Instructional Coaching as Horizontal Leadership

Instructional coaches are school leaders who work side-by-side with teachers to improve student learning. Coaching is horizontal leadership that emphasizes collaboration and shared decision-making. It is not a vertical, top-down structure that depends on title and power to create change. Coaches link arms with teachers; they don’t lead from above. Echoing good teaching, they are a guide by the side, not a sage on the stage.
 
Sometimes, as a coach, we are out in front, beckoning; but we are never above, demanding. Instructional coaching is a role that depends on reciprocity and trust rather than hierarchy. It is not a top-down structure. But what does this mean on the real?
 
Empowerment
Horizontal leadership means creating a relationship of empowerment. Teachers feel encouraged to contribute their unique expertise and have an active voice. When teachers feel personally attached to work in this way, they come up with new, innovative solutions. When teachers feel empowered, they are willing to take a risk and give these new ideas a try.
 
Collaboration
Instead of hierarchy, we have networks, relationships, collaborations, and communities. Although coaches may have gotten the position because of their knowledge and experience, to be successful, we shift from know-it-all to learn-it- all. Coaching is a mutual learning venture.
 
Reciprocity
In effective teacher-coach relationships, ideas flow easily both ways. Rather than jumping in to share our ideas first, though, in order to overcome biases about vertical leadership, as coaches, we may need to hold our ideas and talk later, so that teachers are encouraged to lead out with their own thoughts. Reciprocity requires humility on the part of the coach, seeing the merit in others’ ideas.
 
Trust
Trust is built through two-way vulnerability. It’s refreshing to take off the know-it-all mask, and it builds trust. Trust is built when you work in ways that empower teachers and encourage collaboration and reciprocity. Authentic relationships are built when teachers’ ideas are valued.
 
Being a horizontal leader in a top-down organization requires a mind shift. Schools and districts usually have a defined vertical structure, so leading horizontally is not the norm. Teachers (and you!) may have an unnamed, unexamined bias toward leading from above that takes effort to untangle. This is especially complicated if you are feeling constrained in your coaching role because of vertically-structured leadership expectations.
 
If traditional vertical leadership seems to govern you and the teachers in ways that constrain. check in with yourself. Are you imagining boundaries where there is permeability? Are you (or teachers) feeling monitored where there is no surveillance? I’ve often had teachers tell me they could not do a certain thing or had to do a certain thing; when I checked in with the principal, I found that was not the case. Sometimes we build walls where they don’t exist. Horizontal leadership is about bridges, not walls. It’s about reaching across, not down. School organizations are healthier when built on empowerment, collaboration, reciprocity, and trust.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

3 Ways to More “Aha” Moments in Coaching:
 
http://www.growthcoaching.com.au/articles-new/3-ways-to-more-aha-moments-in-coaching
 
 
Helping writers consider perspective:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/beyond-personal-narrative-a-change-in-perspective/
 
 
Redos and retakes:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=192M61YJJKY
 
 
A podcast episode on norms that can lead to teacher burnout:
 
https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/school-norms/
 
 
This video about grouping to increase eye contact and learning:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/video/what-social-brain
 
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! You can use the code: OCT2024 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!

Coaches as Listening Partners or Thinking Partners?

Whether it’s unloading after a challenging day or talking out loud to find their own solutions, sometimes all a teacher needs is a listening partner.
 
Coaches take their cues from the teacher to determine the most helpful stance. If a situation seems emotionally charged, being a listening partner helps to de-escalate feelings. When my veteran first-grade teacher friend had “the most challenging group in (her) 27 years of teaching,” she had plenty of her own ideas for supporting students, but the support she needed for herself was someone to hear her.
 
I was also primarily a listening partner when Brittani, a more novice teacher, thought through students’ formative data on the math lesson she had just taught. As she vocalized the misconceptions she saw on their papers, she made connections to points in the lesson she’d taught and started formulating a plan to reteach. I did a lot of nodding.
 
When teachers need a listening partner, follow these five steps:
 
1) Listen to hear. Hearing implies a deep level of understanding.  It takes effort. Hearing is an active verb. It requires your full presence.
 
2) Let them know you care. The speaker feels understood and valued when empathy is expressed. “That sounds hard” acknowledges emotions.  
 
3) Thank them for trusting you. When teachers feel safe enough with you to do an emotional dump, share shortcomings, or express half-formed thoughts, acknowledging the trust this took affirms the relationship.
 
4) Reflect back what you heard. Paraphrasing validates the emotions and ideas the teacher has expressed. It also helps the teacher examine their own experiences.
 
5) Ask what they want to do. This open-ended question helps the teacher move past the initial download and potentially unpack the situation.
 
After listening, your response might sound something like, “That sounds hard. Thanks for trusting me with those feelings (thoughts). It sounds like you….What are you thinking you might want to do?
 
If it seems appropriate to offer ideas, you can ask, “Do you want to hear my thoughts?” If you get an affirmative response, you can then shift to “thinking partner” stance. But when emotions or ideas run high, be a listening partner first.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Cultivating a Coaching Mindset:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/learning-from-lasso-cultivating-a-coaching-mindset-in-new-literacy-coaches/
 
This short video about learning synthesizing with construction paper and glue sticks:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/video/synthesize-information-from-multiple-sources
 
 
This podcast episode with 5 conditions for effective formative assessment:
 
https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/effective-formative-assessment/
 
 
Brené Brown on teaching children to fail well:
 
http://time.com/4025350/brene-brown-on-teaching-kids-to-fail-well/
 
 
How to stay in the profession:
 
https://ccira.blog/2019/09/24/teacher-lost-and-found/
 
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! You can use the code: OCT2024 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!

