Try This at Home: Ask & Listen

Summer is the perfect time to practice a skill that you can take with you into your coaching next fall - being fully present in your conversations. This summer, you can be more intentional about asking questions to deepen relationships—with the people who matter most. Before we jump back into our coaching roles, we can sharpen our listening skills at the backyard BBQ, on a long walk, beside the pool, or wherever you gather.
 
Try taking a conversation (and a relationship) deeper by asking a friend or family member:
“What’s been on your mind lately?”
Then pause. Wait. Listen. Let their words lead. Stay curious. Follow up with:
“Say more about that.”
As you listen, practice reflecting back what you hear:
“Let me see if I’m understanding you right…”
You’re not just making conversation—you’re building connection. This practice helps grow the listening muscles that make your coaching stronger, more respectful, and more responsive.
 
An instructional coach is a listener and learner first. She meets with a teacher to listen to and learn about her concerns, strengths, and needs. Listening builds connections and fosters respect, trust, and safety. By listening first, the coach indicates that she is there to support the teacher in meeting her goals, not the other way around.
 
You can seek the teacher’s perspective by focusing not on what you know, but on what the teacher knows. As coaches attentively listen, teachers realize that their ideas and opinions are truly of interest.
 
Just like with friends and family, “What’s on your mind?” is a question that says, “Let’s talk about what matters most to you!” It’s a useful open-ended question to start a coaching conversation.
 
When I met with Anna, a special education teacher, I began the coaching conversation by asking, “What’s on your mind?” The conversation moved quickly to how her role as “co-teacher” in one class turned out to be a situation where she was basically being used as an aide, a role that was not satisfying for her and not as impactful for students as it could have been. We got straight to a need and began looking at the people and processes that were part of this situation.
 
“What’s on your mind?” cues reflection and sharing that sets you up for meaningful coaching work. And don’t forget the power of wait time! Asking, pausing, and listening lets us know where teachers are in their practice.
 
After listening, reflect back what the teacher has said – not in a parrot-like way, but in a way that shows you were paying attention and offers the teacher the chance to clarify. Saying, “Let me see if I got this right” gives the teacher the chance to think more deeply and strengthens your understanding of the teacher’s needs.
 
Just like with family and friends this summer, when school starts again, you can ask the teacher to, “Say more about that” to clarify your understanding as you continue listening.
 
Between friends and family, among coaches and teachers, asking authentic questions, listening, and reflecting back what you’ve heard are practices that deepen relationships, invite openness, and create space for new insights to emerge.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Tips for new instructional coaches:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/20-tips-new-instructional-coaches-elena-aguilar
 
 
Barry Lane’s TedXTalk on the Power of Kindness:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzimmQaLzo8
 
 
Goals support independent math work:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/setting-personal-goals-for-math-independent-work/
 
 
Ideas for effective feedback:
 
https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy-posts/learning-feedback/
 
 
Questions for a team-coaching meeting on student engagement:
 
https://barkleypd.com/blog/instructional-coaches-working-with-plcs-and-teaching-teams/
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
Want more coaching tips? Check out my book, Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching in Education: From Preservice Teacher to Expert Practitioner, available from Teachers College Press!  I’m so excited to share it with you! You can use the code: FDNS25 for 20% off. Click  here  and I’ll email you the free Book Group Study Guide that includes questions, prompts, and activities you can use as you share the book with colleagues.  I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!

Practice This: Power of the Pause

It’s officially summer! Hopefully, that means you can have a different pace as you walk through the days. It’s also a good time to practice attributes and practices that work in your personal life and can be carried into your coaching work when school resumes.
 
Last week’s post describes the value of focusing on strengths. This week, let’s think about the power of the pause.
 
Taking a beat, a break, a brief recess in the flow of life has many benefits. This hesitation can help us to use our senses and be more fully-present. A wait can clear our focus, elevating what’s important. Pausing – especially when accompanied by a deep breath – reduces stress, sending calming hormones through our system. Pausing increases self-awareness and improves decision-making. There is power in the pause as we determine next steps.
 
