Praising: A Guidepost for Living and Coaching

I can live for two months on a good compliment.

~Mark Twain

One of my personal guideposts for life is, “When you think something good about someone, say it!”  Withholding praise is like wrapping a present and then not letting it be opened.  This holds true in the coaching arena as well.  When we notice something good a teacher is doing, we shouldn’t bite our tongue!  Compliments are thoughtful words that nurture and nourish.  Although some coaching models suggest that coaches should not praise, the research-based Gradual Increase of Responsibility Model for Coaching indicates that praising is an effective coaching move, and it can be the prominent one near the end of a coaching cycle.  As the need for other coaching moves (modeling, recommending, questioning, & affirming) drops away, praising takes center stage.  Unjustified praise is ineffective, however, so coaches should take care that they use this coaching move only when there is genuine justification for praise.

Compliments build potential for future successes.  Providing specific, justified praise is a collegial action that should be a genuine response at the conclusion of the coaching cycle.  To praise is: to express favorable judgment; to commend or admire; to acclaim, extol, or laud.  When coaches see something worth lauding, they should pass the words of praise along.  By offering praise, coaches utilize a strengths-based approach.  With the accumulation of successful teaching experiences, teachers need less affirming.  Although they may no longer be looking for confirmation from the coach, teachers still appreciate a good word, so praise serves an important role. 

Although coaches should not be in a formally evaluative role and should exercise care in making evaluative statements, praising is a natural and effective move as teachers take on responsibility.  Catch yourself in that next positive thought and pass it along!  Both you and the person you praise will smile and feel a bit lighter.  Go ahead – make their day!

 

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

Key ideas from Teaching with Poverty in Mind, a book that helps us understand how to meet the needs of all students in our classes while maintaining high expectations:

http://jasongianotti.wordpress.com/books-im-reading/what-im-reading/

If you're nervous about young students searching freely on the internet, you might want to try Sweet Search, a search tool that includes only websites evaluated and approved by educators:

http://www.sweetsearch.com/

Scroll down a bit on this page for a great lesson idea:  Using ice cream as a hook for your writing lesson: 

http://blog.stenhouse.com/archives/2013/03/20/national-poetry-month-using-your-senses/

Join RT on Facebook:  Fun and informative!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Reading-Teacher/297544810290021

Check out this article about exploring use of iPads for literacy learning:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/TRTR.01090/pdf

That’s all for this week.  Happy coaching!

A Pat on the Back

When I get a phone call during working hours from my daughter, Sara (a reading specialist), it often begins with the words, “Will you be my coach for a minute, Mom?”  This week, she wanted to talk about her end-of-year assessment plan.  Turns out she was already formulating a solid design for this testing.  She just needed a sounding board so she could fine-tune her ideas and get a few words of affirmation.  So I listened, summarized what I’d heard, and asserted that I thought the plan was a good one.  That was all she needed and wanted. 

Providing affirmation has an effect that is important for teachers and also for their students.  As coaches confirm teachers’ decisions, teachers’ self-efficacy increases.  Developing this characteristic is important, since teachers’ self-efficacy correlates highly with increased student achievement.

Teachers with a feeling of efficacy believe that if they work hard, students will learn.  They believe they have the necessary knowledge and skills to provide effective instruction.  Teachers with self-efficacy are more resourceful and perseverant and exhibit cause and effect thinking. Efficacy positively influences the effort that teachers expend while working with students.  Teachers with professional efficacy are also more likely to modify instruction in response to students’ needs.

Affirmation from coaches supports an attitude of efficacy and is especially pertinent for teachers when they are acquiring new skills or learning new content (such as the Common Core).  When teachers are making sound instructional decisions but are still looking to their coaches for confirmation, affirming is an effective coaching move, like a metaphorical pat on the back. 

Recently, I had a chance to debrief an observation with a novice teacher whose abilities were blossoming.  Many of my comments simply affirmed the excellent learning experiences she had designed and enacted.  As our conversation drew to a close, the teacher looked at me with a glowing smile and said, “I just feel like I have so much more self-efficacy than I did back then.  I have grown so much as a teacher!” 

One of the rewards of coaching is the chance to help teachers recognize their own growth.  When you see the great things teachers are doing, it feels good to talk with them about their successes!  Giving a metaphorical pat on the back through words of affirmation is a good feeling – for both you and the teacher you are supporting. 

 

This week, I’ve put together a few resources in honor of National Poetry Month:

This short video clip talks about the why and how of using poetry:

http://www.stenhouse.com/shop/pc/viewprd.asp?idProduct=9651&r=n278

Here are 30 ways to celebrate national poetry month – some just for you and some to share with your class:

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/94

In honor of national poetry month, find the right poem and a lesson to go along with it at (search by topic or technique):

http://www.poemfarm.amylv.com/p/find-poem-by-topic.html
http://www.poemfarm.amylv.com/p/find-poem-by-technique.html

Art and Poetry make a great combination.  Check out the project idea at:

http://evolvingenglishteacher.blogspot.com/2013/04/poetry-post-2-artistic-expression.html

That’s it for this week!  Happy Coaching!

