To Give and to Receive

If you have new teachers in your building, you are likely busy giving them the information they’ll need to be successful in your school.  Among the things you might be giving are:

*The details of the building schedule: Who goes where when.

*Information about supplies: What is available through the school and district, what funds are available for them to purchase additional materials

*Guidance with technology:  What technology do they need to access (for attendance, testing, instruction, e-mail) and how do they access it (navigating, setting up accounts, passwords)

*Reminders about duties:  When are they expected to be on the playground?  In the lunchroom?  In the hallways?  Do they need to pick students up from special classes and programs, or will someone else bring them back?

*Share building rituals: Do teachers wear jeans on Friday?  School t-shirts?  Is there a monthly birthday celebration? Designated pot-luck or snack days? How are holidays celebrated – in the classroom and by the staff?

There’s a plethora of details that keep a school functioning, and for veteran teachers these details have become an invisible part of the routine.  As a coach or mentor, you can uncover those specifics and help the new teacher learn the ropes in her new home.  She’ll be grateful for these gifts.

But while you’re busy giving, open yourself up to what you can receive from these new teachers – the gifts they have to give:

Energy:  New teachers bring vitality, unfettered by burnout that sometimes occurs after multiple repetitions of the school-year routine.  Be careful not to squelch their energy with, “just you wait!”  Instead, allow yourself to be buoyed up and refueled by their momentum. 

Determination:  Similarly, new teachers are often tenacious.  They haven’t been worn down by change after change, innovation and innovation, and piles of administrative red tape.  New teachers often have a vision for things as the could be and a will to make that happen.  Take a lesson from their firm resolve, and be the change you want to see.

Innovative Ideas:  Whether it is a different pedagogical approach, a new use of technology, or different ideas about classroom management, the new teachers in your school can bring freshness to routines that have become commonplace.  Encourage new teachers to share their ideas during staff meetings, and make a space for their ideas to be heard, rather than shut down, by building bridges between their ideas and those of veteran teachers. 

Having new teachers in a school definitely requires time, effort, and sharing on the part of the coach.  By letting yourself be on the receiving end as well, you’ll build relationships and likely feel renewed by the process.

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

A video sharing strategies for teaching the whole child:

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/meet-melissa-porfirio-2014-ntoy-finalist?utm_campaign=digest&utm_medium=email&utm_source=digest

This article is about teaching in kindergarten, but the thoughts about supporting students in developing social and life skills are equally relevant to teachers of other grades:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/28163257-452/teaching-kindergarten-we-work-to-find-joy.html#.U6StiY1dXtg?utm_source=19619952&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=High+Road

This video with ideas about helping kids develop a growth mindset:

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/growth-mindset-eed?utm_campaign=digest&utm_medium=email&utm_source=digest

Suggestions for using advertising to teach critical thinking:

http://www.middleweb.com/16528/close-reading-advertising/

11 tips to turn every reader into a close reader:

https://fs24.formsite.com/edweek/images/WP-Great-Books-11-Tips-to-Turn-Every-Student-Into-a-Close-Reader.pdf

That's it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

You Don't Know What You Don't Know

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.

­~Maya Angelou

I will always remember one of the most confident novice teachers I have ever worked with (we’ll call her Christine).  During PLC meetings, Christine was always the first to offer a comment, and it was typically lengthy and full of detail.  Her colleagues were patient, but I sensed they were controlling a strong urge to roll their eyes and sigh --- here she goes, again.  Christine's confident attitude also permeated our post-observation conversations and most exchanges she had with her mentor.  But here’s the catch: she was not doing a good job with teaching.  From her perspective, she was delivering great lessons, but unfortunately, the students weren’t on board.  She didn’t notice, however, that her instruction was missing the mark.  Christine is a good example of the adage, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

Although Christine is an extreme example, all novices go through a stage of blissfully blind ignorance, unaware of the multitude of factors influencing instruction.  Thirty years ago, Noel Birch* developed a model describing four stages of learning that has become known as “Gordon’s Ladder.”  With modification, the model can be a useful guide for thinking about how teachers’ move beyond the “not knowing what they’re not knowing” phase.  Here are the modified stages:

Stage 1:  Unconsciously Unskilled

We don’t know what we don’t know.  We are unskilled and unaware of it.  We see a version of this stage in the armchair expert.  No one is more certain about how to teach well than someone who has never had a class of their own students. This stage of being unconsciously unskilled, unfortunately, is a very comfortable stage, because, “Ignorance is bliss.” Although it seemed implausible to me and her mentor, Christine felt very happy with her teaching. 

