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!
 
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