BACKGROUND

Fostering a culture of public practice is central to the ACPS Instructional Coaching mission and as such, we spent time as a team in the 2017-2018 school year identifying new avenues for sharing our work and connecting teachers to each other across the division. Formative work in the beginning of the year led to increased momentum in the spring as coaches employed a variety of social media platforms. In the course of our work, we published five blog posts and hosted our our first #ACPSConnect Twitter chat. We’re excited for this year and a launch with a renewed sense of energy and enthusiasm.

MOVING FORWARD

As we look ahead, we want to build on positive experiences from last year and work to accomplish the following goals through our public outreach. Our main goals are to:

Assist teachers in actualizing their goals
Connect teachers in ACPS and create opportunities to share researched-based practices around curriculum, assessment, and instruction.
Highlight avenues and benefits of partnering with an instructional coach

There are many ways to connect in ACPS and we trust that the use of social media tools will add one more outlet for teachers to find collaborative partners, whether they are coaches or other teachers within the district. Ideally, these partnerships will lead to teacher reflection, revision and an actualization of their instructional goals.
By making this work public, we aim to improve the depth and significance of professional learning for ACPS faculty and impact student academic growth.

PROPOSAL

The Instructional Coaching blog will remain at the heart of our work to foster connections between ACPS educators. We also plan to update the Instructional Coaching website and sponsor additional Twitter chats and collaborative posts, both with coaching team members as well as outside experts and educators. Additional innovations for this year include the possibility of a discussion board and a more deliberate link to the many opportunities ACPS employs to build connections between faculty. We look forward to growing with our audience and welcome your feedback and collaboration.