Saturday, June 13, 2020

Pay Attention!


When you opened your eyes this morning, you immediately began to see. It was automatic. Then, as you focused your attention, you began to notice. Maybe you noticed early summer light slanting though your window, making diagonal patterns on your walls. Or the loose weave of the blanket you’d thrown off during the night. Noticing is seeing with conscious attention and focus. The details we are aware of bring nuance to our observation. Careful noticing is a skill that will benefit our coaching work.

Noticing Students
During a classroom observation, we notice when students gasp with surprise and share interesting facts they are learning.  We notice when students are active listeners during a read aloud – clearly focused on the teacher or the text.  We notice heads nodding and fingers pointing, students’ persevering during struggle and those giving up.  We notice problem-solving strategies students are using.  Our careful attention to what students are doing during a lesson supports reflection during debrief discussions. Sharing these observations can also encourage habits of noticing in the teachers we are working with, especially when we routinely ask, “What did you notice?”

Noticing Teaching
During a classroom observation, we also notice a teacher’s actions and their impact. We have an advantaged viewpoint for such noticings, since we aren’t the one doing the decision-making. We can shift our attention from a bird’s-eye perspective of the classroom to a close-up view of one-on-one interactions. Sharing these perceptions brings additional insight to a coaching conversation.

Noticing Teachers
A third type of noticing, important for coaching, involves attending to the responses of the teacher during a coaching conversation. What is the teacher’s body language telling us? What do we see in her facial expressions? Are there signs of emotion? Is that thought unfinished? Do her eyes indicate an aha moment?  How comfortable or challenged does she feel?  Paying attention to teachers makes our responses more fruitful.  

Our fine-tuned, careful observations of teaching, teachers, and students inform us. Cultivating skills of conscious noticing enriches our coaching work. As we move through the day, we’ll have ample opportunities to hone our noticing skills.  Shaking ourselves into wakeful awareness adds richness to our day and power to our coaching conversations.

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

The 3 Cs of professional learning from a distance:



Fostering positive relationships and discourse on race by connecting through technology:



Giving children voice:



A few positive changes that might be noticed when we return to schools:



Language for an asset-based approach that helps us notice the strengths of ELL students:


That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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