Cultivating Coaching Mindsets: An Action Guide for Literacy Leaders, Jun/2016

Literacy leaders are working to provide highly effective, rigorous teaching and learning as they work with families, communities, individuals, and the system simultaneously. To do that, they need to wear many hats, serving as leaders, facilitators, designers, and advocates.

In Cultivating Coaching Mindsets, authors Rita Bean and Jacy Ippolito lay out a detailed framework to help literacy leaders promote the advancement of literacy instruction that improves and deepens learning. They also explore facilitation techniques for providing meaningful feedback while respecting teachers’ views and knowledge—supporting teachers as they build their capacity to reflect on and improve literacy learning for all students.

About The Authors:

Rita M. Bean, PhD, is professor emerita, University of Pittsburgh, Department of Instruction and Learning. For over twenty-five years, she taught students preparing to be reading specialists and also served as director of the Reading Center. Prior to joining the university, she taught at the elementary level and served as reading coordinator (K–12), the role which stimulated her interest in coaching to support teacher professional learning. Dr. Bean has focused her research on the role and impact of reading specialists and literacy coaches in schools. She served as co-director of a large-scale evaluation study of a literacy initiative in Pennsylvania that included coaching as a major approach for professional learning. She has also participated in several national studies that have resulted in position statements about the role of reading specialists and literacy coaches (International Literacy Association).

Results of her research have been published in many journals and books. Recent books include Cultivating Coaching Mindsets: An Action Guide for Literacy Leaders (2016), The Reading Specialist: Leadership and Coaching for the Classroom, School, and Community (2015), and a co-edited volume Best Practices of Literacy Leaders: Keys to School Improvement (2011). She received her BS from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and her master’s degree and PhD from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Bean received the University of Pittsburgh’s Distinguished Teacher Award and the Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award for her community and outreach efforts to improve literacy. In 2009, she was elected to the Reading Hall of Fame and is cur­rently serving as its president.

Jacy Ippolito, EdD is an associate professor in the School of Education at Salem State University, Salem, Massachusetts. His research and teaching focus on the intersection of ado­lescent and disciplinary literacy, literacy coaching, teacher lead­ership, and school reform. Dr. Ippolito is specifically interested in the roles that teacher leaders, principals, and literacy coaches play in helping institute and maintain instructional change at middle and high school levels. He continues to conduct research on adolescent and disci­plinary literacy, literacy coaching, teacher leadership, and school reform while also consulting in K–12 schools. Results of his research and consulting work can be found in a number of books and journals, including The Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, The Journal of Staff Development, and The Elementary School Journal. Recent books include Cultivating Coaching Mindsets: An Action Guide for Literacy Leaders (2016), Adolescent Literacy in the Era of the Common Core (2013) and Adolescent Literacy (2012).

Dr. Ippolito completed his undergraduate degrees in English and psychology in the University of Delaware’s Honors Program, before completing his master’s and doctorate in language and literacy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Prior to his work in higher education, he taught in the Cambridge Public Schools, Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a middle school read­ing specialist, literacy coach, and drama teacher.