Bring Coaching to your Company

Since the adoption of a one-to-one environment in 2012, large investments were made into developing state of the art technology at Kaohsiung American School. These culminated in a complete integration of technology into the new campus inaugurated in May of 2015. The missing component was an equally strong system to enable our community to thrive by using this environment and infrastructure to redefine the professional development experience at KAS. Thus the first Learning Technology Coach position was created at our school in August of 2015.


Lead, Collaborate, Share

An in-depth discussion with Diana Beabout during her fortuitous visit at KAS in September allowed us to become conscious of the leadership potential in our existing Tech Ambassadors program. Innovators and early adopters establish the momentum that will effect transformation (What Are Innovators Like? Everett M. Rogers 1962 p.55). Tech Ambassadors are KAS lighthouses whose leadership skills need to be recognized and nurtured. Hence, the first part of our strategic plan is dedicated to identifying and celebrating KAS leaders within our community. Part 2 reinforces the collaboration structures at KAS and extends the guidelines for coaching into peer observations supported by the leadership team. The goal of part 3 is to share successful tech initiatives and exemplar works to deeply root best practices in a firm base. Our hope is that future professionals joining our team will be inspired.

Be A Catalyst

During our brainstorming sessions, Tom and I drafted our early model as a cycle until it struck us that a more appropriate representation is of the emergence of a network that empowers the leaders within your community, nurtures collaboration, and celebrates best-practices. Our vision is to become the catalyst behind the realization of this network.

Knowledge and Understanding

After fourteen years in the technology field, it is an exhilarating yet frightening, empowering but also humbling experience to explore a new unknown territory.

This unknown had been on my professional map since my arrival in Asia. As masterfully demonstrated in his video the Backwards Brain Bicycle, there is a major distinction between knowing and understanding. A fortiori, there is a distinction to be made between knowing what you do not know, and understanding what it will take to fill this gap. The Eduro course on coaching has definitely brought me closer to understanding why Jim Knight emphasises that coaches must realize themselves beyond the one-to-one level as “system leaders”.

The thrill of pouring once again into research with the support of a like-minded community of learners within this group was a constant thrill during these six weeks. Thank you all. It took me some time to face my fears and meet with one of our teachers to begin our coaching cycle while admitting in all honesty to my lack of knowledge and experience. Thank you Lulu, you have taught me a great deal more than I brought to your environment. With our now fully completed Learning Technology Strategic Plan version 1.0 beta, I feel that Tom and I have drafted an appropriate framework to move forward our vision of a program, catalyst to all technology experiences. Nevertheless, it is very humbling to be standing on the shoulders of Giants to begin the journey of implementing our newly born coaching program following Kim, Diana and the rest of you.

This post belongs to a series of posts I originally published for my course on Eduro, Coaching: from Theory to Practice taught by Kim Cofino.

Create a coaching implementation plan that fits your school’s needs. Ensure that you:1. Highlight specific strengths and weaknesses of current school structure with specific suggestions for improvement.2. Provide specific steps for implementation (including your strategy for empowering learning leaders)3. Include a reflective post that highlights your key learning and how you will be able to apply and implement that learning in your setting, based on your Action Plan.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Host a Conference and Connect Ideas

Coach to Develop Leaders

Design Thinking