Instructional Coaching Academy

Strength through collaborative partnerships

The VDOE’s Training and Technical Assistance Center at Radford University offers Instructional Coaching Academies, typically in the spring and fall each year. These newly redesigned all virtual series offer educators in a coaching role the opportunity to develop essential knowledge and skills related to building relationships, strengthening communication, and facilitating change with the goal of creating equitable outcomes for all students. Instructional coaches are uniquely poised to offer teachers the on-going, embedded support necessary to disrupt the reproductive practices that maintain the status quo. Collaborative partnerships strengthen our commitments to each other and to our students.

In these five-day coaching series, participants will acquire skills, strategies and resources to support their practice as instructional coaches while also examining their own values, beliefs and biases around issues of equity. Participants will apply newly learned coaching skills to an authentic coaching case.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed this academy. It has been so worthwhile that I dread its end. I have grown professionally and personally. I would recommend this training to anyone and would participate in more opportunities myself.”

– Region 7 Instructional Coach

“Through this course, I have gained a much deeper understanding of the role of instructional coaching for sustained change in practice.”

– Region 7 Instructional Coach

“I really enjoyed attending the coaching academy. It has been extremely beneficial in my efforts to refine my coaching skills.”

– Region 6 Instructional Coach

“The overall Instructional Coaching Academy has been very beneficial to my job. I have learned so many new skills that I will be able to apply.”

– Region 6 Instructional Coach

The Content

The foundational principles of coaching and partnership:

*Establishing healthy working relationships with teachers and administrators

*Creating a culture of collaboration and dialogue through the use of reflective communication skills

*Disrupting Deficit Model thinking

The nuts and bolts of instructional coaching:

*Implementing a coaching cycle (initiating collaboration, determining a focus, modelling, observing, setting goals, and gathering data)

*Using tools, protocols, surveys, and progress monitoring

*Assessing impact of instruction and coaching

The Learning Design

Participants will leave the two-day “kickoff” with tools and skills to begin implementation of a successful instructional coaching cycle in their school or district. The subsequent sessions will deepen skills, troubleshoot obstacles to implementation, and offer on-going support through a Community of Practice.

Who Should Attend

The Instructional Coaching Academy is open to educators from Superintendents' regions 6 and 7 and is completely free to attend. The Academy is designed for instructional coaches, consulting teachers, and site-based professional developers serving in a coaching role or who support a coaching program.

Participant Expectations

Our live virtual meetings are highly interactive and participant-focused, and are augmented by independent work completed in your school between sessions. Applicants should be prepared to:

*Attend all five online sessions in full. Sessions will not be recorded.

*Apply learning to work in schools by completing 1-3 hours per week with a coaching partner between online sessions

*Collaborate with peer coaches in a community of practice to support application and assessment of learning