In the Balance: Coaching with Affirmation and Praise

When coaching success hangs in the balance, it’s smart to weigh in heavy on the side of affirmation and praise. Although the Gradual Increase of Responsibility (GIR) Model demonstrates a transition from more-supportive to less-supportive coaching moves, none of these moves stands in isolation. Coaches balance the five coaching moves (modelling, recommending, questioning, affirming, and praising) in response to teachers’ needs. These needs are shaped not just by their pedagogical repertoire, but also by their personalities.
 
During a coaching session with Angie last week, I felt a keen need for recommending. After reading aloud an emotion-filled science fiction story, Angie went straight to a discussion of vocabulary without providing an opportunity for students to process the story’s meanings and messages. A potentially-memorable discussion was bypassed, and the students’ intense engagement vaporized as Angie drilled in on a few new words to be learned from the story.
 
As our debrief conversation approached, I knew that I wanted to encourage Angie to support students’ authentic response to literature – to allow an aesthetic response first – before other literacy objectives were addressed. There were additional recommendations that might be made that more closely targeted Angie’s self-identified goals, but this one was my focus.
 
When Angie and I sat down together at the end of the day, Angie quickly brought up a few minor changes she would make when she taught the lesson again. I acknowledged these and hoped she would bring up something about the story itself – but she didn’t.
 
I took time to celebrate some of the lesson’s successes:  Angie had read aloud with expression, even including sound effects, and had made connections to students’ experience. These were strengths I wanted to emphasize, because Angie is sometimes anxious and self-doubting.  I wanted to load the conversation positively before addressing what I saw as the most acute need. I considered both Angie’s personality and her pedagogical needs when determining which coaching moves to use, and in which order. Angie needed affirming as much as she needed the recommendations.
 
In a single coaching conversation, several of the coaching moves in the GIR model might be helpful. During the conversation described above, even though recommending was the dominant move – a clear focus for me – for Angie, the reassurance provided as I affirmed what went right was necessary. Angie was open because of the affirmations.  They balanced what could have felt like a weighty recommendation.
 
Will you need to balance the scales in your next coaching conversation? Weighing the teacher’s pedagogy and personality will help you adjust the coaching moves you use.

This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
This podcast debunks 6 myths about English Learners:
 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep241-6-myths-about-english-language-learners-i-wish/id954139712?i=1000540288582
 
How to create a test that grades itself using Google forms:
 
https://www.teachthought.com/technology/self-grading-assessments-google-forms/
 
How a Sarah Bareilles song inspires writers to be brave:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/supporting-brave-writers/
 
Simple Roll-and-Build counting game for young mathematicians:
 
https://www.teachertube.com/videos/roll-build-507949

That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
Was this helpful?  Please share!
Want to know about new posts? Click “Follow” (bottom right)
Follow on Facebook at: facebook.com/mycoachescouch or Twitter @vscollet for more coaching and teaching tips!  You can also find me at VickiCollet.com

“Who Can Raise Their Hand and Tell Me,” and other Classroom Discussion Dissuaders

In the region where I work, COVID cases are dramatically down, adults and children are being vaccinated, masks are coming off, and we are beginning to understand the work that lies ahead in reestablishing classroom discourse. For multiple school years, students’ speaking and listening have been constrained by distance and fabric, and the authoritative voice of teachers has been amplified by microphones, on the laptop and in the classroom. Student-to-student discussions are a distant memory for some and a new experience for our youngest learners. 

In classrooms now, I hear muffled voices, even from students not wearing masks; most seem timid to speak up. When the potential for a rich whole-class discussion is palpable, I see students hesitate to contribute, insecure about norms for turn-taking and unable to read non-verbal cues that might support the process. There is a lot of work to be done.
 
I am having conversations with teachers about what it might take to reignite healthy dialogue. Now that students can sit within earshot of one another, we are again incorporating think-pair-share and small-group discussions into lesson plans. Importantly, these activities are preceded by clear directions and modeling of what successful student-to-student talk looks and sounds like: We have to talk about eye contact, on-topic conversations, managing disagreements, asking questions, and more. We are including “fish-bowl” modeling, where students huddle around a pair or group as they navigate a conversation, and then we discuss how it went. Students are learning to talk.
 
