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Dr. Megan Tschannen-Moran is a professor in the College of William and Mary’s School of Education. She prepares prospective school leaders for K-12 building-level and central office positions in the Educational Policy, Planning, and Leadership program. Her primary research interest focuses on relationships of trust in school settings and how these are related to important outcomes such as school climate, the collective efficacy beliefs of a school faculty, organizational citizenship, teacher professionalism, and student achievement. She has published more than 40 scholarly articles and book chapters in highly regarded journals such as the Education Administration Quarterly, the Journal of Educational Administration, and Teachers College Record. Her book Trust Matters: Leadership for Successful Schools (2004, Jossey-Bass) reports the experience of three principals and the consequences of their successes and failures to build trust. Her second book, Evocative Coaching: Transforming Schools One Conversation at a Time (2010, Jossey-Bass) was co-authored with her husband Bob. Megan earned her doctorate at The Ohio State University and for fourteen years Megan served as founder and principal of The Good News Educational Workshop, a non-public elementary and middle school serving students in a primarily low-income and minority neighborhood on the North Side of Chicago.
Bob Tschannen-Moran, IAC-CC, is the CEO & Co-Founder of the Center for School Transformation, President of LifeTrek Coaching International, and 2010-2011 President of the International Association of Coaching. He has been passionately involved with performance improvement and coach training for more than 12 years. In addition to being the lead trainer with the Center for School Transformation, Bob is an active member of the faculty of the Wellcoaches School of Coaching, a coaching-training program for health, fitness, and wellness professionals. Bob earned a Bachelor's degree from Northwestern University, a Master's degree from Yale Divinity School, and is a graduate of Coach U. Bob co-authored Evocative Coaching: Transforming Schools One Conversation at a Time (2010), the ACSM / Lippincott Coaching Psychology Manual (2009) and is a chapter contributor to The Complete Handbook of Coaching (2010). Person-centered, no-fault, and strengths-based approaches represent the hallmark of Bob’s philosophy and approach to coaching.
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At least four critical variables influence student achievement: family engagement, school climate, socio-economic status, and teacher effectiveness. Of those four, teacher effectiveness is increasingly being identified as the most important variable. It is certainly the easiest variable for schools to isolate, evaluate, and manipulate. Through a combination of student achievement and teacher behavior data, teaching effectiveness is being measured and teachers are being held accountable for what students learn. Although appropriate, such accountability does not always generate and can even interfere with performance improve-ment if it is not handled well.
To change the dynamic, educators must learn to change the conversation. Instead of being oriented around the evaluations of experts, educators must learn to value the awareness, choices, and responsibility of those who are teaching and delivering instruction. Instead of fault-finding and making constructive criticisms, educators must learn to expand the zone of no-fault thinking and possibility. Instead of analyzing what’s wrong and fixing weaknesses, educators must learn to appreciate what’s right and to build on strengths. This teacher-centered, no-fault, strengths-based approach to performance improvement, known as Evocative Coaching, generates betters schools through better conversations. It is a refreshing and timely way to support the devel-opment of highly effective teachers in every classroom.
Participants in the pre-conference workshop will have the opportunity to not only understand but also to experience, through inspirational videos and interactive exercises, this teacher-centered, no-fault, strengths-based approach to behavior change. The shifts and strategies of Evocative Coaching will be clearly identified and practiced such that participants can begin to make immediate use of them in their districts and schools.
School leaders, staff developers, department chairs, and other school personnel are increasingly being tapped to provide coaching to novice and struggling teachers as a performance-improvement strategy. Unfortunately, these instructional leaders often have subject-matter expertise but lack comparable expertise in the coaching process itself.
Participants in the concurrent session will receive answers to these and other such questions through exposure to a new, evidence-based adult learning process. Evocative Coaching: Transforming Schools One Conversation at a Time navigates coaching relationships and conversations through Story–Empathy–Inquiry–Design to unleash motivation and movement in order achieve desired outcomes and enhance quality of life. By inviting teachers and other stakeholders into the innovation process as valued collaborators, who need not fear the consequences of sharing their experiences, expressing their feelings and needs, exploring strengths, imagining new possibilities, and experimenting with how best to meet the educational needs of students, Evocative Coaching can truly transform schools, one conversation at a time. For more information on Evocative Coaching and additional training resources, visit the Center for School Transformation at www.schooltransformation.com.