In interactions with others, pausing helps us listen more deeply, improving communication as we respond, rather than react. A thoughtful silence after listening demonstrates respect. A well-timed pause can reduce tension and deflate an escalating situation. Pausing creates a gap that invites others into the conversation.
 
Pause and consider the two paragraphs you just read. Which of those benefits do you want in your day-to-day life this summer? How will you practice the pause? Maybe you’d like to grab a sticky note and write that single word – pause – on it. Maybe you want several of them, scattered around your house or on your car’s dashboard. You could write “pause” on your mirror with a marker, offering a reminder at the start of the day until pausing becomes your habit.
 
When the school year starts, you can carry this habit forward. In classrooms and coaching conversations, pausing will help us notice. We will see subtle shifts in emotion and understanding as we take a brief break to soak in the situation.
 
During coaching conversations, pauses support teachers’ thinking, giving them the space to reflect and generate their own insights. This pause supports teachers’ agency and professionalism. Coaches who pause resist the urge to jump in with their own solutions, creating, instead, teacher-directed learning. When we respond after pausing, our words will be aligned with teachers’ interests and goals.
 
This is why WAIT time is so important. You’ve thought about it for students, and it matters with teachers, too. I use this acronym for WAIT to remind me to pause: WAIT stands for Why Am I  Talking. This little acronym encourages me to hold my tongue and really consider what the teacher has been saying before jumping in. Waiting allows me to listen better, because while the teacher talks, my mind isn’t rushing ahead thinking about what I’m going to say in response – I know I’ll have time for that once she pauses. My response is better because I’ve really listened, and because I’ve allowed myself a few seconds to think about what I’ve heard. The pause pushes my own thinking to a higher level. That thoughtful pause also sends the message that I value what the teacher has said.
 
We have probably all been a victim, at one time or another, of a solution that was provided by someone who didn’t really understand the problem. My goal is to avoid that situation by talking less and listening more during coaching conversations. The pregnant pause – silence – sometimes makes us feel like no one is thinking. But, in actuality, that pause is usually when the highest-level thinking occurs, for both you and the teacher.
 
A thoughtful pause is important when asking questions. Silence sponsors a teacher’s thoughtful response, leaving room for the teacher to consider. It grants the teacher the opportunity to process both your question and her answer. This means not rushing in to fill the quiet with words of your own. A pause for uninterrupted thinking is a courtesy in teachers’ overfull days.
 
After asking a question, give teachers the gift of time and receptivity. Make eye contact. Don’t appear rushed or make the teacher feel rushed. When the teacher pauses, don’t be quick to give a response. Instead, ask them to “Say more about that.” Or say, “Yes, go on.” Or just pause and offer silence. There’s a wise Quaker saying that applies to coaching: “Never miss a chance to keep your mouth shut.”
 
This lack of action sounds like it should be easy, but waiting can be hard work! As we give our full attention to teachers’ thinking, we give them space to reflect. We give them space to wonder. We give them space to generate new ideas. It can be difficult to keep your mouth shut, to offer a silent, thought-filled pause – but the coaching rewards are worth it!
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Using number lines to support deeper understanding:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/developing-flexibility-with-number-lines/
 
 
Boosting comprehension through movement:
 
https://ccira.blog/2025/06/17/boost-student-comprehension-through-intentional-movement/
 
 
Skillsets for AI Literacy:
 
https://community.theeducatorcollaborative.com/prompting-progress-teaching-ai-literacy-in-the-classroom/
 
 
Using wordless picture books in middle school:
 
https://www.middleweb.com/37177/4-ways-to-teach-with-wordless-picture-books/

4 Ways to Build Safety in Coaching:
 
https://tinyurl.com/CoachingSafety
 
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
Want more coaching tips? Check out my book, Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching in Education: From Preservice Teacher to Expert Practitioner, available from Teachers College Press!  I’m so excited to share it with you! You can use the code: FDNS25 for 20% off. Click  here  and I’ll email you the free Book Group Study Guide that includes questions, prompts, and activities you can use as you share the book with colleagues.  I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!

Practice This: Enhancing Strengths

As we enter into the summer season, there’s a shift in the day-to-day tasks for coaches. Hopefully we’ll make time for rejuvenation and pause. The better we refill ourselves, the more we have to share with others.
 
Summer can also be a time to coach ourselves, practicing stances we’ll take with us into our coaching work later. One approach for coaching ourselves this summer is to set goals that focus on enhancing our strengths. We can reinforce and refine rather than attempting to do away with a chronic trouble. When we identify strengths and frame goals as positives, our motivation increases.
 
Summarize Strengths
 
When taking this approach, it’s helpful to begin by summarizing strengths. Instead of a list of lacks, catalog things you’re good at. For practice this summer, this list can include a range of physical, intellectual, social, and emotional attributes. Divide a blank sheet of paper into 4 quadrants and label with these 4 categories; then begin listing your strengths. For example, I’m including hiking in my physical section, theorizing for intellectual, listening in the social section, and self-efficacy in emotional. Of course, adjust categories so that they make sense for you.
 
Identify Focus
 
Once you’ve got an index that includes many of your strengths, review the list and put a star by a few you’d like to enhance this summer. Next, think about how you can take these assets to the next level. Build a goal based on previous wins. How will you boost them? It’s helpful to write out a concrete statement. For example, my short-term hiking goal is to walk at least 1 mile at least 4 times per week, with each walk including an incline (my long-term dream goal is to hike the Alps with my siblings!).
 
Identity Shift
 
When we focus on strengths, we are becoming more of our best self – the person we envision ourselves to be. We reflectively ask, “What went well?” and “When have I had success in a situation like this before?” Building on strengths makes it easier to see goals as an identity shift rather than a to-do list. We visualize and celebrate successes and cultivate an attitude of becoming. Even if the changes are tiny ones, we are re-forming and transforming ourselves in positives ways.
 
Strengths-Based Coaching
 
This summer, as you take a strengths-based approach to reaching your own goals, you’ll be developing a stance that you can take with you into your coaching work in the fall. Strengths-based coaching amplifies assets, building on the valuable skills and experiences teachers have had that can be leveraged for growth in teacher practice and student learning. You will look for what’s working well – routines, relationships, strategies, and content expertise – and use these as a foundation for your coaching work. You will look for possibilities, not problems, as you work side-by-side with teachers, acknowledging their voice, agency, and expertise. It may not be your only or always approach, but strengths-based coaching can be a helpful tool – especially when you are establishing new coaching relationships and when teachers are experiencing doubt or lack of self-efficacy. And this summer is a good time to practice strengths-based coaching on yourself!

This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
10-Minute Podcast: 5 awesome things for teachers to do this summer:
 
https://www.coolcatteacher.com/5-awesome-things-for-teachers-to-do-this-summer/
 
Fun with words:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/vocabrity-fun-with-words-for-middle-school-students/
 
Kindergarten relationship skills that predict college success:
 
https://www.inc.com/amy-morin/kindergarteners-with-these-two-skills-are-twice-as-likely-to-get-a-college-degree-according-to-a-19-year-study.html
 
 
Handling negative coaching responses:
 
http://cultureofcoaching.blogspot.com/2018/04/how-do-you-handle-angry-or-negative.html
 
AI and writing instruction:
 
https://community.theeducatorcollaborative.com/processes-problems-and-possibilities-where-2025-finds-us-with-ai-in-writing-instruction/
 
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
Want more coaching tips? Check out my book, Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching in Education: From Preservice Teacher to Expert Practitioner, available from Teachers College Press!  I’m so excited to share it with you! You can use the code: FDNS25 for 20% off. Click  here  and I’ll email you the free Book Group Study Guide that includes questions, prompts, and activities you can use as you share the book with colleagues.  I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!

