An essential skill for school leaders and coaches is learning how to share ideas in a way that does not shut down teachers' voices, ideas, and thinking. The authors refer to this type of conversation as a partnering conversation. This article identifies two categories of conversations, telling and partnering, along with two kinds of partnering…

Just like their students, teachers face mental health struggles in their classrooms. Many of them must learn to cope with teacher-facing trauma while balancing students' needs and commitment to teaching, which is emotionally exhausting. Authors Christine E. Hood, Ilana Horn, Katherine Schneeberger McGugan, Karen Underwood, Jessica Smith, and…

As former principals who led turnaround schools and now as coaches who work with school leaders and their teams, the authors know that there are many challenges all school leaders face. The authors have found there is one consistent factor that separates schools that successfully respond to challenges from the rest: the collective understanding…

Traditional teacher evaluations -- full-lesson observations, write-ups, and debriefs -- are time-consuming and largely ineffective. As a principal, Kim Marshall found that mini-observations -- short, frequent, unannounced classroom visits, each followed by a face-to-face coaching conversation and brief narrative summary -- actually improved…

This status report provides an update on the Faculty (Re)engagement Institute. Two institutes were held in fall 2023: one in August and a second in October. The name for the latter was changed to the Faculty Engagement Institute (FEI), removing the "(Re)" from the second word. During these institutes, participants examined barriers…

"What motivates teachers to put forth their best efforts in the classroom?" "How can principals understand what drives each teacher and use that information to encourage practices that lead to the best outcomes for students?" "If teachers are struggling, what can principals do to help them succeed?" These questions…

In an era of scripted curriculum and high-stakes testing, the latitude teachers have for making curricular decisions in their classrooms has significantly declined. The authors report findings from a literature review of teachers' principled resistance to curricular control. Principled resistance occurs when teachers reject curricular mandates…

How do we break cycles that send promising young educators out of the profession too early? Veteran teacher Henry Seton reflects on the school year that challenged his commitment to the classroom and the support and solutions that renewed his reasons to stay.

Coach and ASCD author Cathy Toll knows that principals can face resistance and competing priorities when trying to make changes in schools. "Whole-staff coaching" is one tool to get all educators on the same page by putting teachers in control of planning, implementing, and evaluating change--and principals in charge of facilitating it.

The paper titled "Enhancing Educational Outcomes through Servant and Authentic Leadership: Addressing Low Teacher Morale and High Turnover Rates" explores the impact of two leadership theories--servant leadership and authentic leadership--on educational settings. The study addresses issues such as low teacher morale, high turnover rates,…

This article presents an account of a panel on English teacher agency in Australia at the 2020 IFTE conference, held virtually as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The article introduces the way the panel chair set up the concerns of the panel, providing relevant background, theoretical framing, and introductions to the panellists and the key…

Educational reforms fail again and again. One reason for the failure is that educational reform stops just outside the classroom door. During the last 25 years, the dominant educational reform initiatives in the US have operated under the misguided conventional wisdom that the educational system is loosely coupled. With this model in mind, decades…

Many school leaders see teacher buy-in as a prerequisite for implementing meaningful change. But professor of educational leadership, Robert Feirsen, argues that the emphasis on buy-in overshadows a deeper and more community-driven form of participation among teachers--psychological ownership--that facilitates more effective school improvement…

All schools have the capacity for schoolwide instructional excellence. Schools with leaders who adopt a coaching stance as part of their practice are more likely to realize this success. Leaders achieve success with their teachers, their students, and their families, not alone. "Leading like a C.O.A.C.H." reframes the approach to…

In this article, we aim to extend the existing literature on the theory of transformational school leadership through a neo-Daoist lens. Focussing on the writings of the third-century Chinese philosopher Wang Bi, we make three arguments. First, his ideas promote a transformational leader who effects change through ziran (spontaneity or natural…