SHIFT Coaching

 SHIFT Coaching

Have you ever learned to play a musical instrument, or a sport, or a new dance step, or a new
pedagogical approach?  

Did you learn it alone? How long did that take? Do you think it would have been slower and more difficult, or easier and faster, if you had had someone to learn it with? Someone to plan with, someone to bounce ideas back and forth with, someone to try with, celebrate with, fail with, reflect with, and move forward with? 

As SHIFT coaches, one of our main goals is to collaborate with people who would like the opportunity to SHIFT their practice, and innovate.  

Innovation, as we define it here in Halton, is “an improvement to a product, process or understanding.”  So whether it is innovating a learning process - like flipped lessons or writers’ workshop, an understanding of something - like inquiry-based learning or mastery-based assessment, or a product - such as a communication tool used to better connect us with the community we serve, innovation and what we are looking to improve, is very individual and specific to our needs, as well as those of the students we serve.

In the midst of lockdowns, virtual learning, hybrid learning, working remotely, virtual staff meetings, trying to build community through little windows on our screen, educators, administrators and staff have been thrown a whole set of new challenges this year.  

We are in a situation where we need to work differently, and for many of us, we are thinking about new and better ways to “do school.”  

So, what even is coaching?  And what is it not, for that matter?

Coaching is:

• For anyone

• Collaborative

• Personalized

• Focused

• Optional

Coaching is not:

• Remedial support

• Evaluative

• Tech support

• Training

• Mandatory
  

And, what does the coaching journey look like with us?  Well, we will be hosting an information session on Tuesday, January 19th from 4-5pm where we will share just that. In that session, we will walk through:

• What the coaching process looks like - the components of the coaching model

• What is involved in terms of time and commitment

• Identifying the highest rated challenge your students may be facing in their learning

• Identifying your specific hopes and dreams for our coaching cycle

• The ins and outs of the coaching cycle, including: Co-planning, co-teaching, co-assessing

If you are not able to make that session, we are onboarding coaching candidates all the time. Take a look at the coaching menu on our website at: https://www.hdsb-theshift.com/shift-learning/coaching-menu  

Our hope is that we can help you along in your journey to SHIFT. 

At a time when so much feels out of our control, it can be very empowering to take something on to make our lives, and the lives of our students, better. As SHIFT coaches, we can be that extra set of eyes, hands, and brains to help make that happen.  

Yours in learning,

The SHIFT