Friday, February 23, 2018

Teacher Learning as Spontaneous Combustion

Today I was witness to one of those magical moments teacher live for – when learning erupts like spontaneous combustion, burning new ideas forever into students’ minds.

In our PLC we’ve been working on discussion strategies – ways to support genuine conversation among students, where students initiate topics and make unsolicited contributions. We’ve been leading up to grand conversations, supporting students as they take ownership for their own learning and consider, extend, and sometimes refute one another’s ideas.

Amy’s fourth-grade class has been studying Native American folktales. They had read Coyote Places the Stars and How the Stars Fell into the Sky, and today they were ready for a grand conversation. Amy invited me in to observe so that we could reflect together on the experience.  As the lesson began, I heard Amy launch the discussion with an open-ended question: “What were some of the similarities and differences between these two book?” Students jumped in with comments about the different tribes, their settings, and the characters in the stories. One student, Ashley, made an astute comment revealing the character trait of patience, “She said she would like to do it for the rest of her life,” she said. Amy jumped on this opportunity to support students’ understanding of an important theme in the story. “Did you guys hear what Ashley said?” she queried.  Ashley, say it again.”  As Ashley repeated her answer, students physically leaned in to attend to her comment. The discussion continued with students stating their observations and ideas and often asking their peers, “What do you think?” It was clear Amy had laid the groundwork for this discussion.  

As the conversation turned to the ending of How the Stars Fell, one of the students asked, “But what’s the lesson? There isn’t a lesson!” “There is a lesson,” another responded. Students batted around a few ideas, then one said, “I think that it’s about patience, because in one story, the coyote just got impatient and threw the stars into the sky, but in the other one he took his time.”  (Wow!) Another added, “I agree with what Vicki said, because it took many moons to put the stars in a nice way, but in this one, he just threw all the stars and made a mess.”

At this point, the students’ ideas were really jelling. Amy jumped in. “I agree,” she said. “I think Coyote’s character in this book was impatient, didn’t care about what First Woman thought, but in the other book, Coyote wanted to make his friends happy and honor his friends.” The discussion continued, with students bringing in other important ideas, and the lesson ended with an opportunity for students to write about their new understandings. So much thinking and learning had occurred!

As I prepare to talk with Amy about this lesson, there is much to celebrate! Students’ engagement in and ownership of the discussion was palpable. They actively encouraged each other to participate and they came on their own to key ideas. The thoughtful, open-ended questions that Amy had prepared in advance and the occasional follow-up prompts and probes she asked bore fruit as the students commented and queried one another.

One of my favorite points in the lesson was when Amy asked Ashley to restate her comment because it illustrated an important theme. This was powerful, because it kept the learning in students’ hands, which heightened their engagement.  I wondered why Amy took a different tack later, as this theme solidified through discussion. Instead of asking students to restate or rephrase, instead of asking a follow-up question to get students to synthesize, Amy did the heavy lifting and summarized their discussion.

I’m hoping that a take-away from our debrief will be Amy’s recognition of the power of students’ self-discovery. Initially, Amy guided the learning by drawing attention to an astute comment, and students built on that comment.  This approach could have served equally well to summarize the learning.

With this in mind, here’s what I’m planning for the coaching conversation with this talented teacher who has accomplished so much in supporting students’ discussion skills. I plan to lead with a comment about how amazing it was to watch the conversation unfold and then ask, “Why do you think this discussion worked so well?” I’m sure I’ll learn a thing or two about how to support rich discussion as our own conversation unfolds.  I hope she’ll mention Ashley’s early comment that lead to the patience theme, and I’ll again have the chance to affirm her teacher moves, emphasizing the learning that occurred when she gave the teaching power to Ashley.  I might ask, “Were there other times in the lesson when you did this?” and later, “Were there other times in the lesson when you could have done this?”

The coaching conversation is playing out in my mind.  I hope it unfolds in a way that will ignite Amy’s desire to routinely give the teaching power to students during discussions. As I affirm and question, I think Amy will become more aware of the effects of the moves she makes as she actively guides, rather than leads, discussions.


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

Coaching for equity:



Mentor texts for teaching endings (plus a chance to reminisce about your favorites):



Ideas for media literacy:



Dear Parents (or teachers):



Who are the quiet powerhouses in your classroom? Check out this Ted talk about the power of introverts for ideas:



That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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