In
earlier times, most of the world’s work was learned through apprenticeship. The
wheelwright, the farrier, the carpenter, all learned their professions by
watching and listening to skillful practitioners. In the coaching and mentoring
process, modeling plays this role. When
coaches model, they demonstrate techniques and instructional practices to offer
up possibilities.
Laying the groundwork before a teacher
observes you modeling a lesson will make the experience a more meaningful one. Selecting a specific focus beforehand with
the teacher, so that she has something to watch for during modeling, provides a
target for her attention.
Pre-Modeling Conference: An Example
Let’s
look at how the elements of selecting a target and taking objective notes
played out in a pre-modeling conversation between Alice, an instructional
coach, and Crystal, a fourth-grade teacher. Alice was going to be modeling a
lesson on using text evidence to support inferences about characters. In their
pre-observation conference, Alice walked through the lesson. She described how
she would begin with a thumbs-up self-assessment of students’ confidence about
citing evidence for their inferences. She said she’d take a quick inventory of
students’ confidence, and she suggested Crystal could note not only how many
thumbs were down, but also how she adjusted the lesson based on that
information. Alice said she would be
asking herself, “Do they need me to go back and review our anchor chart, or are
they ready to move forward?”
The
next part of the lesson was a read-aloud of a Time for Kids article about a child inventor. Alice said she would
be paying attention to whether students seemed engaged. If not, she might
encourage them to follow along on their copy of the text or on the projected
copy on the screen. The setting for the article was a remote village in Africa,
very different from her own students’ experiences. Alice knew she would be
looking for signs of understanding or confusion as she read. She would be
asking herself, “Are they getting this?”
Later
in the lesson, students would be working with partners to match character trait
cards with evidence from the text. Alice would be listening in on
conversations, asking herself if students were able to justify their responses.
She realized the cards could possibly be matched in more than one way, and the
rationale provided was her window into students’ understanding. Alice suggested
that Crystal listen in on students’ thinking and also make note of the probing
questions Alice asked to assess and support them.
Students’
independent practice during this lesson would be to lift their own evidence
from the text to justify a list of character traits. Again, Alice cared about
the rationale; again, Alice encouraged Crystal to listen in on the questions
she was asking and students’ responses.
Wrapping
up the lesson, Alice explained that she would ask the self-assessment question
about students’ confidence with citing text evidence, just as she had at the
beginning of the lesson. As she
monitored students’ responses, Alice would be asking herself whether there had
been enough change in students’ responses to justify moving on, or was more
practice warranted? Crystal would be noticing this, too, as she watched how the
lesson concluded.
When
it came time for the lesson, Crystal’s observation was supported by the chart
she had created during their pre-observation meeting (see below).
Crystal
was prepared with her own questions to guide the observation as Alice modeled
this lesson on citing text evidence. Her awareness was raised about the
questions Alice would be asking herself while teaching. As the lesson unfolded,
both Alice and Crystal were more aware of their own instructional thought
processes.
Just
as it did for Alice and Crystal, a pre-modelling conference can prepare coaches
and teachers for a thought-filled observation and a productive post-modeling
conversation.
This
week, you might want to take a look at:
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