Coaching Focus: Rocks in a Jar

Have you heard the analogy about fitting a bunch of rocks and a pile of sand in a jar? The only way to make it all fit is to put the rocks in first. That’s the image that came to my mind recently as I worked with Gina, I novice teacher. I felt a bit overwhelmed when thinking about a possible coaching focus. But we decided that focusing first on the big rocks first made the most sense.
 
One of the big rocks was matching learning activity to lesson objectives – so important! I knew this was a big rock, but Gina didn’t know it yet. For a novice, it’s especially hard to know what you don’t know. When I met with Gina to debrief a lesson I’d observed, I asked about the objective; I asked about the activity; I asked about which students were most successful and which struggled; eventually, I pointed out the mismatch between the objective and the activity – she wasn’t getting there herself. When I described the mismatch, I saw her light-bulb moment response. She recognized this problem in the lesson and wanted to improve objective alignment. As we looked toward upcoming lessons, matching the activity to the objective was the first big rock in the jar. This became our coaching focus.
 
As you begin a coaching cycle, a focus is selected for your collaborative work. There are many facets to effective instruction, so it may be difficult to select a single coaching focus. Teaching frameworks and curricular resources can provide a menu of possibilities. Choosing a manageable focus for a coaching cycle will define and shape your collaborative work.
 
Whether you’re working with expert teachers or novices, having them choose the focus for your coaching cycles makes coaching more effective. If a teacher is working on something he cares about, it’s always going to be a better problem to think about than anything suggested by somebody else. Teacher buy-in for coaching cycles increases when you zero in on a specific, teacher-identified need.
 
Sometimes, though, guidance may be needed in choosing the coaching focus. When school initiatives or teacher needs seem to define your coaching purpose, teacher buy-in may come through a conversation that illuminates the need. If you see a “rock” that will make a big difference in student learning, it makes sense to start there. (Caution: Don’t be fooled into thinking that classroom management is always the big rock; if you dig a bit deeper, you may find another rock below the surface.)
 
Like rocks and sand in a jar, once the instructional “big rocks” are taken care of, other practices can fall into place.

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Hooray!!! My new book, Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching in Education: From Preservice Teacher to Expert Practitioner is a fall release from Teachers College Press!  I’m so excited to share it with you! You can use the code: TCP2022 for FREE SHIPPING. Click  here  and I’ll email you the free Book Group Study Guide that includes questions, prompts, and activities you can use as you share the book with colleagues. I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!

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

Ideas for supporting students in the “fight-flight-freeze” zone:
 
https://www.teachingchannel.com/blog/fight-flight-freeze
 
 
Shifts for inclusive classroom practices:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/becoming-more-inclusive/
 
 
Or listen to this podcast about culturally-responsive literacy instruction:
 
https://www.ascd.org/podcasts/kimberly-parker-on-culturally-responsive-literacy-instruction
 
 
10 Tips for Professional Development:
 
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/10-tips-delivering-awesome-professional-development-elena-aguilar
 
 
Multisensory learning and movement = learning that sticks:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9RH8rVBglg&feature=youtu.be
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!