was approached about the opportunity to transfer into a newly created position as an Instructional Technology Coach at one of the district's high schools, a school preparing to "go one-to-one" with Windows-based devices this coming school year.

To make a long story short, here I am. And with me, I have classroom experience as an elementary school teacher, a Master's degree in Educational Technology, an extensive bibliography of books, blogs, articles, and white papers about technology in education, which I have read. And I even spent a year as another district's Technology Integration Specialist, which, without a clearly articulated job description, turned out to have less to do with actual integration than with show-and-tell.

My point here is that I have a good grasp on the technology aspect of being an Instructional Technology Coach. But to be completely honest, the Instructional Coaching part of my new gig is a very steep learning curve, which I'm excited to climb, one step at a time. Fortunately, I'm not forging a new path. While the formal position of an Instructional Coach, generally, seems to be relatively new (I could be totally wrong about that.), there are numerous educators who have left the classroom to chart the path of instructional coaching for me (and perhaps you, too!).

One of these coaches, Jill Jackson, wrote a very good book, which is serving as a great jumping-off point for me. In Get Some Guts, Coach! 6 Steps that Every Instructional Coach, Team Leader, Mentor or Facilitator Must Take to Unleash True Coaching Power, Jackson introduces readers to instructional coaching as a concept as well as a very manageable practice. On page 1, Jackson writes,

"Coaching is the number one, most readily-available tool that has the real-life power to transform the quality of teaching and the impact of teaching on student performance."

Can you ask for a better why to get started with than that?!

I can't. And that's why I am here. I'm committed to learning about being a highly effective Instructional Technology Coach for two reasons: 1) the teachers, and 2) the kids. If I can do this, I know that I can make a difference, even if it is by doing something that I seemingly fell into.