Considering Together

The role of instructional coaches often bridges between consultant, counselor, and co-laborer. You don’t have to be just one or the other. A healthy, relationship of interdependence occurs when ideas that are offered up become springboards for further thought. We cultivate solutions together.
 
When we meet with teachers, we can instruct and build each other, jointly working and planning. Collaboration draws us together, strengthening relationships of trust.
 

Often, when I’m coaching a team, I throw out an idea. Someone adds to it, then someone else. We volley the idea around until we have a plan. It’s not my idea anymore – it’s our idea. It works the same way when one of the teachers on the team is the first to propose an idea and we all jump in. The pieces of the puzzle were scattered among us: We each brought our thought, and the plan was stronger because we counseled together.
 
When I talked with Melanie, a seventh-grade language arts teacher, about her ideas for an end-of-year project, we jumped into reciprocal planning. She wanted the project to be both fun and meaningful. She already had ideas about having students create a memoir of sorts – an opportunity to reminisce about their time in seventh grade. We brainstormed together a list of prompts to start students thinking. What was their funniest memory from the year? Their proudest moment? Their favorite book? Then we generated sentence starters to get students unstuck in case they felt writer’s block. The mini-unit was a shared creation that surpassed what either of us would have done alone. Our co-planning conversation was a productive time together, a collaborative experience.
 
Coaches and teachers can work as colleagues who freely give one another both candid feedback and support. Working together with colleagues on the complex issues that educators face strengthens our mutual respect. We can speak constructively to one another, pushing our practice. As we bridge various stances in our work with teachers, we can lean into the collaborator role, recognizing the assets each educator brings to the work.

This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
When coaches get too many “other duties as assigned”:
 
https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2018/08/has_instructional_coaching_become_a_dumping_ground.html
 
 
Using sticky notes to increase understanding of the text:
 
https://readingyear.blogspot.com/2016/09/still-learning-to-read-sticky-notes.html
 
 
More ways to use graphic organizers:
 
https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/graphic-organizer/
 
 
Infusing poetic techniques into writing:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/infusing-poetic-techniques-in-our-writing/
 
 
Teaming with parents for social-emotional learning:
 
https://www.the74million.org/article/the-special-relationship-parents-and-teachers-are-critical-partners-in-the-work-of-social-emotional-learning/
 
 
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 still use the code: JAN2024 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!
 

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