How to Coach Novice Teachers

In last week’s post, I talked about how to coach veteran teachers, which is usually a more vexing topic for coaches than the one we’re tackling here: How to coach novice teachers. Supporting novice teachers is important, both for them and for their students. As coaches, we can help to fill in the gap between what early-career teachers may be able to do and what students need. There is a steep learning curve for novice teachers – even those who have been well-prepared in traditional teacher-education programs. The reality of having full-responsibility for a classroom doesn’t hit home until you’re really in it.
 
Surprisingly, studies show that novices learn more from their successes than from their mistakes – making it even more important for their teaching experiences to be positive ones.
 
This triplet of verbs offers a template for supporting early-career teachers: Coaches help novice teachers know, grow, and show.*
 
Modeling to Support Knowing
 
Coaches help novice teachers know in many ways. When we model, teachers see things they’ve read and heard about in action. A key to modelling for early-career teachers is the before-observation conference. Because there is so much going on during any lesson, narrowing the focus is important.
 
A narrow focus also keeps the novice teacher engaged. Because they may be feeling overwhelmed with the teaching load, a novice teacher may take the opportunity when someone else is teaching their class to catch up on email or grading. While this reduces their burden, it doesn’t give them more pedagogical knowledge.
 
Selecting a specific focus beforehand with the teacher, so that he has something to watch for during modeling, provides a target for his attention. Tell the teacher what you are wondering about. Will students grasp the concepts as intended?  Will they have success with the mini-steps leading up to that concept? Will they find the work interesting? Share your wonderings and encourage the teacher to share his. If the teacher doesn’t initially identify his own focus or objective, I sometimes provide several broad possibilities related to what we’ve been thinking about together. Observing with a specific focus can help novice teachers increase what they know.
 
Recommending to Support Knowing
 
Early-career teachers are often requesting or at least open to recommendations. The key here is not to over-recommend. I learned this the hard way when coaching Kyra, a novice kindergarten teacher. She wanted richer and more authentic experiences to develop her students’ phonemic awareness skills. Well, she had asked just the right person! I love teaching phonemic awareness and shared lots of good ideas for authentic activities – lots and lots and lots (and lots). Even though it’s been a long time since this conversation, I still remember the deer-in-the-headlights look in Kyra’s eyes after my recommendations.
 
There’s a limit to how much anyone can take in and try at any one time, so be sure to limit recommendations to just one or two. Our care in making recommendations determines whether those suggestions feel like weight or wings.   
 
Asking Questions to Support Growing
 
As early-career teachers gain additional working knowledge, they need fewer recommendations and are ready to grow through thinking deeply about questions of pedagogy.
 
If we have observed a lesson in a novice teacher’s classroom, it may be easy to jump to judgment. But feeling judged siphons a teachers’ energy into defensiveness and self-protection. So, as we plan for debrief conversations, it’s helpful to step away from any judgments we may have made and instead ask questions that help us to understand the teacher’s thinking.  Looking back at our concerns and turning each into a question can help the teacher figure out where she wants to turn her attention. Restraining judgment and, instead, asking questions encourages the teachers we are working with to take a more active role during debrief conversations.

Here are a few general questions to guide reflection after teaching:

·       What did you notice…?
·       When were students most engaged?
·       What stands out in students’ work?
·       What are your hunches about what may have caused…?
·       What insights can you take from this?
·       What do you want to stay mindful of as you’re planning?

Of course, follow-up questions more specific to the lesson content and context will be helpful.
 
Affirming and Praising to Support Showing
 
When we affirm and praise, we choose what to nurture. For example, Sydni was a first-grade teacher who listened carefully to student responses and used those responses to build students’ understanding. When I mentioned this to Sydni, she smiled shyly and was humbly pleased, but surprised! My comments affirmed something she was doing but unaware of. By shining a spotlight on things novice teachers do well, we build their confidence and encourage more of the same.
 
Teachers may not be aware of their own strengths. This can happen because of an inclination to focus on what isn’t working. Coaches, too, have this tendency because our work is focused on improvement. But focusing on weaknesses is relatively ineffective. Instead, we can look with kind eyes for positive features to affirm. As you find practices to celebrate and discuss them with novice teachers, your affirmations can help them reframe their own experiences in a more positive light. They can press into their strengths. The energy novice teachers gain from affirmations and praise helps them move forward productively.
 
Coaches support novice teachers to increase what they know, stretch their understanding, and show instructional improvement.
 
*I am borrowing these verbs from Susan H. Porter, who used them in a spiritual context.

This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
Strategies to reduce student procrastination:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/supporting-students-not-track-pass
 
 
Enhancing critical reading skills:
 
https://www.middleweb.com/50526/5-questions-to-help-kids-become-critical-readers/
 
 
Lesson idea for poems about objects (National Poetry Month continues!):
 
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/color-silence-sensory-imagery-1104.html?tab=4#tabs
 
 
DIY place-value cups (I love these manipulatives!):
 
http://suedowning.blogspot.com/2012/08/place-value-cups.html
 
 
I’ve always thought we should have mentors, not just mentor texts, for our writing, and this post gives some great suggestions for making that happen:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/mentors-for-process-and-habits/
 
That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!
 
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: APR2024 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!
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Here are a few general questions to guide reflection after teaching: