DYI Coaching

What do you do when working with a teacher who is over-reliant on your recommendations?

There’s a tipping point in a coaching cycle when responsibility shifts from coach to teacher.  In the GIR model,* that tipping point comes when the bang-for-your-buck coaching move shifts from making recommendations to asking questions.  Even though there are times when modeling and recommending are appropriate coaching moves, we are coaching for interdependence, not dependence, so we can’t stick with recommending and be effective.

Have you worked with a teacher who was over-reliant on recommendations?  

There are many reasons a teacher might take this stance.  Has he been disempowered in the past by being told exactly what and how to teach?  Has she faced blame when outcomes didn’t measure up? Is he burdened by student issues he feels are outside of his control?  These experiences (and more) can lead a teacher to look outside herself for answers, even when she’s known what to do all along.

When a teacher comes to you requesting answers, it can be tempting to give them.  After all, you were hired to be a coach because of your experience and expertise. But imparting your wisdom may not provide the most powerful  learning opportunity for a teacher. Helping her draw from her own well of knowledge and experience encourages self-reliance and sustainable, self-directed learning and problem-solving.

Besides biting your tongue, what can you do when a knowledgeable teacher comes to you for answers?

Recently, I read the book,  The Coaching Habit, by Michael Stanier.  Although the book is written for business managers, I think his advice holds true for instructional coaches.  When a colleague comes for an unneeded recommendation, Michael suggests you say, “That’s a great question!  I’ve got some ideas, which I’ll share with you.  But before I do, what are your first thoughts?” 

After a surprised pause, the teacher may throw out a fledgling idea and then wait for your response.  That’s your cue for Michael’s next question (a powerful one!): “What else could you do?”  After the next idea and subsequent pause, prompt again: “And what else?”

After generating several possibilities, you can encourage the teacher to consider which of these ideas seem worth trying first.  With this simple sequence of questions, you’ve promoted DIY coaching:  the teacher generates options and chooses the best course.  And all it took was a few good questions from you!

Even though I hadn’t read Michael’s book yet, I used this approach a few years ago when working with teachers in Haiti. A large room held 40 teachers seated at 8 tables, representing 8 nearby orphanage schools.  With the assistance of a translator, I asked each table group to make a chart, listing persistent problems they were experiencing.  Then I asked them to put a star by one problem that they really wanted a solution for.

After doing so, the teachers looked to me expectantly.  I’d already noticed how these teachers turned respectfully to me for answers, but at this moment, I knew that was not my role.  So, I told them: talk with your group and make a list of possible solutions to your problem. 

They looked at me with surprise – no, shock!  “We don’t know how to solve these problems,” they said. “We have already tried.”

I was the educational expert from America.  Surely I would give them a solution!  I was the one standing at the front of the room.  I was the one who had come to offer support.

But I knew I didn’t have the real answers to their persistent problems. They knew their students and their situation in a way I never could.  Besides that, I would be leaving in a few days and taking my answers with me.  They needed confidence that they could find their own answers.  

I moved from table to table, asking a few questions about the problem they’d identified and encouraging them to make a long list of possibilities before deciding how to move forward.  Although one table (led by a vocal, experienced teacher) claimed they had already tried everything and there were no new ideas to list, teachers at the other seven tables brainstormed and then determined a course of action.  There was energy in the room and fierce determination.  These teachers felt empowered to solve their own problems.

Although these Haitian teacher initially felt reliant on me for solutions, when my questions encouraged thoughtfulness and persistence, their efficacy increased and they crafted potential solutions.  Asking questions turns instructional coaching into a DIY project!

* Collet, V. S. (2012).  The Gradual Increase of Responsibility Model: Coaching for teacher

change.  Literacy Research and Instruction, 51(1), 27-47.

  

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

Candy + Coaching:  A few fun ideas:

https://blog.teachboost.com/funny-ways-to-support-your-coaching-work

The vocabulary word wall song (and how it helps kids):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8STK2osMvDk&feature=emb_logo

Easing test anxiety:

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-02-24-test-anxiety-is-crippling-students-giving-them-a-breather-can-help

Moving students from consumers to creators to contributors:

https://teachthought.com/project-based-learning/moving-students-consumers-creators-contributors/

Improving cooperative learning:

https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/making-cooperative-learning-work-better/

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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Approachable

I take my work seriously.  Students and learning matter, and this gives me clear focus.  But sometimes my fervor and focus get in the way of my coaching.  My intensity can make me feel less accessible and receptive.  A few years back, I was coached by a colleague about an upcoming meeting.  “You and Susie are both so intense,” he said.  “You can be intimidating.” 