Stage 2:  Consciously Unskilled

We know what we don’t know.  We somehow become aware of our shortcomings, and this recognition convinces us that we have much to learn.   In contrast to the earlier blissful stage, this stage can be overwhelming.  The teacher’s awareness of her own practice and its impact on students increases.  There may be some feelings of guilt for the effects of past practice.  The support of a coach or mentor makes a big difference in this stage.  For Christine, a lesson that was undeniably ineffective opened the door for Christine’s mentor to help her see what she needed to focus on, and she started making progress to being skilled, the next stage on the ladder.

Stage 3: Becoming Skilled

This phase is characterized by increasing competence.  We are trying the skills out, experimenting, practicing, and becoming more proficient.  The skills become easier.  As Christine worked to design instruction that was more student-centered, she noticed her students’ increased learning and she grew in confidence as a teacher.

Stage 4:  Consciously Skilled

This stage represents a competent, reflective practitioner.  The skill has become more automatic and can be explained to others.  A teacher in this stage makes a great coach or mentor, because she can examine her own practice, share it, and support others in their journey through the stages.  Because Christine’s mentor could accurately reflect on both her own and Christine’s practice, she was a valuable guide as Christine developed expertise.

An understanding of Gordon’s Ladder can be helpful as a mentor applies the GIR Mentoring Model when working with teachers.  The first three phases (modeling, recommending, and questioning) are most effective when considered in the context of the teacher’s skills and her awareness of that skill level.  For Christine, modeling wasn’t effective until she recognized she had room for improvement herself.  Until then, she had a “that’s not the way I would do it,” attitude as she watched, which only served to confirm her ineffective practices in her own mind.  Once she became consciously unskilled, modeling took on new importance, as did the recommendations, which were now more readily received.  Similarly, mentor’s questions that had previously been met with textbook answers took on new importance when Christine became conscious of what she did not know.  Considering teachers' level of consciousness of their skill can be a helpful guide as you use the GIR model.

*see http://www.gordontraining.com/free-workplace-articles/learning-a-new-skill-is-easier-said-than-done/.

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

Video resources to raise awareness about effective teaching:

http://www.marzanoevaluation.com/evaluation/free_video_resources/

Are you working with teachers to create units?  This white paper provides an overview of Understanding by Design:

https://fs24.formsite.com/edweek/images/WP_ASCD_Improve-Curriculum-with-Understanding-by-Design.pdf

An article about creating a community of writers:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=1510

Ideas for igniting a sense of wonder with informational text:

https://fs24.formsite.com/edweek/images/WP-Heinemann-Helping-Students-Find-Joy.pdf

This video highlights the value of small group work and partner talk – in this case for checking scientific data:

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/analyze-data-with-groups?utm_campaign=digest&utm_medium=email&utm_source=digest

Coaching Great Teachers

The title of someone else’s blog post recently caught my attention:  “If You Thought I Was Perfect, You Weren’t Paying Attention.”  I thought of this sentiment in the context of coaching teachers who are already very good.  As it turns out, these very good teachers often seek out feedback that will make them even better – it’s probably that characteristic that made them so good in the first place.

So how do you coach a really good teacher?  A pre-observation conference is a good opportunity to have her tell you what she’s wondering about.  Then you can support her in an investigation.  What data should you each collect during the lesson?  Then ground your observations in specifics: what you see and hear.  Get right in the center of the learning.  Lean in to hear student conversations and student-teacher interactions.  Look closely at student work.  What does that work tell you about student understanding?  Be another set of eyes and ears, figuring out what learning is (and isn’t) happening. 

When you talk with the teacher afterward, ask good questions and listen hard to the answers.  The conversations that ensue will offer the opportunity for rich professional discourse.  Discussions that are grounded in insightful observation and careful analysis of student-teacher interactions are likely to be rich and meaningful for both you and the teacher you are coaching. 

As the school year gets underway, you’ll have the opportunity to work with effective teachers.  Although offering specific praise will be appreciated, telling a very good teacher how great the lesson was will not help her grow.  She doesn’t want you to tell her she’s perfect.  She wants you to be so insightful in your observations that you can figure out together how to make her teaching even better.  Growth is what she really wants, for both herself and her students. 

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

Tips for helping teachers work together:

https://www.teachingchannel.org/blog/2014/07/18/power-of-teacher-collaboration-nea/

A video about establishing a positive classroom culture:

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/establish-classroom-culture?utm_campaign=digest&utm_medium=email&utm_source=digest

Ralph Fletcher shares his writing habits in this three-minute video. This might be a good conversation starter for a beginning-of-the-year discussion on establishing classroom routines:

                                                          

http://asuonline.wistia.com/medias/8edcvoppew

What’s an infographic and how can they encourage students’ writing across content areas?

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/infographics-visual-literacy-written-content-brett-vogelsinger

Books for launching the school year (and ideas for using them):

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=1032

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

Seeing with New Eyes

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

~Marcel Proust

As we head back to school, most of you are welcoming at least one new teacher to your building.  If you are mentoring a teacher, whether officially or unofficially, keeping the Gradual Increase of Responsibility Model in mind can support you in your work.  The model, pictured below, begins with high levels of support – just what a teacher needs when starting a new position.

Modeling, the most supportive move, provides a visual for expected practices.  Unfortunately, what could be a springboard for change can become a verification of current practice if the teacher takes an evaluative stance.  Instead, encourage objective noticing, which can allow the teacher to see with new eyes.

As humans, we have a tendency to jump to judgment, so it’s hard not to do so when observing another teacher.  However, evaluative comments tend to validate or even justify a teacher’s current practice, rather than opening her eyes to new possibilities.  To avoid evaluation, encourage your observer to be a noticer, taking careful notes of what is seen and heard.  Being specific and objective will take the learning deeper.  When you meet with the teacher beforehand to explain what she’ll see, encourage this kind of note-taking.  Then, after you’ve modeled, in the follow-up conversation, push for comments that reflect such specificity.

This week, after an observation, my colleague, said, “I noticed that you had smooth transitions.”  Although she used the language of noticing, this was, in reality, an evaluative statement that did little to enhance her understanding.  I pushed a bit.  “What was it that made the transitions smooth?”  After a thoughtful pause while she reviewed her notes, she said, “I noticed that you used student comments to transition from one part of the activity to another.”  Now there was a comment she could grow from! 

Pinning the reflective conference on observations that are objective and specific, rather than evaluative or general, is likely to reveal nuances of practice that enhance the learning experience.  The chart below provides some examples:

Evaluative Noticing

Objective Noticing

Your transitions were smooth Your objective was clear. Students were engaged. You listened really well to your students. Students did a great job of figuring out the criteria for an effective argument. You did a good job of explaining terms. The lesson was fun! They really got it! You did a good job of including your ELL students.

You used student language to move from one part of the activity to the next. You asked students to put the objective into their own words. You included learning experiences that used different modalities: a video, art, turn-and-talk, graphic organizers, and written text.  You included the words students had said when you defined terms for the class. Asking students to rank different arguments helped them figure out the criteria for themselves. You used lots of synonyms when explaining terms.  You used commercials from Nickelodeon that were targeted to young children. You gave students lots of time to talk so they could construct meaning together. You provided sentence stems to help your ELLs participate in the conversation.

During a debrief conference, if you hear comments that are vague or judgmental in nature, ask a probing question like, “What makes you say so?”  If necessary, illustrate the difference between the kinds of comments you’re hearing and the kind you think would be more helpful.  As the teacher you are supporting uses language that is focused, their learning will be sharpened and they’ll gain insights they can put into practice. 

