In sports, an athlete is usually pre-equipped with the talent and skills to perform in their chosen field.

It is a coach’s job to help the individual hone those skills and bring out their best game.

This is exactly what Jessica Hanson does. But instead of working with athletes, she works with the teachers at The Overlake School in Redmond as an instructional coach.

As the school’s first-ever instructional coach, Hanson works with individual teachers to help improve their instructional practices.

“Helping them get better at getting better,” she said.

INDIVIDUAL HELP

Because she works with teachers individually, Hanson said the way she helps them varies as everyone has different needs. Some teachers need help with classroom management, while others need help with formative assessments.

Sarah Mansour has been working with Hanson on the latter, which gets students thinking about how they think and more engaged in their own learning. For example, Mansour, who teaches fifth- and sixth-grade Latin at the school, said when her students work on vocabulary, they are given a checklist for which concepts they have mastered and which ones they have to work on still.

“I’m seeing a difference,” she said.

This year is Mansour’s ninth year at Overlake and she said she welcomed Hanson’s help. Mansour had never worked with an instructional coach and did not know what to expect. So far — Hanson has been working with her since the beginning of the school year — Mansour said things have been going very well. She said Hanson thinks outside of the box, and her methods work.

The only downside of Mansour’s experience with Hanson has been trying to absorb all of the information the instructional coach has been feeding her and staying focused. Mansour said there are so many things she wants to try now.

“You get kind of greedy,” she admitted.

Hanson plans to work with all 76 faculty members at Overlake and has broken things up to work with 8-10 individuals at a time intensively for a minimum of eight weeks, depending on the teachers’ needs. So after about two and a half years, Hanson will have worked with the entire faculty.

UNDERSTANDING TEACHERS

Matt Horvat, Overlake’s head of school, said at Overlake they believe in fostering an environment of continual learning, not just for students, but faculty and staff, as well.

“Having an instructional coach who helps our teachers be the best they can be in the classroom is just one example of living that commitment,” he said.

While Hanson’s job now is to help teachers, she was once in their shoes, as well.

“You can’t be an instructional coach without being a teacher,” she said, adding that someone in her position needs to have compassion for teachers and needs to understand the teachers’ realities.

Before coming to work at Overlake, the Massachusetts native spent nine years at University Prep in Seattle. There, she was a seventh- and 12th-grade biology teacher and the school’s chair of science for three years and the academic dean for six years. During her tenure in the latter position, Hanson said about a third of the job was working as an instructional coach. Prior to University Prep, she spent her undergraduate years at Dartmouth College volunteering as a literacy coach for adults and a GED tutor in prisons.

Despite volunteering her time to teach others and coming from a family of teachers, Hanson said she thought she was going to go into biology research. She received her bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in education. Hanson then spent a year in biotechnology, but “did not like it very much.” So she went back to school and earned a master’s degree in education from Harvard University. Hanson went back to science one last time, receiving her doctorate in microbiology.

“I keep bouncing back and forth (between education and science),” she said about her career path.

THE IMPORTANCE OF GOOD TEACHERS

Hanson has decided to stick with teaching, saying she enjoys the human connection that comes with the job. She added that she also enjoys working with youth rather than older students.

“I think kids are hilarious,” she said.

While this may be the case, Hanson said she has chosen to teach and work with teachers because she sees the potential to make a greater impact because the quality of a teacher can determine how successful a student could be.

“It’s a big ripple effect, potentially,” she said.