At first I laughed, because Suzie and I are both petite – if we stood on the scales together, we’d barely tip the needle over 200 lbs.  How could two tiny women be intimidating?  But, on further reflection, I knew he was right.  We can both have that fierce gaze that means, “I am not giving up until we get this right!”  And that attribute, unfortunately, could push people away.  I decided this was something I needed to work on.  I needed to be more approachable. 

I started thinking about things I hadn’t thought about before: How I sat in a chair while listening, for example.  Even though a leaning-in posture can say, “I’m paying attention,” it might also feel in-your-face.  So I practiced leaning back and looking relaxed from time to time.  I reminded myself to uncross my arms.  I laid an open hand loosely on the table.  These subtle gestures can make me feel more approachable during one-on-one and group conversations.

When I enter a classroom for an observation, I have to remind myself to keep a smile on my face.  Even though on the inside I am always SO happy to be there, I sometime get so focused on taking everything in that I notice my brow is furrowed.  That sends a signal that I don’t intend!  Teachers (and sometimes students) read that expression as, “Something is wrong here.”  Even when it isn’t.  So I do facial readjustments throughout an observation.

I also try to remember to slide into the classroom rather than striding in.  I don’t want my walk to say that I’m all business.  I don’t want to create a diversion, I want to blend in.  This might seem extreme, but I even think about what shoes I’ll wear, because I don’t want my heels click-clicking as I enter the room or as I wander over to a group of students to listen in on their collaboration.  I don’t want my posture to be too stick-straight, because my bearing could be intimidating.

Until I’ve really established rapport with a teacher, I don’t bring my laptop into her room.  That big, official screen seems to create a barrier and differences in our status.  It does not feel welcoming.  It does not feel pleasant.  Even though I’m much better at capturing all the little details using my keyboard, it’s not worth the hurdle it creates.  At first, I get what data I can with my notebook or iPad. 

This week, I met three preservice teachers who I’ll be spending a lot of time with next month (we are going to Ireland together!).  Before they joined me in my office, I reminded myself to smile a lot.  I put away my big laptop and got out the caramels.  I asked what they are excited about and what advice they had about preparing for the trip, because I hadn’t really had time to think about it yet.  There won’t be much time for rapport-building once we get to Ireland, because we’ll jump right in to working in the school, so I knew I needed a strong start during our 30-minute get-together.  I hope that reminding myself to be approachable got our relationship started on the right foot.  As with all coaching work, positive relationships will be vital.  If you are like me and your intensity sometimes gets in the way of your approachability, paying attention to posture, positioning, and facial expressions can help teachers feel at ease.

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

Using the questions for Learning categories in coaching:

https://barkleypd.com/blog/planning-questions-for-coaching-conferencing-and-plc-facilitation/

Social-Emotional benefits of 3 common literacy practices:

https://choiceliteracy.com/article/wounded-warriors-trauma-and-literacy-routines/

EdCamp-style PD at your school:

https://www.spedtechgeek.com/blog/edcamp-style-pd-at-school-free-templates

Getting power from having students write to politicians:

https://www.middleweb.com/42277/what-students-can-learn-by-writing-to-politicians/

A 3-minute listen about why sitting affects teens’ mental health:

https://www.npr.org/2020/02/17/806599794/why-sitting-for-long-periods-can-effect-teens-mental-health

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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Coaching for Development

In last week’s post, I mentioned that I’d just attended the CCIRA Literacy Conference where I had the opportunity to lead two workshops about differentiated coaching. During those sessions, I began by discussing some shared assumptions for successful coaching:

·       We can separate the teaching from the teacher.

·       Practice is something that can be changed, not an indelible part of a teacher’s personality.

·       Professionals have a common body of knowledge and practices.

I described how crucial these assumptions are for two main reasons: 1) If the focus is on the teacher rather than the teaching, the teacher you are working with may feel personally attacked.  2)  If the focus is on the teacher, rather than the teaching, the teacher may see his professional practice as a matter of personality or style, rather than as an understanding of effective practices. 

Those sessions were on Thursday.

On Friday, I attended a session on coaching new teachers, ready to gather additional wisdom about coaching.  I’ll call the presenter Sandy.  One of Sandy’s first slides said this:  “Coach to develop the teacher, not the teaching,”  Of course, that caught my attention.  I knew Sandy was a knowledgeable and experienced coach.  Was she sending the exact opposite message from what I’d preached the day before?  I listened intently, trying to grasp her rationale.

She made an analogy:  “Just like when you’re teaching reading to students,” she said, “You want to teach the reader, not the reading.”  That was all she said on the subject, but it gave me food for thought.

