Acquiring Coaching and Teacher Leadership Expertise
Strengthen your facilitation skills and coaching language to foster teacher growth and improve literacy instruction.
In this 8-week online course, you’ll build the knowledge, language, and facilitation skills to become a more effective literacy coach. Learn to define your role, facilitate reflective conversations, lead meaningful professional learning, and partner with teachers and administrators to strengthen instruction and improve student outcomes.
- Literacy Coaches & Teacher Leaders
- Course: EEDUC 6403-80
This eight-week online course strengthens your communication and facilitation skills so you can build trusting partnerships with teachers and administrators, foster inquiry and reflection, and expand professional capacity across your school community.
Course Outcomes
- Identify the characteristics of effective professional learning communities that support adult learning, coaching, and teacher leadership
- Develop collaborative and trusting relationships with colleagues
- Use language that opens conversation and promotes the analysis of teaching and its effects on learning
- Support teachers as they reflect on their teaching and student learning
- Implement one-on-one coaching sessions with teachers: pre-observation conference, classroom visit, post-observation conversation
- Use professional resources effectively in professional learning conversations
- Examine the coach’s/teacher leader’s partnership with school administrators to support teacher development
- Develop a system for notetaking and recording that documents teacher development
You must have access to a school environment to participate and complete the assignments.
Linda Murphy, Associate Director, Literacy Programs
Linda Murphy has been a member of the Center for Literacy Teaching and Instructional Leadership for the past six years, serving as both an Intermediate Trainer and Associate Director of Literacy Programs.
Prior to joining the Center, Linda held a variety of leadership and instructional positions in New York school districts. Her experience includes serving as an intermediate school principal, Director of English Language Arts, Social Studies, and Reading, district trainer for Literacy Collaborative Intermediate, Reading Recovery Teacher Leader, and classroom teacher.
Linda holds certifications in Elementary Education and School District Administration and brings extensive expertise in literacy instruction, leadership development, and educator professional learning.
Required Texts
- Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. (2025). Your literacy coaching playbook, what to know, say, and do. Heinemann.
- Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. (2022). The Fountas and Pinnell literacy continuum: A tool for assessment, planning, and teaching, second edition. Heinemann.
- Johnston, P. (2024). Choice words: How our language affects children’s learning, second edition. Stenhouse.
This option must be taken for 3 graduate credits. Take the course individually or as a required course in our 12-credit Online Graduate Certificate in Literacy Coaching and Teacher Leadership.
Interested in professional learning at your school or district? Schedule a meeting with one of our faculty trainers
Thinking Beyond the Page: Developing Deep Comprehension
Comprehension is the heart of reading—and it goes far beyond understanding the words on the page. Join us to learn practical ways to help students move from surface-level understanding to deeper analysis, meaningful reflection, and critical thinking about what they read.
Playful Pathways to Print: Learning About Language, Letters, Sounds and Words
Explore how to turn young children’s love for playing with the sounds of language into meaningful literacy learning during this one-day workshop.
Linking Assessment to Teaching: Reading, Writing & Word Study
In this 8-week online course, you’ll learn how to gather and analyze evidence from students’ reading, writing, word study, and oral language to make responsive instructional decisions. Discover practical approaches to identifying students’ strengths and needs, then use those insights to design effective literacy instruction that supports every learner.