Asset-Based Coaching for Reluctant Teachers

Ana was so unsure of herself as a teacher that, when she initially invited me to observe in her classroom, it was during the class period when only three students were enrolled. Knowing that Ana’s previous coach had faced excuses and last-minute cancellations and had never even observed Ana’s classes, I counted this a win.
 
It was an even bigger win when, after that first observation, Ana agreed for me to observe one of her larger classes; the one before lunch, not the group at the end of the day, which she said was “a big mess.”
 
I knew that helping Ana feel comfortable with me and gaining her trust was the only way I would ever be of service to her and to her students. An asset-based coaching approach could help, and I was reminded of a success notebooking practice I’d used in the past. It may seem silly, but before leaving for school, I reread my own post twice, printed it off, and highlighted it. I wrote myself a little sticky-note cheat sheet with the prompts I wanted to use and stuck it in my pocket.

As I observed Ana’s class, I wrote notes about what I was seeing and hearing in a tiny notebook. When the bell rang and Ana’s students left, she said, “Well, that was a mess!” as she walked toward me. I asked if she had 15 minutes or so to talk, and she said she did. When Ana left to heat up her lunch, I reviewed the post I had printed, re-read the prompts on the sticky note, and highlighted my observation notes. When she got back to her room, I followed my own formula for creating an affirming experience.

First, I gifted her a small, unintimidating notebook for our coaching work. It was the same as the one I’d taken notes with during her lesson, but hers was more colorful. Then, I suggested she reflect on one of the successes of the lesson. I told her that I’d be doing the same, and then we’d share. When she stopped writing, I said, “Let’s take another minute or so to add details about what happened.” When her pen stopped, I said, “Let’s take just a few more seconds and add at least one more detail.”  I explained that it was the details that would really be helpful.

Then I asked her, “What seems important about the success you wrote about?” She said that her students seemed to really enjoy the lesson, a small-group, collaborative writing idea that had been mentioned in our previous PLC work. I asked, “What is your big ‘Aha!’ about this?” She said she realized she could give her students more control than she thought, and that they would participate more. After she described how some students more-typically behaved, I asked, “Where could you do this in upcoming lessons?” Ana said they were about to start a new unit. At first she talked about small-group peer feedback that could happen near the end of the unit. Then she circled back to the success I’d described – about discussion as a pre-writing activity – and decided that would be a good way to kick off their writing. She and I captured these two ideas in our notebooks before wrapping up our conversation.

As I left Ana’s room, I thought about the difference between Ana’s self-effacing initial comment, “That was a mess!” and her insight that she could give students more control. I felt that Ana and I were moving together in a productive direction. Affirming successful aspects of the lesson had opened a door. 

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

Participate in the National Day of Writing on Oct. 20:
 
https://ncte.org/national-day-writing/
 
 
Check in on students’ feelings:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/detours-a-reminder-of-the-humanity-of-students/
 
 
Using drama and role playing for English Learners:
 
https://www.middleweb.com/38032/try-drama-and-role-play-with-english-learners/
 
 
Every teacher needs a mentor:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/every-teacher-needs-mentor
 
 
Why kids need play:
 
https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/54326/childhood-as-resume-building-why-play-needs-a-comeback
 
 
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! You can use the code: OCT2024 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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Follow on Instagram @Vicki_Collet_Educator, on Facebook at: facebook.com/mycoachescouch and Twitter @vscollet for more coaching and teaching tips!  You can also find me at VickiCollet.com.
 

Coaching Notebooks after Modeling

Coaching notebooks are a tool for discovery when coaches confer with teachers after they model. If you have modeled a lesson, the observer’s non-evaluative notes about what they saw and heard offer a springboard for meaningful discussion and learning.
 
When you meet with a teacher after a lesson you’ve modeled, it can be helpful to offer a few silent moments for her to review her notes. Encourage her to highlight or underline things that seem important. Ask her to view her notes through the lens of her own personal teaching goals.
 
After the teacher has scanned and marked up her notes, offer time to synthesize these ideas. You might say something like, “Now that you’ve noted what seems important, take a minute or two to write about why those moments seem important.” While she reviews, use the time to jot down your own notes, capturing fleeting thoughts that occurred to you in the midst of teaching.
 
The details matter, so careful notes will provide evidence for productive conversations. Did the teacher notice students’ looks of confusion or “aha” expressions while you taught? These noticings give us clues about what worked so that we can zero in on generalizable teaching strategies. As the teacher shares her noticings and notes, ask questions that encourage transfer: “When have you tried something like that?” “How did it go?” “When might you use this approach again?” or “Why would you want to avoid that?”
 
A post-modeling conversation is the time to analyze, to figure out what worked and why, what didn’t and why not. We make links between instruction and student learning. After you’ve modeled a lesson, pinning the reflective conference on observations that are objective and specific, rather than evaluative or general, reveals nuances of practice that support teachers’ instructional improvement.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
This short video (1 ¼ minutes) about improving on improving (with Adam Grant):
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAhCJnCRnwg
 
 
Advice for new teachers:
 
https://www.teachingchannel.com/free-videos/
 
 
Choice writing in a world of standardized testing:
 
https://ccira.blog/2024/09/30/term-projects-exploring-choice-writing-in-a-world-of-standardized-testing/
 
Literacy for wounded students:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/trauma-and-literacy/
 
 
Tips on coaching a novice teacher:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/coaching-novice-teacher
 
 
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! You can use the code: OCT2024 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!
---------------------------------
Was this helpful?  Please share!
Want to know about new posts? Click “Follow” (bottom right)
Follow on Instagram @Vicki_Collet_Educator, on Facebook at: facebook.com/mycoachescouch and Twitter @vscollet for more coaching and teaching tips!  You can also find me at VickiCollet.com.