As a literacy coach, I have encouraged teachers not to simply teach the text (novel, play, article, etc.).  The goal is not only to have students understand the themes of Tuck Everlasting, for example.  We also have goals about skills and strategies the reader will develop while reading the book.  Students will, we hope, take these skills and strategies with them as they approach future texts.  I think this is what Sandy meant when she said, “Coach to develop the teacher, not the teaching,”

When we coach, it is not just about making a single lesson better.  By focusing on practices in a specific lesson, we hope to illuminate principles and practices that transcend that single lesson, that will be generalizable to many contexts.  We are not simply coaching for performance, we are also coaching for development. 

Coaching for performance is about fixing a specific problem or building a specific skill.  It is urgent and important and necessary.  But our coaching doesn’t stop there.  When we coach for development, we are cultivating understanding that leads to flexible use of practices and principles.  Coaching for development calls a teacher forward to learn, improve, and grow, rather than simply sorting out a specific situation.  Such a conversation is more rare, but it is also more significant.

When I said, “We can separate the teaching from the teacher,” I was making the case that there is a professional body of knowledge about instruction that guides teachers’ decision-making. I think Sandy would agree.  When Sandy said, “Coach to develop the teacher, not the teaching,” she was suggesting a coaching approach that transcends the specific situation.  I would agree. 

Although our statements at first seemed contradictory, together they make an important claim: By supporting teachers’ understanding of instructional principles and practices, we encourage professional development in the true sense of the word.  That is why coaching is powerful PD. 

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

Reading conferences that give you info. about the reading, rather than the book he is holding:

https://www.middleweb.com/42127/conferring-moves-that-help-readers-open-up/

Questions for co-teachers (including coaches who co-teach):

https://choiceliteracy.com/article/collaborative-teaching-finding-common-ground-first-checklist/

Ask students to identify word gaps (instead of teacher-selected vocabulary lists):

https://choiceliteracy.com/article/student-generated-vocabulary-discussions/

Three C’s to guide children’s use of screen media (podcast):

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-02-11-a-new-approach-to-regulating-screen-time-for-kids

How relatedness supports student motivation:

https://video.edweek.org/detail/video/6114312618001/student-motivation-helping-students-relate-to-others

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Touchstones for Teaching

The notion that beliefs guide actions resonates across decades and communities.  The popular “This I Believe” radio show from the 1950s has morphed into a website by the same name, where people from all over the world share essays describing the core values that guide their lives.

Teachers’ beliefs likewise guide their actions in the classroom, so understanding a teacher’s beliefs about education and instruction can give us touchstones for coaching.  When looking for improvement, connect with a core belief.

How do you peel away the layers and get to a teacher’s core beliefs?  One way is to ask why she became a teacher.  What was her journey?

This week I had the opportunity to hear Gravity Goldberg at the CCIRA literacy conference.  Gravity described a time when learning about a teacher’s journey uncovered core teaching beliefs.  The story made me think more about the centrality of teacher’s beliefs for sustainable change.

Gravity was coaching at a high school with hard-to-reach teachers.  Thankfully, there was a first-year teacher willing to accept Gravity’s support.  It seemed, however, that practices Gravity suggested butted up against recommendations this young teacher was getting from a more-experienced colleague. In an attempt to begin building a relationship with the more-experienced teacher, Gravity asked, “Why did you become a teacher?” 

This veteran teacher was adamant that she wanted students who left her classroom to be prepared for college.  Peeling back another layer, the teacher told of her own experience as a first-generation college student.  With a combination of sadness and determination, she described how her first college paper came back with a D-, red-penned and inscribed, “See me.” The teacher talked about how that conversation unfolded, with the professor asking where she’d attended high school and then proclaiming, “Well, they didn’t prepare you for college!”  This teacher’s response to the shaming was to promise herself that no student she had would leave her classroom unprepared.  Her approach, however, was to do the red marking now so that it could be avoided later. 

Gravity described this conversation not as a magical turning point where the teacher suddenly stopped marking each-and-every-error on student papers.  There was nothing that abrupt.  However, the teacher’s story gave Gravity a touchstone for further conversations. Over time, the teacher recognized that she was perpetuating her own experience with shaming onto her students, and she made some shifts. 

Asking about a teacher’s why – their raison d’être as a teacher – is one way to uncover a teacher’s beliefs.  How else might you guide a conversation to peel back the layers and uncover teaching beliefs?  When might understanding a teacher’s core beliefs be helpful? 

When a teacher seems reluctant to change practices, it may be rooted to a core belief, which may be held implicitly. As the teacher makes that belief explicit, she can intentionally examine whether the belief still hold value for her, and how her practices align or misalign with her beliefs.

As coaches, understanding teachers’ beliefs can help us support them as they bring their practices into alignment with their personal guiding principles.