As I work with teachers, we unearth some red flags – things teachers avoid in order to encourage participation. They minimize:

·       Repeating student answers (instead, they encourage students to “Say it loud and proud).

·       Saying, “Who can raise their hand and tell me?” which sends a message that only students who are planning to respond need to think about the question.

·       Asking questions with one right answer – fine from time to time, but not fodder for a robust discussion. 

These teachers are working to overcome the monologic world created when microphone necklaces amplified their masked voices through speakers on classroom walls. They are not just aiming for pre-COVID levels of discussion – they are aiming for genuine discussion among students (small-group and whole-class) with students sharing varied perspectives and contributing to each other’s learning. It is not going to be easy work. Habits of receptive learning and complacency have crept in that must be pushed back to make way for conversations that will expand understanding. As students’ faces are uncovered, we see how discussion has suffered and what it might take to recenter student voices in the classroom. 

This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
5 steps to more meaningful conversations:
 
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20211109-what-we-get-wrong-about-conversations
 

8 ways to help students learn more from each other than from you:
 
https://www.teachthought.com/learning/5-adjustments-students-learn-others/
 
 
4 engaging writing tasks for high school students:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/4-engaging-writing-tasks-high-school-students
 

Using invitational language and empowering student choice:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/extending-invitations-in-workshop-ways-to-empower-student-choice/
 

How to create word nerds:
 
https://ccira.blog/2021/11/02/my-name-is-lori-and-i-love-words/
 

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!
 
Was this helpful?  Please share!
Want to know about new posts? Click “Follow” (bottom right)
Follow on Facebook at: facebook.com/mycoachescouch or Twitter @vscollet for more coaching and teaching tips!  You can also find me at VickiCollet.com
 

Name Your Strength: Coach Self-Fulfilling Prophesies

I love the “Expert Wall” I saw in a first-grade classroom. Children had named their strengths, and they became resources for others in the class.  Sergio had listed soccer as his strength; classmates wanting information about soccer knew to come to him. Estelle was good at math, and Harvey’s entry said he knew all about dinosaurs. Children became confident in their named strengths as their insights were acknowledged and requested. They were praised and the praise turned inward – these named areas of expertise became self-fulfilling prophesies as the children sought to authentically fill their “expert” roles.
 
Although teachers generously view others through a lens of optimism and strength, their self-analyses may not be so charitable. They may lack the first-graders’ confidence to name their strengths.
 
I read recently about a way to encourage teachers to create self-fulfilling prophesies, and I decided to give this idea a try – by asking them to write aspirational letters of recommendation for themselves.
 
Before introducing the letter idea, I asked the team of teachers I was working with to think of one of their favorite teachers: to picture him or her and take a minute or two and write down words that described that teachers. Then I asked them to think more broadly, taking another minute or two to write words that describe an effective teacher. Next, I had them list qualities they want to be known for as a teacher. Finally, I suggested they consider what they would like the principal to be able to write if they were asked at the end of the school year to write a letter of recommendation for them. I gave an overview of what I thought might be the benefits of such an exercise. Then I gave them some prompts and had them jot notes in response to:

• My biggest strengths are . . .  

• If asked, I want my students to say this about me . . .  

• My goal is to . . .  

• When the principal is visiting, I hope she notices . . .  

• I want to be known for . . .  

• As a teacher, I aspire to be . . .  

• I will contribute to the school community in these ways . . .

I encouraged them to use these ideas to write an aspirational letter of recommendation for themselves, using the third person (she/her/their name).  I asked them to describe the teacher they hoped to be by the end of the school year and to send that letter to me if they were comfortable doing so. I suggested that writing the letter might help them recognize their current strengths and set some new goals, and sharing the letter with me would help me coach them toward these strengths.
 
This week, after they had completed their letters, teachers seemed happy and positive as they talked about the experience. It gave them a boost to think about areas where they were strong and helped them consider how they would get to their aspirational goals. They said they thought things through in ways that they probably wouldn’t have if they hadn’t been asked to write the letter.
 