My Coaches Couch Top 10

Last week, this blog passed the 300,000 view mark. I thought this was a good time to point you toward the most-viewed posts so that you can revisit or discover the content that has drawn the most attention. So, let’s take a look at My Coaches Couch top 10, in count-down fashion (each post is linked):
 
Let’s get started with the #10 spot!
 
#10 Celebrating Success
This end-of-school-year post talks about giving teachers the space to reflect on their own accomplishments. Reflection helps teachers see that their hard work and persistence have paid off!
 
#9 Teach the Teacher
When coaching, we often deflect attention from the teacher to provide a safe space for conversations about the art and craft of teaching. Those safe spaces are important, but ultimately, improving instruction is about the teacher. Find out more about using specific examples from instruction to strike a balance that leads to change.  
 
#8 Modeling as Translation
This super-short post describes “fishbowl” modeling for students and likens the benefits to those of coaches modeling for teachers.
 
#7 Working with “Pumpkin Patch Teachers”
This post rolled out just before Halloween, which may account for its viewability. 😊 However, I think the content is relevant for coaches as well – How to work with a teacher who is desperately hanging on to old ways. 
 
#6 Be a Data Explorer
This is the concluding post in a series of 4 that describe protocols for collaborative data exploration (links to the other posts, with the protocols described, are also included). Using these protocols reduces unproductive change.  
 
#5 Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching
This post provides an overview of the GIR model and how it accounts for the differences among teachers in experience and expertise, including how these factors change over time.
 
#4 Using Third Points
During two-point communication, teacher and coach are looking directly at each other, which is usually helpful in building coaching relationships. But if a conversation might be difficult, it helps to shift to third-point communication. In this post, you can learn about possible third-points and why they’re useful.
 
#3 Funneling or Focusing: Using Questions to Support Thinking
Asking questions is the fulcrum of the GIR model, the coaching move that gives the bulk of the decision-making to the teacher. This post describes funneling and focusing questions, including examples of how and when to use each.
 
#2 Coaching Roles & Responsibilities
Included is a description of the coaching roles that, according to research, make the biggest impact. This post also includes a link to a template for a principal-coach agreement – important for getting the two of you on the same page.
 
Drum roll, please! The most-viewed post on the bog is….
 
#1 Coaches & Teachers: The Intersection of Greatness
This post compares the collaborative work of coaches and teachers to the confluence of strong rivers. When coach and teacher join together to form a single channel of thought, there is symmetry in the relationship, 
 
I hope you’ll take the opportunity to peruse some of these posts as we mark this milestone!
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

As a coach, it helps to be likeable.  J  Here are 13 habits of likeable people (maybe we can work on these over the summer!):
 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2015/01/27/13-habits-of-exceptionally-likeable-people/
 
 
Creating belonging fosters learning:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/picture-books-for-mental-wellness/
 
 
Are graphic novels real reading?
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7oLlFR2uKg&feature=youtu.be
 
 
Brain breaks for high-schoolers (and all ages!):
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/17-brain-breaks-tailored-for-high-schoolers/
 
 
Regie Routman describes how to build the trust students need to learn:
 
https://www.middleweb.com/37101/10-ways-to-build-the-trust-kids-need-to-learn/
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
Want more coaching tips? Check out my book, Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching in Education: From Preservice Teacher to Expert Practitioner, available from Teachers College Press!  I’m so excited to share it with you! You can use the code: FDNS25 for 20% off. Click  here  and I’ll email you the free Book Group Study Guide that includes questions, prompts, and activities you can use as you share the book with colleagues.  I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!
 

