👩🏾🏫Takeaways: The Definitive Guide to Instructional Coaching
About the Author
Jim Knight, Founder and Senior Partner of Instructional Coaching Group (ICG), is also a research associate at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. He has spent more than two decades studying professional learning and instructional coaching. Jim earned his PhD in Education from the University of Kansas and has won several university teaching, innovation, and service awards.
The pioneering work Jim and his colleagues have conducted has led to many innovations that are now central to professional development in schools. Jim wrote the first major article about instructional coaching for the Journal of Staff Development, and his book Instructional Coaching (2007) offered the first extended description of instructional coaching. Jim’s book Focus on Teaching (2014) was the first extended description of how video should be used for professional learning. Recently, writing with Ann Hoffman, Michelle Harris, and Sharon Thomas, Jim introduced the idea of instructional playbooks with their book on that topic.
Jim has written several books in addition to those described above, including *Unmistakable Impact* (2011), High-Impact Instruction (2013), Better Conversations (2015), The Impact Cycle (2018), and The Definitive Guide to Instructional Coaching (2021). Knight has also authored articles on instructional coaching and professional learning in publications such as *Educational Leadership*, The Journal of Staff Development, Principal Leadership, The School Administrator, and Kappan. Jim is also a columnist for Educational Leadership.
Through ICG, Knight conducts coaching workshops, hosts the Facebook Live series, “Coaching Conversations,” and provides consulting for coaching programs around the world.
Table of Contents
⭐ The Book in 3 Sentences
🎨 Impressions
🤔 Who Should Read It?
💡 How the Book Changed Me
✍🏾 My Top 3 Quotes
📘 Summary + Notes
⭐ The Book in 3 Sentences
This book affords beginning instructional coaches a foundation for best practices in maximizing the reach of the role through partnership, communication, leadership, the impact cycle, data, instructional playbooks, and system support.
Readers receive access to extended learning opportunities and ready-to-use/ready-to-modify exemplars of checklists, guides, and other high impact resources for instructional coaching.
Most importantly, this book helps to explain the function of instructional coaches and how to identify and replace undesirable practices.
🎨 Impressions
Initially, I found this book to be slow to start, but after completing the book, I realize that much of what was provided at the beginning was information that I had already been moderately exposed to from other resources. (FYI: This is not a bad thing, because many of the other resources I accessed actually referenced Jim Knight’s groundbreaking work in these domains, so it was more so a validation that these chapters were indeed best practices in coaching). It was not until I reached Chapter 3: Coaches as Leaders, that my reading pace and intrigue picked up more for new knowledge. I particularly enjoyed seeing references to exemplary leadership and ideas for collaboration and personal development to people outside of the K-12 industry. Recently, I have taken up great interest in taking what is effective in other industries, so it was certainly comforting to see Knight also doing the same within his book.
🤔 Who Should Read It?
As mentioned earlier, new instructional coaches, but also curriculum leaders and administrators who hope to build Instructional Coach PLCs to develop and maximize the role to its full potential. I would also argue that experienced coaches should also take time to revisit this book to keep their practice and perspective fresh and informed.
💡 How the Book Changed Me
How my life / behaviors / thoughts / ideas have changed as a result of reading the book
I realize that I still have much to learn about my new job, and that is how it is supposed to be. I also realize that there are other ways that I can support my campus that expand beyond the structures put in place: instructional playbook, co-teaching, and active listening.
I also realize that my instincts about undesirable practices were rooted in research-based practices.
✍🏾 My Top 3 Quotes
“Multipliers are listeners – they see the strengths in others, are open to others’ ideas, and act in ways that show they are focused on the needs and interests of others. Diminishers…do most of the talking, see people’s weaknesses more than their strengths, shoot down others’ ideas, and keep the focus on themselves” (p. 71).
“A coach’s impact should be measured by lifetimes, not one year’s test scores” (p. 59).
“Rather than asking why people resist, a better question might be ‘What am I doing that is creating resistance?’ or ‘How does the design of our professional development produce resistance?” (p. 44).
