Stepping Back: The Cha-Cha of Coaching

Cha-cha!

In the water cycle, H₂O moves from liquid to vapor to liquid again in ongoing iterations, be it rain or sleet or snow or hail. The rhythm of coaching repeats in much the same way, hopefully as an upward spiral with new content or processes as the next focus. The GIR model circles through modelling, recommending, questioning, affirming, and praising progressively as needed (see the GIR model, below).
 
I reminded myself of this idea as I worked with Annie this week.  In the past, coaching conversations have included lots of questions and affirming as Annie focused on more-regularly including student-to-student discussion in her lessons. I had asked about prompts for whole-class discussion and applauded her frequent use of short turn-and-talk opportunities, especially as a pre-writing activity. Now we were moving on to focus on responsive teaching. Annie wants to keep a tight focus on individual student needs while continuing to move forward with the required standards. She wondered what this balancing act might look like in practice.
 
Modeling didn’t seem necessary, but I did make some recommendations based on an observation of a social studies lesson. I looked to my notes for a positive example of Annie’s responsiveness. When Annie had asked about the different branches of the government, a student said, “Congress makes laws.” Annie prompted, emphasizing the word “branches.” She continued with follow-up questions and information until the student was able to list all of the branches. This is the kind of responsive teaching Annie was going for, and she already had an example of it from her own teaching!
 
But Annie wanted to improve, and responsive teaching that is adaptive to students’ needs is a worthy goal! So together we talked through the more-recent math lesson until we identified a time when teaching was less responsive, an opportunity for improvement. It seemed her monitoring of the class during independent work time had been somewhat superficial. When I mentioned this example, Annie chalked it up to lack of time: “There’s never enough time to check in with as many students as I’d like to,” she said.
 
“Time is always an issue,” I affirmed, but I felt that digging deeper would be helpful.  For example, during the lesson a student had raised her hand to say she had finished the fraction problems she was working on, Annie perused the paper quickly and gave her a new problem to work on the back of the paper, without noticing that the student had incorrectly labeled figures on the work she had completed. This was a lost learning opportunity!
 
confer effectively and efficiently during students’ independent work time.
To help Annie confer effectively and efficiently during students’ independent work time,  I recommended that Annie might want to have a mental checklist in mind as she perused the room during independent work time. Having clarity about what she was looking for would help Annie
 
As this new coaching cycle began, our focus on responsive teaching took Annie and I through various coaching moves. Sometimes I stepped backward to recommend, even when there was a lot to affirm in the teaching.
 
Robert Brault defined an optimist as “someone who knows that taking a step backward after taking a step forward is not a disaster, it’s a cha-cha.” The GIR model can guide coaching moves as we cha-cha our way forward!

You might also want to take a look at:
 
A podcast on the positive potential of social media in education:
 
https://www.baAmradionetwork.com/track/social-media-in-education-is-still-evolving-how-can-we-maximize-its-positive-potential/
 
 
A short video on student engagement:
 
https://studysites.corwin.com/highimpactinstruction/videos/v12.2.htm
 
Steps to personalizing mindfulness in schools?
 
http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol13/1310-mosca.aspx
 
 
Time to celebrate:  Publishing parties for authentic writing purpose:
 
http://wonderteacher.com/8-tips-for-a-great-publishing-party/
 
 
NCTE’s position statement on diversity as a strength:
 
https://ncte.org/blog/2020/02/working-toward-culturally-responsive-assessment-practices/
 
That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!
 
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