Protocols for Scaling the Assessment Data Mountain

Each fall, educators are met with mountains of numbers – too much to digest all at once!  In addition to the standardized test scores from last spring, we’re busy collecting back-to-school benchmarks and individual inventories. The key for avoiding data overwhelm is to look for useful patterns. I’ve found that using clear protocols helps teams identify these patterns, moving beyond numbers and into purposeful conversations. Last week’s post offers options for structured analysis that lead to potential root causes. Below I offer protocols for finding solutions that respond to these causes.
 
Chalk Talk
One of my go-to tools for seeking solutions is the Chalk Talk Protocol. This is a flexible protocol, useful in many contexts, and one of those is for examining data. Here are the steps:

·        To prepare, write each underlying cause that has been identified in the center of a chart or large sheet of bulletin board paper—one cause per sheet. (For example, if your data review pointed to large intervention groups as a possible factor, that goes in the center of one sheet.)

·        Place the charts around the room, on tables or hanging on the wall.

·        Using colored markers so they can track their thinking, teachers move silently from paper to paper, jotting ideas, drawing arrows between related thoughts, and using their pens to noiselessly argue and challenge ideas they feel need rethinking.

This approach makes sure all voices are “heard” while keeping a lively pace—many conversations happen at once. (Pro tip: Divide the number of participants by 5 to figure out how many sheets will give you the best flow. If you have fewer topics than that, duplicate some so groups stay small and ideas keep moving.) By the time everyone has rotated through the different charts and then circled back to comment on what others have added, you’ll have a rich, collective idea bank.
 
Next, have participants pick their favorite ideas from the charts and write them down, one per post-it note. After that, you can make the number of ideas more manageable by having teachers talk at their table or with a partner to narrow their post-its down to one or two per person.
 
Realms of Concern / Realms of Influence Protocol
At this point, your group still has too many possible solutions. Using the Realms of Concern / Realms of Influence Protocol helps us separate what we wish we could change from what we can change, zeroing in on actionable solutions. On chart paper or a big piece of bulletin board paper, draw 3 large, concentric circles, labelled like this:

Ask teachers to describe the difference between these two realms, or give non-education examples of something in each realm to help folks start to process. Then, ask teachers to come forward and place their sticky notes on the appropriate spot in the target. The stickies in the realm of influence are now your potential actionable solutions.

 
The time it takes for Chalk Talk, stickies, and Realms of Concern may feel formulaic – but I guarantee that the outcomes that surface will be worth the effort.
 
(Check back next week for ideas on turning  potential  solutions into  active  ones!)
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Collecting coaching data to demonstrate impact:
 
https://www.smartbrief.com/original/coaching-for-impact-starts-with-collecting-data
 
 
Offering opportunities for students to keep thinking:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/alert-mistakes-in-progress/
 
 
Helping students overcome learned helplessness:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/guiding-students-overcome-learned-helplessness
 
 
An entertaining video with advice to first-year teachers:
 
https://video.edweek.org/detail/video/5574068218001/second-year-teachers-share-some-advice-for-rookies
 
 
This podcast episode about how new teachers can find great mentors:
 
https://www.teachingchannel.com/blog/podcast-43
 
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: FDNS25 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!
 

From Data to Action: Structures for Exploring Assessment Results Together

How can instructional coaches help teachers make sense of the mountains of assessment data that have been collected?
 
As the school year gets underway, teaching teams are tasked with using assessment data to guide whole group and small group instruction and identify intervention needs. Don’t try to digest all the numbers at once! Discussion protocols – structured processes to focus communication – can encourage effective collaboration during data discussions. Below I’ll describe several protocols that, when used together, support structured discussions about data.
 
One of the protocols I’ve used is the National School Reform’s protocol for examining the data. Working in small groups, teachers are given a set of data to consider. Multiple rounds are introduced by the facilitator, asking teachers questions that encourage them to look at the data differently, first by responding silently in writing and then through discussion in their small group. During round 1, teachers record and discuss what the data tells them at first blush. What jumps out and seems significant? What surprises them? What patterns are noted? During round 2, teachers make inferences about the data. What is it telling us? What is it not telling us? They look beyond obvious relationships. Round 3 is a time to look for celebrations. What good news is there in the data?
 
These celebrations are a good place to pause the protocol. Take a break (or come back another day for a fresh start). Pausing on a happy high can fuel the important next steps.
 
Come back for Round 4, which looks at the flip side of celebrations. What problems of practice might be underlying this data? This round of cause-and-effect thinking can be overwhelming. You might devote a whole meeting to just this step and unpack it a bit if the data warrants a deeper dive to identify possible sources of the problem, It’s only when we really get to the cause that effective solutions start to surface. A combination of a fishbone analysis and the 5 Whys protocol can get your team’s thinking going in the right direction.
The Fishbone is a structured team process for identifying underlying factors or causes of an event. The product of the team’s work is a cause/effect diagram that might look something like this:
 
[PHOTO]
 
Or this, if you’ve got a group of creative teachers!
 
[PHOTO]
(These Fishbone diagrams unpack a problem not related to student achievement, but you get the idea!)
 
Fishbones help us consider lots of alternate causes and sort ideas into useful categories.
 
Here are the steps in the process.  Working in small groups, ask:
 
1.    What is the problem/effect? