Tag Archives: teaching

Holding Two Truths: Education, Evidence, and Fatherhood

As I prepare to become a father, my view of education is shifting. What will I hold onto and what will change when learning becomes personal? A reflection on time, empathy, evidence, and raising a learner in a complex system.

Creating Examples vs. Non Examples Using Nano Banana Pro on Gemini 3 to Amplify Instruction

Learning abstract concepts is difficult because our students are beginners in many cases. This means they primarily understand new ideas in the context of what they already know, which is usually concrete. To build a robust “schema” (a mental structure of organized knowledge), students need more than a definition; they need to see the concept in action through examples vs. non examples. With this said, it is now ever been easier to create examples vs. non examples using Gemini’s Nano Banana Pro image generator that is associated with Gemini 3. In this post, you’ll see how to do this to support your instruction.

From the Sidelines to the Shoulder: Using Co-Teaching as the Engine for Instructional Coaching

The Gradual Release of Responsibility (“I do, We do, You do”) is a powerful framework for instructional coaching, and it can be delivered directly through co-teaching strategies. Instead of a coach modeling and then simply observing, the crucial “We do” phase becomes a hands-on, collaborative partnership. This post explores how to use specific co-teaching models as the bridge from “I do” to “You do.” I share a single-session example of supporting a teacher with multilingual learners, moving from my “I do” (model) to our “We do” (“Team Teaching”) and finally to their “You do” (with me in a “One Teach, One Support” role), all within a single lesson.

AI Agent Advancements: Google Lens (aka Homework Helper) and Comet Browser

As educators, we’ve navigated the shift from chalkboards to smartboards, from calculators to laptops. But the change barreling towards us now is different. It’s not just a new tool; it’s a new kind of actor in the learning process. I’m talking about AI-powered tools like Google Lens and the emerging class of AI-agent browsers, such as Perplexity’s Comet Browser. These technologies are fundamentally reshaping what it means to “do work” and forcing us to confront a critical reality: we can no longer guarantee the authenticity of any work done outside our direct supervision. As a result, what does this mean for asynchronous online learning and completing graded work outside of traditional in-person classes?

EdTech Leadership in the Age of AI: What Matters Most When Everything is Changing

My coffee is still warm when the first alert comes in. A teacher cannot access Canvas, and their students are stuck at the login screen. I walk the teacher through the SSO steps, confirm access, and move on. By midmorning, I have visited classrooms, supported teachers with technology integration, and observed lessons to plan follow-up coaching. After that, I sit with our engineers to review system performance, troubleshoot issues, and test several EdTech tools and updates planned for release.

At two o’clock, there are three messages on LinkedIn about a new AI tool that promises to transform learning. I scan one, note the potential and the hype, and return to the work I already committed to do. The afternoon goes to email, planning professional learning, and reviewing the week ahead.

Sound familiar?

For many of us in EdTech and instructional leadership, this mix of strategic and immediate work is the norm. Some hours go to multi-year plans, budgets, and compliance. Others are dedicated to making sure one specific app works for one teacher so students can keep learning. The pace makes it easy to lose focus when the day is packed and many things are going on simultaneously. I return to a single question: how do people learn, and how can instruction and technology work together to support that? If we cannot answer that question, systems, budgets, and tools will have little impact.

This post shares how I connect what we know about learning with the daily realities of leading technology and instructional change in schools. I will describe several major themes and then provide a summary of the next steps to help you further reflect upon your leadership and programs.

Instructional Coaches Need to Know How Memory Works – And It’s Not a Muscle

I often hear memory described as a muscleβ€”something that gets stronger the more you “work it out.” While the sentiment is well-intentioned, it’s a misleading metaphor. Our memory isn’t a single entity that we can simply beef up through brute force. It’s a complex system, and for instructional coaches, understanding its nuances is a game-changer for helping teachers truly embed new and refined strategies into their practice as well as teach the teachers we are coaching how learning happens.

Scaling Instructional Coaching: Overcoming Key Challenges

While the evidence for instructional coaching’s effectiveness is compelling, translating this potential into widespread impact presents significant challenges, particularly when attempting to scale programs across schools or districts. A primary concern, identified by Kraft et al. (2018), is the potential dilution of quality as coaching programs expand. The personalization and strong relationships that underpin effectiveContinueContinue reading “Scaling Instructional Coaching: Overcoming Key Challenges”

AI Agents: The Future of School Leadership

The deployment of AI Agents has the potential to greatly impact school leadership. These autonomous software systems, capable of perceiving their environment, making decisions, and executing actions independently, will have the opportunity to redefine the role of educational leaders if they choose to deploy these tools. Remember, we are still in the early days ofContinueContinue reading “AI Agents: The Future of School Leadership”

The Power of Rehearsal: The Most Overlooked Step in Instructional Coaching

Instructional coaching is a powerful tool for transforming teaching and learning, but one of its most underutilized strategies within instructional coaching is lesson rehearsal by the teaching being coachedβ€”a safe, structured opportunity for teachers to practice new instructional strategies before implementing them in the classroom. Check out how this critical element of instructional coaching can be implemented and be apart of your coaching toolkit and practice.

The Death of the LMS in Higher Ed: How AI Agents May Make the Traditional LMS Learning Obsolete in the Near Future

The rise of AI-powered agents like Operator (and many more) will drastically reshape how higher education delivers courses online, making traditional Learning Management Systems (LMS) increasingly irrelevant if safeguards are not created. As students gain access to AI tools capable of completing assignments within an internet browser autonomously, writing essays, answering quizzes and tests, andContinueContinue reading “The Death of the LMS in Higher Ed: How AI Agents May Make the Traditional LMS Learning Obsolete in the Near Future”

Proving Our Impact: How Instructional Coaches Can Use Regression Analysis to Demonstrate Their Value

Recently, my PLN colleague Roxi Thompson posed some compelling questions on LinkedIn: How do you collect data to demonstrate the impact of your coaching program? What methods have you found effective, especially in showing improvement in areas like instructional design or student learning? As instructional coaches, these are the questions we must answer to advocateContinueContinue reading “Proving Our Impact: How Instructional Coaches Can Use Regression Analysis to Demonstrate Their Value”

Retrieval and Spaced Practice – Key Strategies to Support Multilingual Learners

supporting multilingual learners is a top priority for teachers who want to help every student succeed. As language demands grow, teachers are always on the lookout for practical, research-backed strategies to support vocabulary and memory skills. A recent study by Butowska-BuczyΕ„ska et al. (2024) highlights two strategies that stand out: variable retrieval and spaced practice.ContinueContinue reading “Retrieval and Spaced Practice – Key Strategies to Support Multilingual Learners”

CoTeachingEvolved.com

CoteachingEvolved.com is our new website for our upcoming book, “Co-Teaching Evolved: Partnership Strategies for an Equitable, Inclusive, and Tech-Powered Classroom,” which is scheduled for release this fall on October 11th with Solution Tree. It’s designed to help new and seasoned co-teacher teachers better understand and implement co-teaching strategies that address the complexities of modern co-teachingContinueContinue reading “CoTeachingEvolved.com”