I loved reading the letters! Having teachers name their strengths, whether current or hopeful, helped me understand what each teacher values. Like the first-graders who grew into their named strengths, I’ll be ready to coach teachers toward the attributes they aspire to. And I’ve already started thinking about the aspirational letter of recommendation I’ll write for myself, hoping to name my own self-fulfilling prophesies!

This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
Strategies for strengthening teacher-coach relationships:
 
https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/how-good-coaches-build-alliance-with-teachers
 
 
A stance of confident humility:
 
https://barkleypd.com/blog/confident-humility-and-coaching/
 
 
A reminder for coaches to be active listeners:
 
https://simplycoachingandteaching.com/blog/2021/10/05/better-listener/
 
 
5 ways to help students ask better questions:
 
https://www.teachthought.com/critical-thinking/5-ways-help-students-ask-better-questions/
 
 
Why the 5 paragraph essay is a problem:
 
https://blog.heinemann.com/why-the-five-paragraph-essay-is-a-problem-now-and-later
 
That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

Was this helpful?  Please share!
Want to know about new posts? Click “Follow” (bottom right)
Follow on Facebook at: facebook.com/mycoachescouch or Twitter @vscollet for more coaching and teaching tips!  You can also find me at VickiCollet.com

Lean In to Question: Coaching Outside Your Content Area

What do you do when you’re an instructional coach for a chemistry teacher and don’t remember chemistry? If you don’t have the content knowledge – or pedagogical content knowledge – for the subject, it changes how you coach.
 
During a coaching-the-coach session, I talked with Elias, an instructional coach who is responsible for all content areas in his high school. He’s a former English Language Arts teacher, and it’s been a long time since he did any trigonometry or calculus, but he’s working with the math teacher. It’s been a long time since he balanced any chemical equations, but he’s working with the science teacher. He is also working closely with an ELA teacher, and he feels pretty confident in that role! We talked about how Elias’s own background knowledge and experience are impacting his use of the GIR model for mentoring and coaching (below).
 
Elias wouldn’t want to stand up in front of a group of high school seniors to model a lesson on infinite sums in the calculus class, even though he is confident with instructional strategies that would work well in that lesson. Instead, Elias found a video clip online where students were working in small groups to compare their different problem-solving methods. The structures that the teacher in the video had in place were ones that the math teacher could incorporate. The video provided a model. Elias also made recommendations about creating heterogeneous groups for the lesson, recognizing that learning would be enhanced by students’ differing approaches to solving the problems.
 
When working with the chemistry teacher, Elias leaned into the coaching move of asking questions. During their planning conference, he prompted with questions like, “How will this lesson connect with what students did yesterday? “How will you grab students’ attention in a purposeful way?” and “What support might students need to be successful?”  Elias knew that asking these questions would be productive; he didn’t have to be an expert in the content to be able to support the planning of an effective lesson.
 
Of course, Elias finds lots of opportunities to affirm and praise teachers in all academic areas. It’s easy to spot effective instruction, even if you haven’t taught the content. When coaches watch students, they know what is working.
 
The GIR model is a flexible guide for instructional coaching – pliant enough to be useful whether or not you are experienced in the subject being taught.
 

This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
Read this to consider why it’s helpful to do assignments before assigning them and all the places for agency and professionalism in what you think might be a complete, packaged curriculum!
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/doing-the-writing-in-a-unit/
 
This learning/PD/collaboration tool – Box It Out:
 
https://www.thecoachingsketchnotebook.com/2021/09/a-new-tool-for-pd-box-it-out.html
 
 
Learning walks with teachers as a coaching practice:
 
https://ashleytaplin.com/2021/09/17/instructional-scouting-a-new-practice-for-learning-walks/
 
Student authority during classroom discussions:
 
https://www.teachhub.com/teaching-strategies/2021/10/classroom-discussion-the-importance-of-student-authority/
 
 
Problems with the 5-paragraph essay:
 
https://blog.heinemann.com/why-the-five-paragraph-essay-is-a-problem-now-and-later
 
That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!
 
Was this helpful?  Please share!
Want to know about new posts? Click “Follow” (bottom right)
Follow on Facebook at: facebook.com/mycoachescouch or Twitter @vscollet for more coaching and teaching tips!  You can also find me at VickiCollet.com