4.1a: Coaches create a shared vision and culture for using technology to learn and accelerate transformation through the coaching process.

ISTE standards for coaches

Meeting Standard 4.1a

Creating a shared school culture that incorporates the diverse experiences and perspectives of educators in a way that effectively works toward a shared goal can be challenging. Misreading the group or skipping culture-building can lead to lost time, ineffective training, and reduced community support. Add technology to the mix and the inability to create a shared and purposeful school culture can quickly get expensive. Working as a team to develop a shared culture in education and a shared vision for using technology can make all the difference.

Image lists Social Factors: PLN, identify with learning, practice, honor achievements, extend training, school support structure
Social Factors from my Feb 2022 post

In February 2022, I wrote a post about creating professional development that supports long-term development of culture and best-practices. In that post, I mentioned that two essential elements of long term professional development are to incorporate the social aspects of training and to account for external elements. The cooperative interaction of a peer network and elements of school culture external to the PD session itself create a synergy from which the educational system as a whole benefits. Coaches can work on both aspects of these essential elements to strengthen and improve them.

Another way that coaches can build and strengthen a shared vision for their educational institution is to build a professional learning network within their building or district that builds on the existing strengths of staff. In a November 2021 post, I shared four reasons coaches should strive to build strong, positive in-house networks of tech-savvy teachers to serve as leaders within their buildings. These four reasons include:

  • Teachers know the technology end-users well
  • To more quickly identify and repair gaps in the user technology knowledge
  • Experienced teaching staff is less likely to be cut when budgets tighten (unlike coaches)
  • Teachers can provide each other just-in-time ongoing support