Coaching Conversations with Jim Knight
Jim Knight is the founder of The Instructional Coaching Group, a professional development provider dedicated to offering PD for coaches, teachers, and leaders based on a partnership approach that creates better learning environments for all students. As a research associate at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning Jim has spent 25 years studying professional learning and instructional coaching. He earned his PhD in Education from the University of Kansas and has won several university teaching, innovation, and service awards. The pioneering work Jim and his colleagues have conducted has led to many innovations that are now central to professional development in schools. Jim wrote the first major article about instructional coaching for the Journal of Staff Development, and his book Instructional Coaching (2007) offered the first extended description of instructional coaching. Jim has written several books in addition to those described above, including the bestsellers Unmistakable Impact (2011), High-Impact Instruction (2013), Focus on Teaching (2014), Better Conversations (2015), The Impact Cycle (2018), and The Definitive Guide to Instructional Coaching (2021). He has also authored articles featured in Educational Leadership, The Journal of Staff Development, Principal Leadership, The School Administrator, and Kappan.
Coaching Conversations with Jim Knight
Yong Zhao
This week I'm joined by Yong Zhao, an unconventional thinker who’s never been afraid to challenge the status quo in education. We talk about his journey from a small village in China to becoming one of the most important voices in global education reform.
Yong shares powerful ideas about what’s not working, like our obsession with standardized testing and rigid definitions of merit, and what we could be doing instead. We dig into why student-centered learning matters, how creativity and confidence are just as important as content, and how AI might actually help make learning more personalized and accessible.
This one’s full of bold insights and fresh thinking about what school could be.
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Learn more about the Intensive Instructional Coaching Institute:
https://www.instructionalcoaching.com/workshop/in-person-intensive-instructional-coaching-institute/
Learn more about 1:1 Impact Coaching:
https://www.instructionalcoaching.com/workshop/jim-knights-1-1-impact-coaching/