Feedback & Coaching Lab™ (FB&C Lab) is a school-embedded professional learning experience that builds instructional leadership capacity for administrators, instructional coaches, curriculum specialists, and/or anyone who is responsible for the learning of teachers and the development of teaching.
Feedback & Coaching Lab consists of a series of live, onsite classroom observations and feedback/coaching episodes. These live sessions are facilitated by Mike Rutherford, creator of FB&C Lab, and/or other RLG Certified Feedback & Coaching Lab facilitators.
Here’s the logic for Feedback & Coaching Lab: Many variables affect student achievement. The variable with the largest and most durable effect size is instructional quality. Instructional quality is largely a product of the teacher’s skills, techniques, and approaches to teaching. These skills, techniques, and approaches are highly developable through feedback and coaching. Over time, school leaders who, through skillful feedback and coaching, can develop teachers and teaching create school cultures that attract and retain even more skillful teachers. And the cycle continues… to the great benefit of student learning.
Feedback & Coaching Lab seeks to build instructional leadership expertise in three domains:
1. Pattern Recognition– the ability of the instructional leader to see past the obvious happenings in a classroom and spot the relevant patterns of cause-effect that support effective instruction and significant learning.
2. Retrieval Fluency– the ability of the instructional leader to recognize, identify by name (23 themes), and understand the significant patterns of teaching/learning in each classroom.
3. Feedback and Coaching Skills– the ability of the instructional leader to provide teachers with frequent, meaningful, growth-evoking feedback and coaching that teachers see as timely, valuable, and non-threatening.
Feedback & Coaching Lab participants observe classroom teaching in small groups, practice collecting relevant data, analyze and discuss observations to clarify patterns of effective instruction, identify teacher strengths and opportunities for rapid growth, and practice (with feedback) their own feedback and coaching skills.
In tandem with the Artisan Teacher™ curriculum, Feedback & Coaching Lab™ participants will learn to recognize the 23 Artisan Teacher themes and utilize 7 Tools for Developing Teachers and Teaching. Feedback & Coaching Lab typically spans two years with participants meeting four times per year at local schools for facilitated observations and feedback/coaching demonstrations.
Bring Feedback & Coaching Lab to your school or district. Mike Rutherford, and/or other RLG certified FB&C Lab facilitators will design a transformational experience for your administrators and teacher developers. FB&C Lab is available in its full, two-year version and also in customized experiences that focus on one or more of the 7 Tools for Developing Teachers and Teaching. Contact us for availability, pricing, and customized program design for your school or district.
Client Feedback on FB&C Lab:
“The Artisan Teacher and Feedback & Coaching Lab have provided Nixa with an amazing opportunity to collaborate as an administrative team and solidify the importance of providing our teachers with meaningful, specific and frequent feedback based on teacher strengths. Teachers LOVED receiving the feedback and in turn we have seen teacher and administrative growth alike. Mike modeled for administrators how to value teachers through feedback while all the time valuing the strengths of our administrative team. Mike’s ability to build relationships with those he is training makes all the difference! ‘One of our administrators wrote… “…We learned a ton just by watching Mike interact with teachers and administrators. LOVED IT! Thank you for bringing this PD to us! We have valued every minute of it!’ We value Mike’s expertise and feel blessed to have had the opportunity to learn from him!”
– Kathy Whitworth, Executive Director of HR, Nixa Public Schools, Nixa, MO
“I have had the distinct pleasure of helping bring Feedback & Coaching Lab to two different states (Missouri and Arkansas) as well as numerous school districts. After each session, participants have had the same reaction: that this is the most powerful and productive professional development that they—as instructional leaders—have been a part of. And the tools are so practical that participants can go back and begin implementing them right away! I wholeheartedly encourage every district that prioritizes improving instruction to bring this opportunity to their instructional leaders. It’s a game-changer! “
– Tyler Barnett, Director, Charter Development, Arkansas Public School Resource Center