Practicing Praise

Negative events or feelings typically have a more significant impact on our psychological state than positive ones. This “negativity bias” may explain why, after observing a lesson, the things that stand out to coaches are often the things they would change. Similarly, feedback that is negative may loom after a coaching conversation. Perhaps this is a reason to cultivate the moves in the GIR Model (below) of affirmation and praise.
 
When I asked effective coaches about their use of affirmation and praise, they said things like:
 
“Definitely, when something is done well, it should be noticed.”
 
“That is only going to provide encouragement for her to continue to do those things in the future.”
 
“They want to know, do you like that? do you not like that?”
 
“There were times when she was stressed out about things. Letting her know that she was on the right track.”
 
“A little bit of encouragement and affirmation can go a long way.”
 
“It helped make her confident.”
 
“I strive to be an encouraging person in my life. I know how big of a deal that is when people encourage me. I try  to make people feel good about the things that they are doing well.”
 
Clearly, these coaches value expressions of the positive when working with teachers. But what if affirming and praising are unnatural for you? How do you cultivate these practices?
 
Metta McGarvey, from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, suggests the following to build positive habits of mind:

·       Several times a day, take a break to reset and focus on a feeling of calm.

·       Practice looking for small moments of beauty, kindness, or joy.

·       Comment on the positive qualities and actions of others.

The first two practices, of pausing for calm and looking for joy, help cultivate the third, making positive comments. If you think something nice, you should say it! Why wouldn’t you? Today’s teaching climate is challenging and often fraught with criticism. Coaches can lighten teachers’ loads by offering specific, authentic praise.

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

Ten significant education studies of 2022:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/the-10-most-significant-education-studies-of-2022
 
 
Fixing up versus teaching:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/conference-records-that-stay-with-kids/
 
 
A short video about the value of plants in the classroom:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBIQDu5b5uM
 
 
Measuring student engagement with an “engagometer”:
 
https://studysites.corwin.com/highimpactinstruction/videos/v12.2.htm
 
 
Content-area literacy or disciplinary literacy – what’s the shift and how does it look across disciplines:
 
https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-now/2016/10/13/disciplinary-literacy-and-the-value-of-making-connections
 
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 and Twitter and Instagram @vscollet for more coaching and teaching tips!  You can also find me at VickiCollet.com
 
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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 still use the code: DEC2022 for 15% off plus 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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Matching Metaphors when Coaching

 

Student engagement is key to learning. The degree of attention, curiosity, and enthusiasm students hold is directly related to what they will take away from a lesson. This week, when observing Gina’s first-grade class, I noticed low engagement and I needed to figure out why. There are so many factors that influence engagement. Drilling down, I determined that the lesson’s pacing was a major factor.
 
In a well-paced lesson, students don’t feel rushed, but time doesn’t drag, either. Further complicating this instructional feature, an appropriate lesson pace doesn’t mean a steady one. During an effectively-paced lesson, the teacher is sensitive to students’ needs and responses. She might quickly move through a review of content but be intentionally slower when introducing a new concept or procedure. Changing the pace coaxes the brain into paying attention, increasing engagement.
 
As I thought about how best to discuss the complexities of pacing with Gina, the word tempo popped into my head, and I instantly knew this word would have power for Gina. As a serious musician, Gina understands the role that varied tempos play in a composition. She has watched a conductor slow the group during heavy largo and adagio sections of a piece and she has felt how the mood changed during fast-paced allegro movements. When I asked Gina to describe the tempo of the lesson she’s just taught, her background knowledge sprang into action, creating a fruitful coaching conversation.The word tempo acted as a metaphor for the lesson’s pacing, and it worked because it matched Gina’s experience.
 
Metaphors can get the mental gears in sync, building bridges to understanding. Metaphors make complex concepts clear, shaping our thinking and our actions. However, metaphors’ power may go untapped when listeners don’t have the background knowledge to make connections. Metaphors are powerful when they open a flood of personal associations.
 
When I talked with third-grade teacher, Jana, about the pace of her STEM lesson, she described students’ enthusiasm for the project, and I drew attention to how she had created momentum through the scenario she described. We also discussed some points of friction during the lesson – when she hurried through directions and, later, when students were gathering materials. The analogies of momentum and friction range true because of Jana’s orientation toward engineering.
 
I remember working on this same topic with a teacher whose passion was running. For her, the word pacing didn’t need translation. It came fully-loaded with metaphors she related to. She connected to the need to adjust pacing throughout the lesson. She knew the value of pacing for a strong finish. She described how her pacing varied depending on the length of the race, and that was a useful analogy, too.
 
Metaphors have also been powerful when talking with teachers about transitions. A dancer and a former marching-band member related to the idea of choreography. This term was productive as they thought about students’ movement through the room to form groups, pick up materials, and move back and forth between the whole-group carpet discussion and independent work at desks.
 
