The instructional core is the center of change that supports students in leveling up their learning. In Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, I talk about the unique role a learning partnership between student and teacher plays in helping the student “learn how to learn” in the pursuit of liberatory education. Teachers’ ability to coach dependent learners to become more powerful learners requires expanding teacher’s knowledge and skill to improve students’ information processing skills so they become more cognitively independent in their ability to turn inert information into usable knowledge using the science of learning and culturally responsive pedagogy.

In the coach series, we will use the Ready for Rigor™ frame to focus on adding to coaches’ tools and tactics to help teachers build the foundational structures and routines.

More than offering discreet strategies, instructional coaches must help teachers sharpen their instructional decision-making skills so they can address DuFour’s third PLC question: . That’s where instructional coaches play a critical role in helping teachers grow their capacity to use culturally responsive principles and practices to coach students’ cognition.

Across three standing alone masterclasses, we will ask these key questions:

For coaches, what are the moves and processes to help teachers recognize and disrupt often invisible “cognitive redlines” within their classrooms?

As coaches, how do we help teachers create the classroom conditions for student growth?

As coaches, how do we help teachers grow their capacity to support students in helpful ways other than over-scaffolding?