Our Master Coaches provide two levels of coaching:  direct coaching of teachers and our signature model of coaching coaches.

District or school leaders often appoint coaches when new curriculum materials or programs are being adopted or when schools are not producing tested results. Often coaches work in isolation from other coaches, sometimes across several schools, and seldom have a clear and defined role. Their schedules vary widely and their approach to the work is often idiosyncratic—they are essentially inventing coaching practitioner-by-practitioner. Districts are under-equipped to provide the level of training and support that would guarantee that coaches have the skills and vision needed for the coaching initiative to have the desired impact.  Here’s where we can help. We are uniquely qualified to support coaches and administrators in their efforts to improve student learning using coaching as a strategy. Lucy West, our founder, invented content coaching to address all of these issues as they arose in New York City. She has refined content coaching to the degree that is an organic and mutable process that can be employed by districts eager to benefit from coaching.

M^TLC works with coaches on several levels:

• Coaching Skills—Through on-site, real-time, coaching sessions, we pinpoint the coaching moves and techniques that transform teaching practice and turn classrooms into enriching learning communities.
• Coaching Role—Through defining purpose and evidence of success the role of the coach emerges focusing efforts to foster inquiry-based professional learning communities and effective instruction.
• Coaching Relationships—Through intentional partnerships with teachers and principals coaches cultivate capacity and create a culture of learning, respect, and collaboration.
• Coaching Strategy—Through understanding coaching as a leadership role and coaches as catalysts for the kinds of change that result in increased professionalism, cultivation of teacher leaders and profound levels of student mastery can be realized.

Attendance at our Coaching Institute is highly recommended because it lays the foundation for on-site, individualized coaching of coaches.

In addition, we understand that coaches gain credibility when they can successfully demonstrate the use of the instructional strategies and tools they are recommending to teachers. Coaches gain respect when they embody a learning stance and collaborate with others. Towards that end, we work with coaches on the instructional core as listed below.

Our on-site Master Coaches skillfully work side-by-side with teachers on all aspects of the instructional core—planning, enacting, reflecting upon and re-teaching lessons based on firsthand assessment of student learning.

Our coaching mode enhances teacher:

• Content Knowledge—by focusing on big ideas, essential questions, strategies, skills, and applications that deepen teacher comprehension and flexibility with curricular material.
• Pedagogical knowledge—by focusing on generic and content specific pedagogical strategies that make the content accessible to greater numbers of students.
• Lesson design—by identifying, selecting, adapting, and/or creating rich conceptual tasks that actively engage students and ensure learning of important content and skills in mathematics and literacy.
• Effective instructional strategies that meet the needs of a wide range of students and employ metacognitive processes that ensure student achievement.
• Student and Teacher Assessment processes to inform instruction and help adults and students manage their own learning.

Our experience has convinced us that when teachers learn to plan rich, robust, differentiated lessons, students learn more. Thus, we stress the need for collaborative planning time and do not merely “model lessons” hoping that teachers will then “turn key” what they saw into effective classroom practice. Through planning together we instill new “habits of mind” that translate into more effective lesson design.

We reflect with teachers on what is working in their instruction and base our success on improved student learning. We engage teachers in a process that helps them assess student learning in real time and appropriately adjust their instruction in the moment.

Find out how Master Coaches move an entire school or district to perform at higher and more satisfying levels of professionalism and significantly raise student achievement.