Talking with teachers about whole-group discussions, we’ve broken the IRE pattern by using sports analogies. Instead of ping-pong like discussions where the teacher serves a question, one student responds, and the teacher evaluates the response (initiate-respond-evaluate), we’ve worked to make discussions more like a skillful volleyball set, where several students touch the ball before it goes back to the server. Or like a soccer play, including throw ins, passes, assists, and an occasional corner kick.
 
Real objects can enhance the metaphor (and just add fun!). During planning conversations, I’ve handed out pom poms and then shared Carol Tomlinson’s quote: “A fuzzy sense of the essentials results in fuzzy activities, which in turn results in fuzzy student understanding.”* The pom poms were a visible representation of fuzziness – what we wanted to avoid as we set objectives for the things students should know, understand, and be able to do as the result of a lesson.
 
During a PLC meeting, I brought in cotton candy. Teachers took a taste and felt it melt away on their tongue. I asked them what they noticed. Then I shared a quote from Wiggins and McTighe about activities that are “like cotton candy---pleasant enough in the moment, but lacking long-term substance.”** Such activities are prevalent around holidays, so we brainstormed activities that maintained the fun we are craving but had substance, too. These activities will be engaging not just because they include candles or candy canes, but because they are minds-on activities.
 
Metaphors activate the senses; we see them in our mind’s eye and feel them as lived experiences. When we create constructive comparisons, we are expressing abstract ideas in familiar terms. Choosing and using metaphors makes coaching conversations stick!
 
[Challenge: Reread this blog post counting all the analogies (subtle and explicit) that are included. As you pay attention this week, I think you’ll be amazed at how prevalent analogies are in our everyday language!]
*Tomlinson, C. (2014). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners (2nd Ed.). ASCD. p. 62.
 
**Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2011). The Understanding by Design guide to creating high quality units. ASCD. p. 9
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Fixing up versus teaching:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/conference-records-that-stay-with-kids/
 
Setting goals with students (think about this for January):
 
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/back-to-school-goal-setting-students-teacher-maurice-elias
 
Looking for a gift list to share with parents? Teachers’ tastes and needs differ, but this is a pretty good starting place. I like #1. 😊:
 
https://www.weareteachers.com/best-gifts-for-teachers/
 
 
This app guides students through creating a digital picture book – and they can even purchase a hardcopy:
 
http://www.storyjumper.com/
 
 
The idea of embodied cognition may sound complex, but the concept is powerful, and this explanation is practical:
 
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-acting-out-in-school-boosts-learning/
 
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 and Twitter and Instagram @vscollet for more coaching and teaching tips!  You can also find me at VickiCollet.com
 
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For more about coaching, check out my new book, Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching in Education: From Preservice Teacher to Expert Practitioner. I’m so excited to share it with you! During December, you can use the code: DEC2022 for 15% off plus 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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Coaching the Dream

Cinderella sang, “A dream is a wish your heart makes.” In today’s post, I’m thinking through the role of dreams and wishes in instructional coaching. Cinderella goes on to specify dreams that occur while sleeping. But wide-awake, wishful dreams can help identify a coaching focus.
 
When coaches ask, “What do you wish your students could do?” teachers’ responses identify areas of need and open the door to possibilities. The word wish carries positive connotations, shifting teachers away from a deficit mindset and toward action.
 
When a teacher is concerned about classroom management, I’ve found that a slight variation of the wish question shifts the conversation in a fruitful direction: “What do you wish your students would do?” This question moves the teacher to identify needs that can become a coaching focus.
 
A dream is a version of life without weaknesses and limitations. When teachers lay out a dream for hoped-for classroom outcomes, they are looking beyond current concerns. After the vision for the future is clear, coaches can help teachers tackle the real-life vulnerabilities that might get in the way. Being willing to look at current limitations can lead to transformation – in fact, it’s probably the only way to create that path.  Wishes and dreams create a positive mindset that builds willingness to look limitations in the face and do something about them.
 
Cinderella was clearly onto something when she said, “A dream is a wish your heart makes.” With the support of a coach, teachers gain confidence that “the dream that you wish will come true.”
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Balancing small-group and one-on-one time:

https://choiceliteracy.com/article/balancing-conferences-and-small-groups/
 
 
Books for beefing up nonfiction libraries:
 
http://www.nonfictiondetectives.com/
 
 
Writers workshop with young writers:
 
https://www.eschoolnews.com/2014/07/16/writing-workshop-authors-930/
 

A digital compare/contrast map:
 
https://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/compare-contrast
 
 
Make way for play (in 5^th grade):
 
https://catchingreaders.com/2012/05/08/playing-in-5th-grade/
 
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 and Twitter and Instagram @vscollet for more coaching and teaching tips!  You can also find me at VickiCollet.com
---------------------------------
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! During November, you can use the code: DEC2022 for 15% off plus 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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