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
Coaching Q & A
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Jim Knight and Jessica Wise settle into a conversation about what it’s really like to write books on instructional coaching and professional learning. Jim talks through how an idea slowly takes shape on the page, noting that early drafts are often messy and unfinished, and that the real clarity comes through revision.
He describes writing as something that improves with others involved, whether through feedback, shared thinking, or simply talking ideas through. He also speaks to the discipline of returning to the work regularly, even when the words don’t come easily.
Jessica connects this to her own experience writing The IC Toolkit, reflecting on the starts and stops that come with the process and what helped her keep going.
Along the way, Jim points to a few writers who have influenced his thinking, including Anne Lamott and Stephen King, and encourages educators to keep their language straightforward so their ideas are easy to understand and useful in practice.
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