“Try It!” Coaching Teachers to Jump In

Decades ago, a Life® cereal commercial made the memorable chant, “Try it, you’ll like it!” part of everyday speech. That’s an adage we, as coaches, might want to embrace and share. When we suggest new strategies, encouraging teachers to jump in and try it might be all that is needed to convince them to make evidence-based practices part of their ongoing practice.
 
Some people are toe-dip kind of people, wanting to try it out just a bit before diving in. Some are gradual adopters, getting deeper into the water inch by inch until they’re fully submerged. Both of these approaches have their places, but in the classroom, it’s hard to be half-way in. Jumping in gives better understanding of how and why a practice works.
 
Trying a practice creates full-body learning experience with here-and-now intensity that includes visual, auditory, and kinesthetic input, plus feelings and thoughts. Such experiences give ideas context and open opportunities for reflection-in-action.
 
In her book, The Wisdom of Your Body, Hillary McBride writes, “While most of us think that change happens because we learn new ideas, the deepest and most lasting change happens when we have new experiences…Embodied experience is undeniably the most powerful channel of change.”
 
Fourth-grade-teacher Bailey took the full-body approach when introducing student-led discussion. She had tried toe-dip experiences like partner talk and small-group work, but she was ready to jump in. After reading a Native American tale, students circled around a crepe-paper-and-flashlight campfire to share their insights. Bailey laid the ground rules and explained that she would not be leading the discussion. Then she gave the talking stick to one student and stepped outside the circle. Bailey was pleasantly surprised by the rich student-led discussion that ensured, and she was converted to its power.
 
Taking a running jump into a new strategy provides an immersive, embodied experience. There’s sure to be some flailing and floundering, but that is part of the process of learning to swim. The cannonball approach gets you into the water way quicker than the toe-dip method. So when you have a new practice to introduce, encourage teachers jump in. Like it was with Mikey in the Life® commercial, you might find yourself saying, “Hey! He likes it!”
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Using technology to differentiate:
 
https://www.teachingchannel.com/free-videos
 
 
Lessons from real-life differentiation:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/a-thanksgiving-take-on-differentiating-instruction/
 
More writing, less grading:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/assigning-more-writing-less-grading
 
 
Paraphrasing in science:
 
https://www.amnh.org/explore/curriculum-collections/integrating-literacy-strategies-into-science-instruction/paraphrasing
 
 
The role of identity in learning:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/video/when-social-brain-misfires
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
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Want more coaching tips? Check out my book, Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching in Education: From Preservice Teacher to Expert Practitioner, available from Teachers College Press!  I’m so excited to share it with you! TODAY you can use the code: DEC2023 for 20% off. 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!