Good Things Happening

In these days of high-stakes evaluations, some teachers understandably tense up when an administrator walks into their classroom. Unfortunately, there’s often spillover to coaches from this reaction. One of my favorite ways to counter this response is the “Good Things Happening” email.

The “Good Things Happening” email is the coaching version of walk-throughs. On any given day, I choose one or two hallways to visit, spending just a short time in each classroom. I try to be a wall flower (a characteristic I perfected during my junior-high years!). I stay just long enough to see something good. Then I walk into the hall and send myself a quick voice message or email with the teacher’s name as the subject line and the “good thing” noted briefly. After that, I visit the next room and repeat the process. It doesn’t take long to drop by all the classes in a hallway.

When I have a moment to sit down, I turn each of my notes into a brief email and send it to the teacher with the subject line, “Good Things Happening.”

It’s not long before I start getting replies: “You made my day!” “Thanks for noticing!” “Your ability to see something positive happening in the 1-2 minutes you’re in the classroom has been so appreciated!”

My “Good Things Happening” routine takes little time but yields big benefits. Coaches can usually have deep interactions with only a small percentage of the faculty at any given time, but it’s helpful to continue nurturing relationships with the others in an ongoing way. “Good Things Happening” is one of my favorite ways to sustain these important relationships.

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

Conferring about reading:  Getting students out of a reading rut:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=560

Read this description of effective professional development on formative feedback using a book study of Opening Minds (by Peter Johnston, whose thinking has meaningfully impacted my teaching and coaching):

http://www.stenhouse.com/rdMamaroneck.htm?r=n291

A protocol for professional (or classroom) learning that can be used to identify common themes (I’ve used it as a strategy for getting at the big ideas of a topic we are considering):

http://www.nsrfharmony.org/system/files/protocols/affinity_mapping_0.pdf

Find primary source documents for history in your area:

http://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2014/12/close-to-home-a-voyage-of-discovery-using-primary-sources/

Using drama to express knowledge of literature:

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teach-literature-with-drama?utm_campaign=digest&utm_medium=email&utm_source=digest

That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!