Coaching Lessons from Toy Story

As we continue to enjoy the more relaxed pace of summer, our cartoon break this week will be a look at Toy Story and the messages we can take from it to apply to our coaching.

You’ll remember that as Toy Story begins, the toys are concerned about the presents coming as their owner, Andy, celebrates his birthday.  The toys look to their leader, Woody the pull-string cowboy, to devise a plan for uncovering the identity of the new toys.  Parallel coaching story:  Groups look to a leader for problem solving.  As a coach, you can be a leader that teachers look to in times of crisis, devising plans that get teachers pulling together toward a common goal.

Another major theme near the beginning of Toy Story is the idea that everyone wants to be needed and loved.  Woody begins to feel like a second-class citizen once the razzle-dazzle toy Buzz Lightyear is on the scene.  He aches for Andy to remember the relationship they have had and the simple joys that can come from simple toys.  Similarly, teachers want to feel needed and be recognized for their unique contributions.  One of the benefits of being a coach is that you get to spend time with lots of teachers, watching them in action.  This gives you the opportunity to discover strengths.  As a coach, you can praise and highlight these strengths.  You’ll recall that affirmation and praise are important coaching moves in the GIR cycle when teachers are confident with instructional practices.  One way to spotlight a teacher’s assets is to take another teacher to her room so that she provides the modeling at the beginning of another’s coaching cycle.  Two cautions:  First, make sure both teachers are comfortable with this set up and that both will have a positive experience.  Second, don’t let this backfire by promoting a spirit of jealousy or competition – be sure many teachers serve as models for others if you choose to take this course.  As Toy Story illustrates, jealousy can be destructive!

In the animated movie, the destructive forces of jealousy and competition are illustrated as Woody and Buzz vie for the spot as Andy’s favorite toy.  Injuries occur and accusations fly because of these damaging attitudes.  In the story playing out in some schools across the country, new teacher evaluation systems threaten to cultivate a similar competitive spirit.  To guard against this negative response, coaches can focus on the end result of the GIR model:  collaboration and interdependence.  Coaches can support collaborative relationships with and among teachers, breaking out of the privatized practice and isolationism that have characterized the teaching profession.   As colleagues collaborate and cooperate, they gain strength from each other and plot a better course for their students’ learning journey.   When rivals unite, like Woody & Buzz working together on their journey home, the outcome is better for everyone involved. 

A hard lesson learned by Woody is that it’s okay not to be the center of attention.  Though he is important, he recognizes that he is part of a larger whole, and his involvement as a member of the group is important.  He does not need to be the star player.  Now the hard lesson for coaches:  Our role shifts as we move through a coaching cycle.  If we want teachers to be more interdependent, we need to back off the support we are providing and move to a more collaborative stance that shifts responsibility to teachers.  The teachers we work with should not continue to be dependent on us.  We build the capacity of teachers and move off of center stage. 

As we work through coaches cycles with individual teachers or PLCs, our role changes.  Like Woody and Buzz, we will certainly face challenges.  But both we and the teachers we work with will continue to carry on with our important work because of the benefit it brings to others.  Woody and Buzz carried on because of the joy that they could bring to Andy, and coaches and teachers carry on because they understand the influence that good teaching can have on the life of a child. 

 

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

A video about the power of language in the classroom:

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/encouraging-language-for-students?utm_campaign=digest&utm_medium=email&utm_source=digest

 

At-home summer reading camp ideas:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=98

An interesting article about the funds of knowledge that students bring to the classroom:

http://www.reading.org/Libraries/inspire/rt-61-1-12-tapping-students-cultural-knowledge.pdf

 

Some fun technology so that you feel proficient by the time the school year roles around.  Upload an image and then animate it so it looks like you’re talking:

www.blabberize.com

An article about putting the “mini” back in mini-lessons:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=1017

That’s it for this week!  Happy summer!

 

Up! With Coaching

If you've been following "My Coaching Couch" posts over the past six months or so, you've travelled with me on a journey through an extended coaching cycle.  Together we've examined each coaching move in the GIR model:  Modeling, Recommending, Questioning, Affirming, and Praising.  We've thought about how the model moves from dependence to a more collaborative, interdependent stance. If you've missed some posts, or if you recognize one of the moves you'd like to think more about this summer, you can click on the links on the right to revisit previous posts.  Hopefully they will provide food for thought.
 

In honor of the summer months, we'll take a lighter approach during the next few posts.  It will be a cartoon break!  We'll still be thinking about coaching, but we'll do it through the lessons learned from favorite animated movies.

Today's animated feature is "Up!"  In this movie, our plucky protagonist is a persistent scout determined to do a good turn daily.  Although his initial efforts to help old Mr. Fredricksen are rebuffed, Russell continues asking and eventually worms his way into Mr. Fredrickson's house and heart. 

What can we coaches learn from Russell and Mr. Fredricksen?  From young Russell, we learn that "if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again."  What coach has not had their efforts to provide support go unappreciated and unaccepted by a teacher or two?  Like Russell, we sometimes have to work hard to get our foot in the door.  We don't want to be pesky, so our efforts must be sincere and truly beneficial.  Providing a resource or offering to sit by and support a struggling student may be an initial entry point.  After the door is open a crack, we can look for something that gives us clues about what is important to the teacher.  Like Russell learning about Mr. Fredricksen's wife, we not only form an authentic connection, we begin to uncover what our role might be in the coaching adventure.  Once the teacher is talking, our listening pays big dividends in building trust and developing a meaningful coaching path. 