Reflections on a Coaching Year

At the close of the school year, instructional coaches support teachers’ reflection on their work. This is also a time to pause and think about our own experience. It can be helpful to frame our reflection around three “sights”: hindsight, insight, and foresight. Hindsight helps us recognize what we’ve gained in the past. Insight governs our present, and foresight prepares us for our future. Let’s settle into each of these to guide our introspection.
 
Hindsight for Reflection
 
Growth lives in the honest examination of experience. When we take the time to check in on events that occurred and how we and others experienced them, we can better recognize effects. Here are some questions for summoning hindsight:

• Which coaching conversations felt most productive or transformative?
• What feedback did I receive from teachers, formally or informally?
• What habits or routines helped me be consistent and effective?
• What coaching moves had the biggest impact on teacher growth and student learning?
• What moments of discomfort led to breakthroughs — for me or for the teachers I support?
• What patterns emerged across my work that are worth noticing?

Choose two or three of the above questions to consider. As you do, try to filter defensiveness and distortion. Instead, lean into humility and curiosity. Journaling or talking through your responses with a trusted colleague could be helpful in recognizing hindsight. Unfortunately, experience doesn’t automatically lead to growth – it could just foster stagnation. But experience plus clear reflection leads to hindsight. And learning from the past propels insight.
 
Insight for Understanding
 
Insight is clarity in the present. Insight is deep, grounded in in-the-moment examination. It’s that light-bulb moment, that “ah-hah” experience. It’s what happens when something clicks. Insight can resolve stuckness. Walking through the day with eyes wide open and presence of mind increases insight. Here are some questions to foster insight:

• What do I know now about my coaching that I didn’t know a year ago?
• What do I now understand about my role?
• What’s bringing me energy in my work? What’s draining it?
• How do my values show up in my day-to-day coaching practice?
• What have I learned about navigating school culture and systems?

Insight is recognition of what matters, what’s true, and what’s possible. Insight might offer a shift, a reframing, or a new direction. Although it lives squarely in the now, it opens future options.
 
Foresight for Intention-Setting
 
Foresight is looking ahead with intentionality. It includes taking stock so that we know what we’re carrying forward. Foresight is not just predicting – it’s choosing how we want to show up in the future. It is planning with purpose. Foresight helps us position ourselves so that we’re ready for what will come. It is all about designing a hoped-for future. Here are some questions to engage foresight:

• What do I want to do more of next year? Less of?
• What kind of coaching culture do I want to help create?
• What will I need to let go of to make space for something new?
• What structures (e.g., schedules, tools, norms) will help me be more effective?
• What risk am I willing to take in my coaching practice?
• What learning do I need to pursue to support teachers more powerfully?
• What systems, routines, or boundaries will help me coach more effectively?

Foresight allows us to design the future rather than drift into it. Through foresight, we align our future actions with noticed opportunities. Summer is a great time for breaking away from the day-to-day so that we can zoom out and strategize a desired future. Foresight fosters clarity and hope.

Using Our “Sights”
As you shift into summer mode, I hope you can carry this reflection with you – not as baggage, but as ballast. Ballast, according to Webster, improves stability and control, equipping us and steadying our course. I hope our hindsight can ground us, our insight can guide us, and our foresight can propel us toward our aspirations for 2025-26.
 

This week, you might want to take a look at:

Picture books for mental wellness:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/picture-books-for-mental-wellness/
 
 
6 Ways to recharge this summer:
 
https://artsintegration.com/2018/07/01/6-ways-to-recharge-in-the-summer/
 
 
Book clubs as teen activism:
 
https://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/story/ya-books-reflect-the-activism-of-real-life-teens
 
 
How to program your brain for positivity:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmx_35rQIRg
 
What data counts for student growth:
 
https://ccira.blog/2022/05/17/creating-a-narrative-of-progress-broadening-the-definition-of-reading-growth/
 
 
As the school year draws to a close, I wish you more:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hti6bGm4664
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
Want more coaching tips? Check out my book, Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching in Education: From Preservice Teacher to Expert Practitioner, available from Teachers College Press!  I’m so excited to share it with you! You can use the code: FDNS25 for 20% off. Click  here  and I’ll email you the free Book Group Study Guide that includes questions, prompts, and activities you can use as you share the book with colleagues.  I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!