Addendum:  These same principles apply to teachers’ comments about student work.  More food for thought!

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

An article about mentoring new teachers:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=1151

27 Tips for mentoring new teachers:

http://www.edudemic.com/27-tips-for-mentoring-new-teachers/

This Pinterest board with resources for new teachers:

http://www.pinterest.com/teachingchannel/new-teacher-resources/?utm_source=Teaching+Channel+Newsletter&utm_campaign=26366d3783-Newsletter_June_14_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_23c3feb22a-26366d3783-290610213

This video with ideas about helping kids develop a growth mindset:

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/growth-mindset-eed?utm_campaign=digest&utm_medium=email&utm_source=digest

Looking for the perfect first read-aloud of the year?  Visit this Pinterest board:

http://www.pinterest.com/choiceliteracy/first-read-alouds/

That's if for this week.  Happy Coaching!

What's in a Name?

The beginning of the school year is quickly approaching, and teachers everywhere are reviewing class lists, making name plates for desks, and labeling folders and cubbies with students’ given name.  Kindergarten teachers, as they plan those important first weeks of school, often include activities to help students recognize both their own and their classmates’ names in print.  Why this focus on names?

The most identifying word any person has is his name.  Names are important to our sense of self.  Names are linked to identities and identities to self-worth.  Our names are gifted to us by our parents (sometimes reinvented by ourselves or others).  Names are who we are and who we wish to be recognized as. 

Because a name is so personal, there’s a lot of power in using it, and how we use it makes a difference.  We’ve all heard someone say that, when they were a child, if their parent used their full name (first, middle, last), they knew they were in trouble!  When we use a person’s name in conversation, it can also send a gentler message.  Including their name subtly says, “You are an important individual to me.” Using that personal label in a coaching conversation can say, “I care about you and your work.”

 I’ve noticed that when we use a name while coaching makes a difference in the emotion that is stirred and the way our comments are received.  The simple difference of where we place a person’s name in a sentence (written or spoken) changes the emotional impact.

Placing a name at the beginning of a sentence feels like a call for the person’s attention.  It has undertones of demand (“Vicki, I’m wondering if you’ve thought about……”).  If we embed the name in the sentence, or end the sentence with their name, there’s a certain softness to it.  (I’m wondering, Vicki, if you’ve thought about….)  It feels different, somehow, like we are connecting with that individual at a personal level.  The placement of the name can shift the tone: from, “I’m getting your attention,” to “I am noticing and naming you as a person.”

If you’re thinking I’m getting pretty picky here – well, I am.  Words matter.  A lot.  And they are the primary tool of the coach, so it behooves us to use them well.

Language plays a huge role in coaching, and how that language is received makes the difference in coaching’s effectiveness.  Hayakawa , in his book, Language in Thought and Action, said, “To be concerned with the relation between words and what they stand for in the hearer’s thoughts and emotions is to approach the study of language as both an intellectual and a moral discipline.”  Effective coaching benefits from a careful study of language. 

A name is a personal thing.  Let’s be thoughtful about how we use it.

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

The great video: “What Do Teachers Make,” a wonderful way to start the year with inspiration (even if you’ve seen it before, it’s worth watching):

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teachers-make?utm_source=Teaching+Channel+Newsletter&utm_campaign=26366d3783-Newsletter_June_14_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_23c3feb22a-26366d3783-290610213

Ideas for beginning-of-the-year readers’ workshops:

http://reflectandrefine.blogspot.com/2013/08/getting-started-with-readers-workshop.html

A video about setting the tone in the classroom from day 1:

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/setting-classroom-tone?utm_campaign=digest&utm_medium=email&utm_source=digest

First 20 days of writing workshop from Hamilton County, Tennessee:

http://kckliteracycurriculum.wikispaces.com/file/view/First20dayswritingworkshop.pdf

An article about peers helping peers using technology during the first days of school:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=823

That's it for this week.  Happy Coaching!