“Education
is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
~William Butler Yeats
Several
years ago I did some consulting in a district that told coachess they could not
coach on classroom management issues. The coaches grumbled about this. The
teachers grumbled about it. Many teachers, especially less-experienced ones,
said it was their biggest concern, and they wanted help.
I
was reminded of this district’s decision this week when I sat around a table
with professors from several colleges of education. The topic was teacher
preparation, and, not surprisingly, a professor started off by saying, “With
our student teachers, we do a lot with classroom management.” Heads nodded.
I
work every week with mentor teachers (those who have a student-teacher in their
classrooms), and I thought about how frequently the conversation turns to
classroom management. They come to me with concerns about their interns’
problems in this area. When we start peeling back the layers, however, there is
often something more important to focus on – and when we do put our attention
here, classroom management issues often fall away. What makes this difference
is a focus on student engagement. Although there still may be classroom
management issues that need addressing, increasing students' cognitive engagement
dramatically decreases problems with student behavior.
Engagement
is not just being busy or compliant. It is not a measure of on-task behavior.
Engagement doesn’t mean simply planning a hands-on activity (although that
often helps!). The important thing to consider when focusing on engagement is
the mind: Engagement is a minds-on condition.
Davis,
Summers, and Miller, in their book An
Interpersonal Approach to Classroom Management, talk about engagement
as students’ cognitive and emotional investment in the learning, including
their interest and ownership. When we focus on what will interest students in
the learning and what we will do to encourage student ownership, engagement
increases. Asking questions like the following during a coaching conversation
can put the focus on engagement:
*What
might ignite students’ interest in the work?
*What
personal connections could they make?
*How
will you grab students' attention in a purposeful way?
*What
needs to happen so that students recognize the importance of the work? *How
will today’s learning connect with what students did yesterday and what they need
to be able to do tomorrow?
I
love the conversation that ensues when I lead with these questions, and I find
that when we focus on student engagement, teacher engagement often increases,
too. These coaching conversations reinvigorate the teacher and the teaching, igniting
teachers’ interest in the important role that student engagement plays in learning.
This week, you might want to
take a look at:
This
video about increasing student engagement (it’s 14 minutes, but includes coaching
conversations with ideas to apply across grade levels and content areas):
Golden
rules for engagement:
The 3
R’s of Writing Celebrations:
This Pinterest board with classroom
management ideas:
Disciplinary literacy or content-area literacy. What’s the difference? Find answers and some good suggestions in this article:
That’s it for this week. Happy
Coaching!
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Like on Facebook at: facebook.com/mycoachescouch for more coaching and teaching tips!
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