The Role of Instructional Coaching at Eagle Rock School

They say a shark in the ocean must constantly swim in order to survive, and the same concept holds true for educators. If they’re not consistently exploring new ideas, receiving feedback or learning new teaching techniques, they’re shortchanging the students in their classrooms.

A few years back, some of our staff members did heavy research on continuing teacher education, in addition to studying the findings from other schools concerning the implementation of instructional coaching. The idea was to provide support for our fulltime instructional specialists here at Eagle Rock School as well as our annual group of teaching fellows.

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As a result, we piloted a new instructional coaching position for the 2014/15 school year in advance of welcoming welcome six new fulltime instructors in addition to our annual influx of a dozen new Public Allies fellows.

Janet Johnson, our science instructional specialist, became our first instructional coach, and she performed that fulltime task in impressive fashion for the year, while Sara Benge stayed on for a second year Public Allies fellowship to help with our science instruction.

Janet worked closely with our six new teachers throughout the year and set up coaching cycles, a new teacher Critical Friends Group, and informal supports and check-ins throughout each trimester of the academic year. Since it was our pilot year, Janet had the opportunity to explore new ideas throughout the year, making time to meet with more experienced teachers, and some of our teaching fellows, acting as a resource and a thought partner in their practice.

For the current school year, we’re transitioning into what we believe can be a sustainable way to keep an instructional coach on staff with our current staffing model. Jon Anderson, Eagle Rock’s human performance and outdoor education instructional specialist, is our instructional coach this year, fulfilling the role on a part-time basis. He’ll also continue teaching in the Continue reading…

Educational Heroes For Eagle Rock Faculty & Staff

We recently asked some of our educators and staff members to come up with a list of people in the field of academia that they believe made a difference in their lives or inspired them to do things differently or better.

Here is a list of a few of those educators:

theodore-sizerTheodore R. Sizer: Founder — and later president emeritus — of the Essential school movement, Sizer took on the task of questioning the way students were being taught in the nation’s secondary schools. By the late 1970s, he was involved with hundreds of high schools across the country.

What emerged from all of that research was the book Horace’s Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School, his 1984 eloquent call to arms for school reform. Sizer also he founded the Coalition of Essential Schools, which is based on the principles he put forth in his book.

Eagle Rock School is an official Coalition School and our Professional Development Center is not only an Affiliate Center, we are also the national coordinator of CES Centers.

john-goodladJohn Goodlad: Written 15 years ago, Goodlad’s In Praise of Education described public education as a fundamental right in this country, calling it essential in the development of intelligent thinking within a democracy.

Other writings contributed by this educational theory-maker include The Moral Dimensions of TeachingPlaces Where Teachers Are TaughtTeachers for Our Nation’s Schools, and Educational Renewal: Better Teachers, Better Schools.

Goodlad was instrumental in promoting educational reform by designing programs and personally diving into research on positive change for schools.

As a point of reference, Eagle Rock was a founding member of his League of Democratic Schools.

Kurt-HahnKurt Hahn: This German educator, who is credited with playing a major leadership role in the effort to launch Outward Bound, founded an alliance of international schools called the United World Colleges. In addition, his thinking about school culture led to the creation of the 10 Expeditionary Learning Design Principles.

John Dewey: A pragmatic man — and an important contributor to functional psychology in this country — Dewey was also active in the realm of educational reform. Rather than sitting straight up at a desk in a classroom, Dewey espoused the concept of allowing children to learn while doing. By moving freely in and out of the classroom, his belief was that math, science and problem solving could be Continue reading…

Fall 2014 Update From The Eagle Rock Professional Development Center

A new trimester is about to get underway here at Eagle Rock and — just as in Septembers past — our Professional Development Center (PDC) finds itself gearing up to help schools across the country learn more about reengaging students in their own education.

Here in Estes Park, we’ve got a new cohort of Public Allies Fellows arriving on campus and the PDC team will help by launching a Strengths-based Fellowship Initiative that enables these fellows to access their strengths and talents in order to thrive in this demanding year of service and leadership.

And as we welcome six new staff members (in addition to the new Fellows mentioned above), the PDC team will be facilitating sessions for the Eagle Rock orientation for new staff.

Below is a listing of our Professional Development Center’s activities scheduled from now through the Thanksgiving holidays.

Sept. 18

Sep. 25

  • Facilitating the third monthly Google Hangout in our series with Public Allies Alumni in the education space.

Sep. 25 – 26

  • We regularly explore new opportunities for mission appropriate projects and have recently been introduced to the Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives in New Orleans, La. We will be meeting with John Ayers, Executive Director, to explore intersections in our work for reengaging youth in their own education and communities.

Sep. 29

October 6 — 7

  • We’ll be hosting Rochester Public Schools (N.Y.) as a group of teachers, principals and district-level administrators look to continue their work in improving student engagement efforts.

October 8 — 10

  • We’ll be hosting Expeditionary Learning Schools where school leaders from a variety of schools nationally will convene to work on continuous improvement of their model. This is where teaching and learning inspires and empowers teachers to Continue reading…