The Coaching Story

The last few posts have been about the important coaching move of asking questions.  Questioning is the climax of a good story – the coaching story.  Once teachers have internalized questioning as a reflective practice, coaches move into the denouement of the GIR model.  Affirming and praising are an appropriate “falling action” for the coaching plot as teachers’ ability and responsibility increase.

Through questioning, teachers form the habit of analyzing situations that arise during instruction and of thinking of alternative ways of dealing with them.  As these practices become more automatic, teachers are less dependent on coaches.  However, they may still look to their coaches for confirmation that they are doing the right thing.  During this phase of the GIR model, coaches offer support by providing affirmations.  To affirm means to assert as valid; to agree, verify, or concur.  Coaches usually make comments that affirm or praise throughout the coaching experience; however, as coaches decrease the other types of coaching moves they are making, affirming begins to take center stage.  Coaching practices trend toward increasing use of affirmation as teachers’ experience and competence increase.

Coaches provide affirmation by confirming that practices are appropriate, by agreeing with teachers’ plans for instruction, and by using work samples or student data to validate the effectiveness of instruction. For example, Cindy’s coach affirmed her decision to display strategy posters near the guided reading table by saying, “Having these resources visually available seems very effective.” The coach also provided affirming comments when Cindy included in her lesson plan a review of the six traits of writing she had been teaching:  “Yes…you’ve introduced these traits very quickly, so pausing to review would be a good idea.”  When Betsy’s student, a reluctant adolescent reader, participated more actively during his intervention session, the coach affirmed the effectiveness of the practices Betsy had been using by drawing attention to student work: “Betsy, Caleb seemed more engaged in the lesson today!  He was able to use more expression when reading the ABC activity!”  These examples highlight forms that affirming may take. 

When I talk to coaches about affirming they usually say that this coaching move comes quite naturally.  The harder part may be not continuing to frequently model, recommend, and question.  Although these moves may still occasionally be useful, affirming becomes the leading move as you near the end of a coaching cycle. 

This week, I’ve put together a collection of links on teacher-student relationships Even though we often think about relationship-building activities as beginning-of-year experiences, they can also be a great way to consider the students you have come to know.  (Some of these tips have relevance for coach-teacher relationships, too.)  You might want to take a look at:

This video about building relationships through gestures:

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/building-relationships-through-gestures

Thoughts about building hope in our students:

http://www.nasponline.org/publications/cq/40/3/building-hope.aspx

Check out these ideas:

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/fostering-classroom-relationships-larry-ferlazzo-katie-hull-sypnieski

Some good reminders in “Five easy ways to connect with students”:

http://hepg.org/hel/article/492

Here are some games that explore the benefits of teamwork. These activities were designed with younger children in mind, but could be adapted for older students:

http://www.pbs.org/parents/arthur/activities/acts/team_efforts.html

That’s all for this week – happy coaching!

Perspective

In all aspects of life, the person with the most varied responses wins. 

                                                                                                             Kelly Perdew

Why be flexible?  Being able to see a teaching situation from multiple perspectives helps teachers plan better and make better on-the-spot decisions.  Effective teachers change, adapt, and expand their repertoire and then choose from that repertoire based on both the big picture and the small details.  They are able to shift among different perspectives, stepping beyond and outside themselves to look at a situation from different views.  They see both the forest and each tree. They think both logically and intuitively.  They consider both the individual and the group.  They think about short range and long range objectives consecutively.  Sound tricky?  It is.  Helping teachers develop this flexibility can be an important coaching goal. 

To be flexible requires emotional safety.  The relationships of trust you have developed with the teachers you work with provides fertile soil for flexibility. 

Flexible thinkers are comfortable with ambiguity because they know it can lead to creative solutions.  They can live with doubt because they have the capacity to look at life from a solutions perspective.  Flexible teachers experiment with new ways and are willing to stretch themselves to gain new abilities. 

To help teachers be flexible, coaches might ask questions like these:

If you were planning this lesson just for (student), what would you do?

If you had twice as much time (or half as much!), what would you do?

Where might this lesson be leading?

What details might you need to think about?

How are you feeling about this idea?

How do you think (another teacher) would approach this objective?

What might be some of the results of…….?

What might students be thinking about this?

What might be going on here?

What’s the best (worst) thing that could happen?

If there were a silver lining to this situation, what might it be?

Asking questions like these supports a flexible approach that broadens thinking and can lead to creative solutions.  As you work to develop flexibility in both yourself and the teachers you serve, be bold.  Ask deep questions.  Remember that the more possibilities you consider, the greater the success. 

 

Since we’ve been thinking about questioning, this week you might want to take a look at some resources about the questions teachers ask:

A video about improving student participation with “talk moves”:

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/student-participation-strategy?utm_campaign=digest&utm_medium=email&utm_source=digest

Information about asking good questions (scroll down to the section on “Questioning Sequencing and Patterns” – very helpful!):

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/summer08/vol65/num09/Asking-Good-Questions.aspx

A video about asking good question in science (boring presentation, good content and examples – hang in there!):

http://www.teacherstryscience.org/ts/asking-good-questions

An article about using higher-order questioning to accelerate students’ growth in reading:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/TRTR.01045/pdf

More about questioning:

http://tep.uoregon.edu/resources/faqs/presenting/goodquestions.html

That’s all for this week.

Happy Coaching!