Cultivate a supportive coaching culture that encourages educators and leaders to achieve a shared vision and individual goals.
Using the fictional TV coach Ted Lasso for inspiration, this post from August 2021 shares some important insight into effective coaching strategies: Put me in coach: A brief look at best practices for instructional coaching in higher education.
Though Ted Lasso is indeed a fictional TV character, the qualities that make his character ‘work’ as a coach are hardly made up. Among Ted Lasso’s notable coaching attributes are his:
- Commitment to having a short memory for failure while simultaneously building self-efficacy and resilience in his players
- Openness to modeling vulnerability, curiosity, and personal growth
- Ability to empower other leaders around him
- Varied approaches to coaching different individuals on the team depending on their individual needs, personalities, and backgrounds
When it comes to coaching teachers, it’s not difficult to imagine how these attributes translate. Teachers need to feel empowered in their work and not feel like they’re being given “one more thing” to execute on. They also need relevant resources and support which are specific to their needs and classroom domain, not a one-size-fits-all, lecture-based workshop. When coaching a teacher colleague in the integration of digital literacy curriculum, the vision and goals for the coaching relationship were first defined by her and her grade-level colleagues. As a coach, I was there to support and encourage and provide resources and ideas that she otherwise might not have had the bandwidth to consider. This served to empower her as a professional and simply have me come alongside her in the changes she already wanted to make happen in her classroom.
