Chapter 1: A Guide to the Resource Book
Guidelines for using the resource book
The Resource Book serves as a comprehensive resource to guide coaches on how to support school improvement teams engaged in building their leadership capacity for school-based improvement. While it provides coaches with ample guidance based on a foundation of actionable knowledge developed through an iterative process of refinement and repeated experimentations in various school contexts in the Arab region, it does not constitute a prescriptive manual but rather a source of support for coaches.
The Resource Book is designed to communicate to prospective TAMAM coaches the theoretical foundations of the TAMAM theory of change and of its Capacity Building Program. While the book presents in details the targeted learning outcomes of the TAMAM Capacity Building Program and describes the TAMAM School Improvement Journey, it leaves the coaches with a lot of discretion to customize the details of this journey to the learning needs and organizational and sociocultural context of the school improvement teams they are working with. As inquirers and action researchers, coaches are expected to collect extensive data to understand the learning needs of the school team members they are working with and to familiarize themselves with the internal and external conditions that affect their ability to engage in school-based improvement. Accordingly, coaches are expected to customize and develop their own coaching plans for working with their assigned schools and groups of practitioners. It is the coaches’ responsibility to seek additional resources, continuously monitor and follow up the team members’ progress and provide supporting conditions in response to the emerging needs of the team members, as well as assist those members as they problem-solve to overcome barriers as they learn how to lead school-based improvement at their institutions.
For additional resources, coaches can visit the TAMAM website* which offers a multitude of related resources like technical reports by the Steering Team as well as reports by participating school improvement teams on their learning experiences while implementing the TAMAM Capacity Building Program at their schools. Coaches are also encouraged to refer to academic research articles whenever needed. They can also invest in the continuously growing TAMAM network of professionals to learn from similar experiences and share expertise. Thus, the process and resources presented in this Resource Book is best used concurrently with external resources