Book Review: The IC Toolkit by Jim Knight, Jessica Wise, Michelle Harris, and Amy Musante

This week's review is on The IC Toolkit by Jim Knight, Jessica Wise, Michelle Harris, and Amy Musante.

Jim Knight is a legend in the coaching field - with a legacy of deep thought, guidance, and praxis rooted in good practices for instructional and school coaches. His newsletter and other books are both valuable resources for leaders and coaches in schools.

This text represents an approach rooted in providing professional development via book. This workbook approach provides two great positives; but the content of the book comes with a large drawback.

The book is divided into seven chapters tracking broad factor of coaching. Each chapter follows the same format: a description of the factor, a list of the contents, the learning paths (essentially lessons centered on an article, scenario, or video), and reflection questions. This format enables great discussion and a working rhythm that would work well for a coach or coaching team.

The first advantage the book provides is its accessible nature and format. Professional development is an expensive and tricky proposition; PD by workbook can be a huge positive for a team or individual. It enables longer reflection and implementation than a day or two of PD - promising greater implementation (a point Knight makes in this book!). The questions and activities facilitate deeper learning when needed, providing support and differentiation for leaders.

On top of the format, the articles, largely written by Knight and drawn from the previous five years, are a nice collection of resources for reference for leaders, coaches, and teachers looking to grow their practice. These articles serve almost as a "Best Of" curated list, organized by topics, from Knight's recent oeuvre. For new coaches, in particular, having these in book form, accessible, and pre-screened with reflection questions/activities would be handy - in a The First Day of School-way providing a road map and introduction.

This collection also provides the one large drawback on the book. Because the written content is largely previously published articles - they can be quite repetitive with content appearing over and over again. Once or twice, it could be forgiven - but I felt as if I was re-reading the same words six or seven times over the course of the book. An annoyance for a reader of the book in a week; but less so over a longer-term book study.

The IC Toolkit by Jim Knight, Jessica Wise, Michelle Harris, and Amy Musante.

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Good For: Coaches and Teams looking to start or improve practice; or book clubs centered on instructional coaching.

Best nugget: Jim Knight's shares a list of great opening questions for coaches - my favorite - "With the time we have today, what would be most helpful for you to start with in our conversation?"

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