Wrap-Up Report

In last week’s post, I named my questions for the final coaching conversations of the year and promised to report back on how this winding-down process went. Rather than a play-by-play, I’ll share some highlights from one coaching conversation – with Eleanor, a novice teacher – that have been helpful for me to reflect on.
 
I started the conversation with questions about something Eleanor had noticed that made her smile, about her hopes for students’ next steps, and about her dreams for her own future classroom. These questions all bore fruit with specifics – reflections about the recent past and hopes for students’ hard-won understandings. The next question was, “What’s a micro-step you could take between now and the end of the year that would get you a teeny bit closer to your dream future?”
 
After a thoughtful pause, Eleanor talked about one last writing assignment she planned to do with students after the semester test. “I’m hoping I can tie things off with a little bow,” she said. “Show them how much they’ve grown.”
 
Eleanor had just told me about one student’s work that she’d submitted to administration to document her impact, describing the impressive difference between a beginning-of-year and end-of-year writing assignment. So, including the phrase she’d used herself, I asked whether she thought it might be a good end-of-the-year activity, to tie things off with a bow, by doing something similar with all students, having them find beginning- and end-of-year writing in their Google drive. I told her about when I’d done something similar and had students write a quick summary of the differences they noticed.
 
By using Eleanor’s own language, I wanted to strengthen her intention for a clear and meaningful closure and to emphasize that I was supporting her own hopes. Mirroring the teacher’s language deepens connections, enhances clarity, and fosters an individualized coaching experience.
 
Eleanor thought this over and problematized it. For some, Eleanor said, that might be motivating and show what’s possible. “That might work for the students who actually turned stuff in,” she said. This was not the time to wonder with her about why some students hadn’t turned in beginning-of-year assignments. I let that slide as unrelated to our current closure conversation, but I made a mental note that it might be something to address next fall.
 
We kept going with the same thread. Would it be helpful to show the whole class a few anonymous pre/post examples, I asked. “Well, maybe for the 8^th graders, She paused. Maybe I could have a discussion board asking, “What’s one way that you’ve grown this year?...Or maybe I could find a way to make it more fun.” There was another thoughtful pause while Eleanor considered.
 
Again using her own words, I asked Eleanor, “How might you make it fun?”
 
Eleanor said that a lot of her kids really benefit from visual presentations. Maybe they could do sticky note responses, she said, and then plaster them on the wall. “That would give them something look at.”
 
I mentioned I remembered that is something she’d done in the past that seemed to work well. Now, Eleanor was smiling, and there was a sparkle in her eye. Connecting a current idea to past successes helped her feel grounded, capable, and optimistic – essential characteristics for meaningful growth.
 
I came back to the idea I’d pitched earlier about having students look at the two pieces to come up with what to write on their sticky note – to help them identify ways they’d grown. I’m not sure whether there was uptake on my idea, but the part she came up with as we talked – the sticky note idea – seemed sure to stick! “That would be fun to save for after semester test,” Eleanor said. “Fill up the wall with sticky notes!”
 
With this being our last scheduled meeting for the year, I thanked Eleanor for our collaborative work. She replied that “being able to talk about my classroom experience one on one” had been helpful.” “Being able to reflect, like when we’re in meetings like this, helps me unscramble my brain,” she continued. “The opportunities for reflection have been really good.” Now it was Eleanor’s turn to do the affirming!
 
She continued, “Those individual meetings for reflection where I can spend more time talking about how things went and bouncing my observations off someone, that’s really helpful. I do reflect on my own, while I’m teaching, after I’m teaching. But getting the chance to verbalize that, to sort things out – besides like all the strings and the stuff all over my brain” (here she made gestures about things ping-ponging in head). “Saying I’m going to do something makes it a little more real.”
 
