The Keys To Coaching Outside Your Expertise

COACHES CORNER

The keys to coaching outside your expertise

By Sharron Helmke

Categories: Coaching, Continuous improvement, Facilitation, Fundamentals, Learning designs

Kindergarten and elementary classrooms never fail to bring me to a state of awe. Alphabet charts, number lines, book bins — the environment is so different from the high school English classrooms I inhabited as a teacher. The teaching is different, too, guiding inexperienced students in learning what it means to be a student while teaching key foundational concepts. Perhaps these differences are why I enjoy coaching teachers of young children. I love hearing their thinking as they plan how to make monumental learning happen through discovery and play. I’m aware that not everyone feels this way. In my work supporting instructional coaches, I find that many feel ill-equipped to support teachers in grade levels or subjects they’ve never taught themselves. They worry they won’t

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Sharron Helmke

Senior Vice President, Professional Services at Learning Forward | + posts

Sharron Helmke, senior vice president of professional services at Learning Forward, designs and manages the organization’s consulting service programs that support state, regional, and local organizations in translating their improvement and learning goals into custom-designed high-quality professional learning programs that result in scalable and sustainable change. During her twenty-plus years in education she has served in a variety of roles at the campus and district levels, including teacher, instructional coach, and district-based program administrator. She is an international coaching federation certified professional coach, a Gestalt professional coach, and a trauma-informed care provider, all of which inform her approach to supporting educators. She is the author of numerous professional articles, including “To make a difference for every student, give every new teacher a mentor” in the August 2022 issue of The Learning Journal.