Instructional Leadership and Collective Efficacy Workshops
Workshops can be modified for time and audience.
Custom workshops can be developed to target your goals.
Are You Speaking Their “LOVE” Language? — Five Methods of Appreciation
Are you more likely to say thanks by sending a personal note or bringing someone their favorite latte? How you show appreciation to your school family is likely influenced by your personal love language. Gary Chapman has outlined five ways people show love to family or friends and appreciation to colleagues. If you aren't speaking multiple love languages, your desire to show gratitude and thanks might be lost in your delivery. Join Connie Hamilton to learn how understanding love languages can help your message of appreciation to be heard loud and clear.
7 Mindshifts for School Leaders
Far too many perennial problems exist in schools. These education problems are becoming crises and require the urgency and commitment to finding solutions. This session invites leaders to approach issues with 7 mindshifts to think about old problems in new ways. The mindshifts help leaders to find solutions by changing the way problems are approached. The longer an issue goes unresolved, the more it is accepted as “normal”. Issues like teacher retention, equity, grading practices, and student discipline are important, urgent, and persistent. These problems require a shift in thinking to address their on-going impact on schools and students.
Building a Transparent Culture for Growth
Growth and improvement require trust and vulnerability. A school climate that fosters these key attributes requires intentional and purposeful actions from the school leader. Whether you’ve inherited a negative culture as a new leader or you feel morale and attitude dipping, we will explore ways to shift to an environment that celebrates teachers where they are while encouraging them to self reflect. This can be the first step in developing collective efficacy. Activities, processes, templates, and time to plan/apply are included in this meaningful workshop.
Collaborative Instructional and Feedback Teams (CIFTs)
Job embedded professional learning helps bridge the gap between a workshop and implementation of strategies in the classroom. CIFTs work with a cohort of teachers to observe one another over multiple sessions. Each teacher takes a turn hosting a lesson to provide the backdrop for professional learning based on specific classroom, students, and curriculum the teachers have. CIFTs help teachers to use evidence to reflect on instruction and learning. Each observer is tasked with specific data to collect and then build efficacy as a team by offering glows and grows for teach team member.
Classroom Learning Lab
Expertise within a school has great potential for professional learning. Classroom learning labs bring teachers into a classroom with exceptional strength for other teachers to see, observe, and discuss. A facilitator offers reflection techniques and leads observers through effective dialogue so teachers can learn from one another. A host opens his/her classroom to observers interesting in seeing a high quality instructional method in action, then follows with a structured Q&A process that provides a job embedded professional learning experience for everyone involved.
A Coach’s Guide to Questioning
You know good questioning when you see it. Supporting teachers to achieve a quality level of questioning can be challenging. This session is specifically designed for anyone in a role that provides coaching and feedback to classroom teachers. You will learn what to notice when observing instruction, the nuances of what makes good questioners, and how to give concrete suggestions to help teachers grow in questioning. Bring your questions and specific cases so we can problem solve strategies that will serve teachers at every level.
Feedback That Sticks and Teachers Crave
How can you frame feedback in a way that teachers value, can implement, and has an impact? Whether you’re a school administrator or instructional coach, if giving constructive feedback is part of your role, this session is for you. We will identify the factors that teachers look for and appreciate when reflecting on their lesson. You will learn how to construct feedback that is based on observation data, limits subjectivity, and is actionable. Using this format will cause your teachers to look forward to discussing the lesson and see the value of classroom observations.
Invest In Your Best: How To Build Up Your Top Teachers
It's not too inspiring to tell a great teacher to “keep up the good work”. Unfortunately, our best teachers often get the least amount of support to help them grow and continue to improve. This session will focus on the teachers who consistently rate the highest and offer how you can affirm their success and continue to encourage their growth. Many of the strategies apply to teachers of all levels, but the focus here is focusing on your rockstars.
Individual and Small Group Coaching
Every leader deserves the opportunity to have their own support system. As an experienced administrator, Connie Hamilton offers coaching for administrators and coaches to help them be successful. Connie has partnered with principals and curriculum leaders to help develop systems, identify ways to build structures, establish processes for addressing problems and establish themselves as the lead learner in their school. Instructional leadership makes a difference in student achievement. Develop a collaborative relationship with an experienced coach for your own professional growth.
PEACCH - The Six Steps to Boosting Instruction for ALL Teachers
As an instructional leader, part of your role is to support teachers to continuously improve instruction. The PEACCH model, shared in Invest In Your Best, 9 Strategies to Grow, Support, and Celebrate Your Most Valuable Teachers, outlines six steps to make classroom observation and evaluations more than an annual obligation and transform it into a way to help all teachers grow. The steps include: 1) Set a purpose for the dialogue, professional learning, and feedback. 2) Collect qualitative and quantitative evidence that limits judgment. 3) Analyze data by aligning it to goals and fostering reflection. 4) Provide consulting to partner with the teacher that adds value and relevance. 5) Offer coaching to engage the teacher in reflection and clarity. and 6) Build habits so more successful methods become the norm and avoid going back to what’s comfortable but less effective.
Staff Meeting Reboot
Turn sit and get staff meetings into engaging learning. Attendees will not only get tips about how to embed professional development into staff meetings, but will receive a year’s worth of activities you can use to model the best practices you want to see in classrooms and jazz up the precious time you have with your teachers. Whether you have 10 minutes or a full hour, every time you’re with teachers is an opportunity to be their instructional leader.
Walkthroughs That WOW!
Turn your walkthroughs into meaningful events that provide professional learning for your staff. Learn how to capture examples of quality instruction and share them with your staff to give everyone a glimpse inside the classrooms in your school. Examples, templates, and time to get started will have you walking away with a product that captures what’s working, celebrates success, and invites other teachers to see examples of great teaching and student learning.