“You’re such a good listener and so
easy to talk to!” That was my sister’s remark
after a recent lengthy phone conversation.
Her comment reminded me again of how I often get to practice my coaching
skills, even when I’m not on the job! As I reflected on our conversation after
we hung up, I realized that while we talked I’d automatically used some things
I’d learned from Cognitive Coaching (Costa
& Garmston, 2002), especially what I’ve come to think of as reflective listening.
There are two basics to reflective
listening, and I often find myself using both in a coaching conversation –
especially one where the teacher is not feeling positive and needs to do a bit
of a brain dump.
The first is naming and reflecting
back the emotion:
“It sounds like you’re feeling
really frustrated because there is so
much content to cover between now and the benchmark test.”
“I can understand why you’re worried about Sophia. You’ve pulled out all the stops but she still
isn’t making progress.”
“You seem disappointed in the unit
your team created during the PLC day last week.”
After naming and reflecting a
teacher’s emotion, I often see her shoulder’s drop and tension visibly
leaving. She has been understood.
A partner to naming the emotion is
summarizing. You have to really listen
and think at the same time to do this!
After a teacher has given a lengthy description of a situation, provide
a summary statement:
“You feel like that project would
overwhelm your students because there are too many choices.”
“Your intervention group isn’t
making the progress that you’d like to see, and you’re wondering what needs to
change.”
“So you’re feeling that lesson didn’t
go well because the mini lesson wasn’t ‘mini’.”
These summary statements often result
in a light-bulb moment. Although you’re really just reflecting what the teacher has just said, hearing it all
wrapped up in a single statement provides clarity and a sense of direction.
Just like in my conversation with my
sister, teachers feel listened to and ready to move forward when coaches use
reflective listening practices like emotion
naming and summarizing. Thoughtful responses like these open up the
conversation for productive problem-solving.
This
week, you might want to take a look at:
A
podcast about formative assessment:
A
Pinterest Board with series books for intermediate readers:
The
results of revamping a boring geometry problem:
Video
clips of guided reading instruction across all levels of early readers:
Education
Week’s “Literacy and the Common Core” is a free download that contains 7
articles on a variety of topics related to interdisciplinary literacy:
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
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