“I’m grateful for all your help,” Eleanor continued. “We talked about the kids’ growth, but I feel like I’ve grown a lot this year. Whenever I stop and think about it – I’ve made a lot of big steps.” Ah, that, my friends, is why we do this work!
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Songs for end-of-the-year reflection (I plan to use some for teacher reflection as well):
 
https://www.bespokeclassroom.com/blog/2017/5/14/10-songs-with-prompts-to-use-at-the-end-of-the-school-year-for-reflection
 
 
5 end-of-year tasks for instructional coaches:
 
http://buzzingwithmsb.blogspot.com/2017/05/5-end-of-year-tasks-for-instructional.html
 
 
The power of story in overcoming difficulties:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/the-power-of-story/
 
 
This short video asks us to consider what we are willing to shift to empower students:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYBJQ5rIFjA
 
 
To improve lessons, think like a student:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/understanding-student-experience-classroom 
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
Want more coaching tips? Check out my book, Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching in Education: From Preservice Teacher to Expert Practitioner, available from Teachers College Press!  I’m so excited to share it with you! You can use the code: FDNS25 for 20% off. Click  here  and I’ll email you the free Book Group Study Guide that includes questions, prompts, and activities you can use as you share the book with colleagues.  I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!

Winding Down

It’s May. Where I live, testing is over. We’re in the delicious month of wrapping up. May is full of activities, but they’re celebratory. Teachers feel more flexibility, and they want to finish on a high note.
 
This week, I’ll be having year-end conversations with teachers. I want the talk to be positive, but also productive and real. So I’m taking this week’s blog post to think things through with you.
 
I think I’ll walk a bit of a zig-zaggy path for these closing conversations and be ready to follow the teacher’s lead. I’m thinking I want to start with a past positive, move to an envisioned future, and then take one last look at the present. Here’s the conversation plan that is unfolding in my head, what I’m looking forward to asking.
 
Thinking Back
I’ll begin by asking the teacher to look back – to do a rearview mirror check. I think I’ll ask:

·       What’s something you noticed in your classroom last month that made you smile?

·       Can you tell me a story of a student who grew this year?

Projecting Forward
Next, I want to invite the teacher to project a bright future. Here are some questions that might work: 

·       What are your hopes for your students as they take their next steps?

·       Imagine your dream class for next year. What do you see? What do you hear? What does it feel like? 

Assessing the Present
Finally, we’ll step back into the present.  It’s not over ‘til it’s over!  Some questions that might be helpful are:

·       What’s a micro-step you could take between now and the end of the year that would get you a teeny bit closer to your dream future?

·       What’s a micro-step you might take this summer to get closer to your dreamy future classroom – some small thing to do in advance?

Well, thanks for thinking that through with me! If you’ve tried something like this and have thoughts to share, please comment below to help me refine this plan. If you try my ideas, I’d also love to hear about that
. After I try the plan, I’ll let you know how it goes!
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Models for faculty-led PD:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/collaborative-faculty-professional-development-benefits
 
7 types of rest everyone needs: 
 
https://ideas.ted.com/the-7-types-of-rest-that-every-person-needs/
 
 
Ideas for end-of-year learning:
 
https://www.middleweb.com/29647/make-end-of-year-learning-meaningful-fun/
 
The value of rereading picture books:
 
https://teachersbooksreaders.com/2021/02/22/read-them-again-and-again-and-again/
 
 
Reasons and resources for teaching empathy:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/empathy-classroom-why-should-i-care-lauren-owen
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
Want more coaching tips? Check out my book, Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching in Education: From Preservice Teacher to Expert Practitioner, available from Teachers College Press!  I’m so excited to share it with you! You can use the code: FDNS25 for 20% off. Click  here  and I’ll email you the free Book Group Study Guide that includes questions, prompts, and activities you can use as you share the book with colleagues.  I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!