Every worthwhile book has a deeply held belief, and for Jim Knight’s Better Conversations and this worktext, The Reflection Guide to Better Conversations, here it is:
"Effective communication is an essential skill for a fulfilled life, and we can’t teach it to students if we don’t know how to do it ourselves."
Instructional coaches, administrators, teachers . . . really everyone: the royal we is you. In this Reflection Guide, Jim delivers a framework for improving professional dialogue that is so clearly signposted, you might as well call it a day planner.
Here’s how The Reflection Guide to Better Conversations works:
- In Part One, you and your peers engage in surveys, take stock, and record video in order to get real about your current beliefs and abilities. How do you measure up when it comes to empathy, asking better questions? Finding common ground?
- In Part Two, learn about the 10 habits of being an effective communicator, and put them into practice. Are your conversations focused on others 50 percent of the time? What things typically distract you from being fully present?
In Better Conversations, Jim Knight reveals why true dialogue improves professional performance, job satisfaction, and classroom instruction. Together with this Reflection Guide, the two books provide a brilliant, scaffolded professional learning experience on a topic central to learning, central to life.
This is the district-wide solution you need―are you ready?
Dr. Jim Knight, Founder and Senior Partner of Instructional Coaching Group (ICG), is also a research associate at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. He has spent more than two decades studying professional learning and instructional coaching. Jim 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’s book Focus on Teaching (2014) was the first extended description of how video should be used for professional learning. Recently, writing with Ann Hoffman, Michelle Harris, and Sharon Thomas, Jim introduced the idea of instructional playbooks with their book on that topic.
Jim has written several books in addition to those described above, including Unmistakable Impact (2011), High-Impact Instruction (2013), Better Conversations (2015), The Impact Cycle (2018), and The Definitive Guide to Instructional Coaching (2021). Knight has also authored articles on instructional coaching and professional learning in publications such as Educational Leadership, The Journal of Staff Development, Principal Leadership, The School Administrator, and Kappan. Jim is also a columnist for Educational Leadership and.
Through ICG, Knight conducts coaching workshops, hosts the Facebook Live Program, “Coaching Conversations,” and provides consulting for coaching programs around the world.
