Emotional engagement before content

Jim Knight is the founder and senior partner of the Instructional Coaching Group, which centers its coaching model on the Impact Cycle and seven “Success Factors” for scaling coaching in schools. (instructionalcoaching.com) Knight framed the push for engagement coaching in a Learning Forward webinar titled “Coaching With Students At The Center,” which taught coaches how to measure and improve three types of engagement and was based on his Learning Professional piece “Students on the margins.” (learningforward.org) Knight and partners outline four observable indicators coaches should gather as behavioral engagement data—time on task, student responses to questions, frequency of classroom disruptions, and proportion of instructional time—so coaches can set concrete targets. (edthena.com) He recommends using classroom video and simple data tools from the ICG toolkit to capture those indicators (for example, engagement forms and instructional-time pie charts) so coaches can compare baseline and post-intervention numbers. (resources.corwin.com) ICG’s Coaching With Impact (CWI) model is being refined and scaled through a U.S. Department of Education project that partners ICG with American Institutes for Research and five district partners to test coaching at scale. (ed.gov) Recent ICG content has focused explicitly on emotional access and EQ in coaching, including a January 20, 2026 episode of “Coaching Conversations” with Ignacio López that walks through emotional‑intelligence strategies coaches can use in schools. (youtube.com) ICG currently offers a “Coaching for Engagement” virtual workshop as part of its five‑day Instructional Coach Institute, signaling additional ready‑made modules coaches can buy into for training on engagement-first practices. (ecampus.esc13.net)