What
was your best coaching moment this week?
Can you recall what you were paying attention to, how you felt, and what
you were doing? Do you think there was a
teacher or student paying attention to, feeling, and doing the same things you
were during that prime coaching moment?
If so, you were experiencing co-presence.
Co-presence is a feeling that your attention, emotion, and behavior are in sync with someone else’s. This can happen in both face-to-face and virtual interactions. It stems from full attention and rich flow of information.
When we look together at students’ work from a lesson, we invite co-presence. When we rejoice together over a student’s growth or laugh together at a five-year-old’s comment, we invite co-presence. When we stand shoulder-to-shoulder finishing the bulletin board before the school board walk through, we invite co-presence. When we look, feel, and act together we are present; when the teacher perceives that presence, he experiences co-presence.
I observed a third-grade class this week where the teacher, Ian, had cheerful, relatable interactions with his students during their math lesson on “groups of” – a warm-up for multiplication. One of the most memorable moments in the lesson was when Ian feigned surprise, took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes, got up close, and squinted at the Smartboard when a student said something that didn’t square with the diagram. The student laughed and quickly self-corrected. Ian and the students were in sync.
Later, when Ian and I talked about the lesson, we laughed together about the moment. I think Ian felt co-present with me. We called up other moments in the lesson: I cheered about something he felt went well, and we winced together at a possible misstep. As our meeting time was running out, he set a goal and we both wrote it down; then we calendared a time for our next check in. During this coaching conversation, our efforts seemed aligned – we were mutually co-present.
The coaching conversation with Ian happened with us sitting in the same room at a conference table. Although masked and 6+ feel apart, we were mindfully aware of one another. Being physically present, however, is neither necessary nor sufficient for co-presence. I can physically occupy the same space as others but be mentally absent from them. Conversely, I can be miles away connecting virtually and create co-presence.
Whether face-to-face or virtual, our work as coaches will benefit if the teachers we are working with feel co-present with us.
This week, you might want to take a look at:
Synchronous or asynchronous – how to decide:
https://catlintucker.com/2020/08/asynchronous-vs-synchronous/
60 ways to formatively assess:
A giant list of examples of essential questions:
https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/examples-of-essential-questions/
Doing a fiction writing unit? Check out these suggestions for creating strong characters:
https://www.well-storied.com/blog/write-stronger-characters
20 Zoom tools for educators:
https://www.teachthought.com/technology/best-zoom-tools-for-teachers/
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
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