Jeff Bradbury is an author, podcaster, public speaker, creator of the TeacherCast Educational Network and father of the world famous #EduTriplets.
You know the feeling. You’re sitting in your office, surrounded by a digital and physical whirlwind of information. You have dozens of browser tabs open with research, a pile of notes from your last three teacher meetings, the district’s 80-page curriculum guide, and the looming pressure to create a high-quality professional development session for next week. You have all the information you could ever need, but you feel overwhelmed, and you don’t know where to start.
This is the modern coach’s dilemma. The problem isn’t a lack of resources; it’s the lack of an effective system to manage them. But what if you had a team to help you? I’d like to introduce you to your two new assistants: NotebookLM, your personal research expert, and Google Gemini, your creative partner. Together, these AI tools can help you turn information overload into actionable insight.
Your Research Assistant: Organizing Your Universe with NotebookLM
Think of NotebookLM as a personalized AI that you can train on your own documents. It’s not about searching the entire internet; it’s about becoming a deep expert in the content that matters most to you and your school district. You upload your sources, and NotebookLM becomes your private research assistant, ready to answer your questions based only on the information you’ve provided.
Here are a few ways a coach can put NotebookLM to work immediately:
- The “Book Study” Assistant: Upload an entire professional development book (like my book, Impact Standards) and instantly ask it questions. You can ask for a summary of a specific chapter, to find all the quotes related to “student agency,” or to generate a list of key vocabulary.
- The “Curriculum Expert”: Upload your district’s curriculum documents for a specific grade level. You can then ask NotebookLM to find every instance of a particular standard or to create a list of “I Can” statements for an upcoming unit, saving you hours of manual searching.
- The “Meeting Synthesizer”: After a coaching conversation, upload the transcript of your meeting. You can then ask NotebookLM to pull out the key themes, identify the teacher’s primary goals, and generate a bulleted list of the agreed-upon action items.
Your Creative Partner: Generating Ideas with Gemini
While NotebookLM is your expert on the content you already have, Google Gemini is your creative partner for generating something new. It’s a collaborative AI that is excellent for brainstorming, drafting, and refining content from scratch.
Here are a few ways a coach can partner with Gemini:
- The “PD Session Designer”: Ask Gemini to create a complete outline for a 60-minute workshop on a topic like “differentiated instruction.” It can generate everything from an engaging icebreaker and hands-on activities to thoughtful discussion prompts and exit ticket questions.
- The “Newsletter Ghostwriter”: Give Gemini a few bullet points about the upcoming week’s focus, and ask it to draft a friendly, engaging weekly newsletter for your staff.
- The “Difficult Conversation” Scriptwriter: If you’re struggling to find the right words, you can ask Gemini to brainstorm different ways to phrase supportive, non-judgmental feedback for a reluctant teacher, helping you prepare for a more productive conversation.
The Power Combo: A Unified AI Workflow
The real magic happens when you use these two tools in tandem. NotebookLM helps you synthesize and understand your core content, and Gemini helps you create something new based on those insights.
Here’s what that workflow looks like in action:
- Research & Synthesize in NotebookLM: A coach uploads their district’s strategic plan and the Impact Standards book into NotebookLM. They then ask it to generate a summary of the key district goals for the year that relate to technology integration.
- Brainstorm & Create in Gemini: The coach takes that summary and pastes it into Gemini with a prompt like, “Based on these district goals, generate three creative ideas for a back-to-school professional development session that would be engaging for our teachers.”
- Refine & Finalize: The coach uses Gemini’s output as a starting point to create their final presentation, feeling confident that it is perfectly aligned with their district’s strategic vision.
Conclusion: From Overwhelmed to Empowered
AI tools are not about replacing the essential, human work of an instructional coach. They are about augmenting your skills. Think of them as powerful assistants that can handle the “busy work” of finding, organizing, and summarizing information. This frees you up to focus on the uniquely human and most important parts of your job: building relationships, listening to your teachers, and providing the in-the-moment support that creates a lasting impact.
Ready to explore more resources for working smarter? Download my free Digital Learning Toolkit to get even more templates and strategies designed for the modern educator.
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