Schools That Coach: Leading Schools Through the Power of Coaching

Jim Knight grew up in Canada, on a farm with a pond that the family simply called Knight's Pond — the kind of childhood detail that tells you something about the man. His father taught him hockey on that pond, his grandfather sat him down at a typewriter keyboard and taught him to read, and his grandmother and aunt were both teachers. Learning wasn't an extracurricular activity in the Knight household; it was the air. That upbringing followed him to Lawrence, Kansas, where he earned his PhD at the University of Kansas in 1998 and has been based ever since, building one of the most respected and widely-followed bodies of work in the field of professional education.

Jim is the founder and Senior Partner of the Instructional Coaching Group and a Research Associate at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. For more than two decades, he has studied what it actually takes to change teaching — not in theory, but in the room, with real teachers on real days. His books have become foundational texts in the field: The Impact Cycle, Unmistakable Impact, and The Definitive Guide to Instructional Coaching are read in university programs, passed between principals, and dog-eared by coaches trying to figure out how to make the work stick. He has authored numerous other books and articles on instructional coaching, leadership, and effective teaching practice, each one grounded in the same conviction: that relationships are at the center of any meaningful professional growth.

What Jim has built around him is more than a brand — it's a movement. The Instructional Coaching Group operates as a highly trained team of practitioners, coaches, and authors who carry the work into schools and districts around the world. The crown jewel of that community is the Teaching Learning Coaching Conference — known simply as TLC — which in 2026 will mark thirty years of Jim's instructional coaching research. The conference, held annually (2026 in Dallas, October 26–28, with a virtual option), draws educators from across the country who come not just for the sessions but for the sense of belonging to something larger. Jim regularly presents and consults internationally, leading workshops, institutes, and keynote presentations that consistently leave rooms full of educators feeling both challenged and genuinely seen.

To learn more about Jim's work, visit him at instructionalcoaching.com or connect with him on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/jimknight99.