From the character Mr. Fredricksen, we have the ultimate themes of holding tight to your dreams, keeping promises, and treasuring the relationships we create with other people.  Coaching begins with relationship-building, and the strength of the relationship is predictive of how successful the coaching cycle will be in improving teacher effectiveness.

In any coaching journey, there will be distractions along the way (think, for example of the dog pack that Carl & Russell encounter and the fire started by Mr. Muntz).  We'll be more effective if we reduce diversions and have a single coaching goal during a cycle.  Save those other adventures for a future coaching cycle!  Keeping a singular focus allows both you and the teacher to more effectively gauge the success of your work.  After arriving at your destination, you're more likely to get a future invitation if the results of your work together are evident in student learning.

From the cartoon movie “Up”, we learn the value and importance of caring for others and of making the sometimes extraordinary efforts required to help them fulfill their dreams. 

And most importantly, we can take a lesson from the movie's title.  Be an optimist, see problems as opportunities to build capacity, and have positive assumptions about teachers and students.  It will leave you and those you work with feeling UP!

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

Suggestions for coaching the major shifts of the Common Core:

 

http://dianesweeney.com/coaching-the-six-shifts-of-the-common-core/?utm_source=May+2013+Blast+&utm_campaign=Six+Shifts&utm_medium=email

This video about teaching difficult vocabulary:

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-hard-vocabulary-words?utm_campaign=digest&utm_medium=email&utm_source=digest

 

And speaking of vocabulary, enjoy summer’s change of pace by visiting Free Rice.  On this site, you can test your vocabulary knowledge (and when school starts, have your students or teachers test theirs).  For every answer you get right, 10 grains of rice will be donated to the United Nations World Food Program:

http://freerice.com/#/english-vocabulary/1468

Enjoy a poem that captures the sense of accomplishment teachers feel as they wrap up a successful school year: 

http://readingyear.blogspot.com/2013/06/poetry-friday-day-after-last-day-of.html

The article, “Lessons from My Summer Vacation,” by Erin Ocon.  Erin reflects on the importance of slowing down and simplifying her goals at the start of the summer:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=418

 

That's it for this week.  Happy coaching!

Planning the Coaching Conversation

Although most of you have finished the school year and won’t have the opportunity to put it into practice right away, I wanted to share with you a planning guide for coaching conversations.  This summer, you’ll have the time to think through how you might use or adapt it so that you can have systems in place when the new school year begins. 

The GIR Conferencing Guide (below) is a chance for you to prepare for the important conversations you have with teachers.  We know that planning is an important part of teaching, and it’s an important part of coaching, too.  Taking a few minutes to think through the conversations you will have with teachers pays big dividends.  Let’s walk through the conferencing plan step by step.  As we do so, think about modification you might make so that it works well for you. 

In the top left corner you’ll see the (hopefully familiar) GIR model.  I include this on the form because many coaches have told me that this visual reminder encourages them to continually think about giving teachers more responsibility.  As you plan the coaching conversation you’ll be having, you might put an “X” on the squiggly line to indicate where you are in the coaching cycle with that teacher.  What kind of support will they be needing most?

The focus of the coaching cycle is best determined jointly with the teacher.  Zeroing in on a specific need that the teacher has identified ensures buy-in and makes your coaching cycle more productive.  You’ll likely have the same focus for 3 – 8 weeks.

Next on the page is a table with suggestions for coaching moves.  The list is not exhaustive, but hopefully it will provide food for thought.  As you move through a coaching cycle, you’ll also want to move farther to the right in terms of the coaching moves that are predominant.  In planning and in practice, there may be cross-over between the different coaching moves within one week.  For example, you’ll probably ask reflective questions throughout the coaching cycle, but questioning will likely become the dominant move only when the teacher needs fewer recommendations. 

The planning form also includes space for you to jot reminders to yourself.  These might be points from previous conversations that you want to follow up on, specific students you want to discuss, or even sensitive issues you want to steer clear of.  It should only take a few minutes to complete a form like this one.  You’ll feel more prepared, and you can have the guide with you as a reference during the coaching conversation.  There’s also space where you can write notes during the coaching session. 

Like the GIR model itself, the conferencing guide is a tool that should be used flexibly to meet your own needs and the needs of the teachers you work with.  If you’ve used this form in the past, please comment on this post about any adaptations you’ve made that have been helpful to you.  Your comments will be helpful to other readers and also to me as I revise and share with other coaches.

Here are a few ideas to take a look at this week:

Give yourself a treat by reading some popular children’s literature this summer.  You’ll also be more prepared to have conversations about books with students at your school when fall rolls around.  Here are the top 10 most-circulated K-5 books (at one elementary school).  You can also hit previous post to see the top 11 – 20 books in circulation. 

http://mrschureads.blogspot.com/2013/05/top-20-most-circulated-k-5-books-2012_29.html

Other books (both professional and not) to add to your summer reading list:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=1578

Support for making the six shifts of the Common Core Literacy Standards:

www.achievethecore.org/

http://www.engageny.org/common-core-curriculum-assessments

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos?categories=topics_common-core

For those coaching friends who are still in school:  Read about the “Hail Mary” Pass – Taking Risks at the End of the School Year:

http://kateandmaggie.com/2013/05/12/the-hail-mary-pass-or-taking-risks-at-the-end-of-the-year/

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!