Associate Director Daniela Mantilla Instructional coaches come in many forms these days—from Common Core coaches to literacy coaches to technology specialists, districts are investing large sums with the hopes that targeted support of teachers will transform teaching and learning in their school systems. What we see in some of our Mills Teacher Scholars district partnerships is that on the ground this investment has some major challenges. Coaches are pulled into testing students, asked to cover classrooms when there is a sub shortage or fill other operational school needs. Often coaches are exceptional teachers who have not had the chance to build their coaching skills before given the task of working with colleagues. Moreover, and possibly most importantly, even when experienced coaches enter a school site, they find that most teachers feel that they are not “ready” to take advantage of the coaching services. I have heard teachers share that they have not had positive experiences with coaches, see the offer of coaching as an administrators’ veiled critique of their professional capacity, or simply do not feel it is worth the time investment. Coaching works when teachers possess a growth mindset, an openness to examining their practice, and a trust in the value of the collaborative process. While there is a large body of research indicating coaching’s effectiveness, the readiness factor is frequently not addressed when districts and schools set up their coaching initiatives. At most schools, it takes time and intentionality on the part of school leadership to set the conditions for teachers to hold this learning stance. Through our inquiry process Mills Teacher Scholars builds these conditions for adult learning. Teacher Scholars develop the capacity to engage in various forms of coaching and collaborations. Through 15-30 minute one-on-one coaching conversation between group inquiry sessions, facilitators (or teacher scholar leaders at our teacher-led sites) support teachers to move forward with their inquiry practice. Often, the most important part of these coaching conversations is reminding the teachers of their previous thinking and giving them the opportunity to clarify their evolving thinking through articulating the jumble of ideas they haven’t quite yet made sense of. What Does This Look Like in Practice? Implementing Broad, Inquiring Deep at Colonial Acres

Our 2015 site partnerships are going strong. With ten site-based groups and four cross-site groups supported by our Teacher Scholar Leader Network and Principal Inquiry Network, we are working with over 275 teachers, coaches and principals from across the East Bay. School Site Partnerships...

The larger goal of the newly formed Network is to support school leaders to harness the potential of the Mills Teacher Scholars inquiry work at their sites to support transformational systems change. Through this newly formed Network, leaders of Mills Teacher Scholars partner sites will work with their school-based colleagues to: develop a deeper understanding of how teacher inquiry can improve instructional practice and align school-wide expectations and practices build competency around how to set the conditions to support teacher learning and teacher instructional leadership consider new ways to leverage existing teacher leader competencies at their school site The Anna Yates (Emery Unified) team meets to collaboratively craft a statement that articulates how their Mills Teacher Scholars inquiry work will move them towards their school improvement goals. As teacher scholar leaders from their sites met in the adjacent room, Principal Network participants at our August meeting had a chance to experience the Mills Teacher Scholars thinking space for themselves. Veteran MTS partner principal, Paco Furlan (Rosa Parks, BUSD) modeled the idea of sharing an authentic dilemma of leadership with principal coach Eve Gordon, who supported him to think more deeply through probing questions and comments. Principals then had a chance to explore their own question of practice in small groups before joining up with their teacher scholar leaders next door. Site leaders and teacher scholar leaders were asked to collaboratively craft a statement that articulates how their Mills Teacher Scholars inquiry work will move them towards their school improvement goals. This messaging, that aligned teacher leaders’ vision with the principal’s would then be shared with their staff on the opening professional development day. Here are statements from two of our partner sites:

“The Teacher Leader Network has helped me understand that being a professional is not knowing it all and dictating it out to others, but instead being a person who people feel comfortable sharing their own knowledge with and getting them...