Elevating Teaching Expertise Through Coaching
Examine a variety of practices and structures to shape your coaching and deepen your knowledge of effective coaching.
In this 8-week online course, you’ll explore a variety of ways to coach teachers and foster their independence, reflection, and analysis of teaching and learning.
- Literacy Coaches & Teacher Leaders
- Course Number: EEDUC 6404-80
Coaches, teacher-leaders, and administrators build the knowledge and skills needed to coach teachers effectively and support their continued growth. You’ll explore and implement different content-embedded coaching approaches, including intervention, cluster, and individual coaching. Learn how to select coaching structures that respond to teachers’ needs and connect coaching with professional learning to support lasting instructional growth.
Course Outcomes
- Deepen teachers’ understandings of reading and writing as complex processes
- Use facilitative language that opens conversation and promotes the analysis of teaching and its effects on learning
- Examine and use a variety of coaching structures to meet the needs of specific teachers
- Link coaching sessions to professional learning to impact teaching
- Build trust with colleagues by taking a tentative stance and being a reflective listener
- Use observational tools to sharpen the analysis of teaching
- Use professional resources and tools effectively during coaching conversations
- Collaborate with teachers to plan, implement, and reflect on instructional practices that develop students’ disciplinary literacy skills across the content areas
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.
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.
Required Texts
You are responsible for purchasing/having access to the following professional texts for this course:
- Fountas, I.C. and Pinnell, G.S. (2025). The Literacy Coaching Playbook: What to Know, Say, and Do. Heinemann.
- Fountas, I.C. and Pinnell, G.S. (2018). The Literacy Quick Guide. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Interested in professional learning at your school or district? Schedule a meeting with one of our faculty trainers.
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