Lucy West

What kind of supports would keep teachers well equipped to help all of their students succeed?

What if these same supports kept teachers energized, passionate, informed, and engaged in upgrading the quality of teaching and learning?

Content-Focused Coaching offers just such a sustaining system. CFC is a long-range professional development practice in which coaches work individually or with groups of classroom teachers to design, implement, and reflect on rigorous, standards-based lessons that promoted student learning. Authored by an educator and a researcher closely involved with the design of CFC, this book is perfect for K-8 staff developers, teacher leaders, administrators, and others interested in improving education.

Lucy West and Fritz Staub explain the general tenets of CFC and the fundamental foundations upon which it rests. Then they provide a wealth of examples of coaching in action in New York City’s Community School District #2, a district known nationally for its progressive, innovative, and rigorous focus on professional development. While these examples are drawn from mathematics classrooms, the general features of CFC will be of interest to staff developers in other subject areas.

To give readers a richer picture of what CFC entails, the three accompanying CD-ROMS contain extensive video fooage of coaching sessions, including the preconference, lesson, and postconference. Full transcrips of the video segments can be used with the book or as independent tools for study groups.

Improve education, rekindle teachers’ passions for their profession. Read Content-Focused Coaching and consider implementing coaching in your school district.