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I started a new Facebook book group for my book, Collaborative Lesson Study.  For a free, downloadable Quickstart Guide to Lesson Study and an invitation to join the closed Facebook group, go here.  Each week between now and March 27 we’ll discuss one chapter (and I’ll add a quick video).  Read or comment as much or as little as you’d like.  

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

The why’s and how’s of including movement in learning:

https://www.middleweb.com/42187/students-learn-better-when-theyre-moving/

How Big Bird finds a safe place in his imagination (works for big people, too!):

https://youtu.be/ciGL9fCa8uk

Using “passion blogging” to teach literary analysis:

https://www.edutopia.org/article/tapping-students-interests-develop-literary-analysis-skills

Kids thrive in schools where the adults are learning, too:

https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/54750/why-focusing-on-adult-learning-builds-a-school-culture-where-students-thrive

Podcasting with young students:

https://www.edutopia.org/article/way-promote-student-voice-literally

That's it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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Don’t Compare, Connect!

I’m a proponent of giving teachers the opportunity to get into each other’s classrooms.  Structures like lab visits and lesson study  create an open culture for sharing.  However, sometimes sharing leads to comparing, and that can be toxic.

Problems with Comparison

Perhaps it’s human nature to compare ourselves to others.  Comparison seems to give us a yardstick for how we are doing.  However, no two situations are the same.  Schools are complex environments that don’t create level playing fields.  Teachers may beat themselves up for not working hard enough if they compare themselves unfavorably to others, even when hard work couldn’t make up the difference.  

Comparison is unhealthy when it’s a self-to-other comparison.  Even if a teacher compares and finds herself the “better” teacher, no one wins.  Mental arithmetic that pits teacher against teacher using comparatives and superlatives depletes teams of the energy needed for their joint work.  Better, best, worse, and worst are energy-draining words that create a demoralizing contest.

Comparisons turn allies into rivals.  When teachers use other teachers as benchmarks to evaluate themselves, it’s hard to avoid envy and to celebrate and learn from the good others do. 

Healthier Comparisons

If comparisons come up in one-on-one coaching sessions, it can be helpful to initially redirect a conversation to strengths and successes. It’s impossible to be best at everything, but everyone has teaching talents and past successes that can be remembered.  Specific affirmations (that don’t compare to others) can help a comparing conversation take a more constructive course.  What we’re good at can lead to appropriate goals.

Reflecting on practices within one’s own teaching can lead to helpful targets for improvement.  Helping teachers focus on one instructional feature in past, present, and future lessons is a healthy comparison.  When teachers thoughtfully compete against their past selves, they are likely to win – and wins are measured in instructional improvement, not personal attributes.  Having a clear idea of what they have been doing, what they are now doing, and what they hope to do can help teachers take realistic steps toward reaching their goals.

How Connections Help

So what is the role of peer observation and collaboration?  How can we invite teachers to connect without promoting unhealthy comparison? 

One benefit of observation is the new perspective provided.  When a teacher determines a very narrow focus for observation, watching becomes an exercise in learning about a practice rather than making unhelpful personal comparisons.  Your comments as a coach can encourage teachers to be observant and thoughtful rather than judgmental. 

When meeting with a teaching team, we can encourage this kind of helpful conversation by modeling concrete descriptions of what was observed. Although you will sometimes talk about what you saw and heard the teacher do, it can be helpful to focus on students’ responses (rather than what the teacher was doing) during a post-observation conversation.  Insights about how students responded to the lesson will guide instructional improvement.

Encouraging teachers to ask one another for recommendations sends a message that we are all in this together.  When teachers move from self-comparison to connection, everyone benefits. As success builds on success, teachers can achieve their individual instructional goals.  Colleagues who support one another create ongoing upward movement.  Teacher collaboration is an example of the Quaker proverb: “Thee lift me and I’ll lift thee and we’ll ascend together.”

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

Books and ideas about bravery:

http://reflectandrefine.blogspot.com/2019/10/three-for-your-library-be-brave.html

Lots of great tips for promoting your coaching role:

https://blog.teachboost.com/promoting-your-coaching-role

Evaluating tasks for higher-order thinking (read or listen here):

https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/higher-order/

Are teachers you work with struggling with negative emotions?  Here’s some constructive support:

https://choiceliteracy.com/article/flipping-negative-teacher-emotions/

Tips for Peaceful Classrooms:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/peaceful-parents-happy-kids/201908/10-tips-peaceful-classroom-teaching

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This week we started a Facebook group study of my book, Collaborative Lesson Study.  For a free, downloadable Quickstart Guide to Lesson Study and an invitation to join the closed Facebook group, go here.  Each week between now and March 27 we’ll discuss one chapter (and I’ll add a quick video).  Read or comment as much or as little as you’d like.  

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That’s all for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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Follow on Facebook at: facebook.com/mycoachescouch for more coaching and teaching tips!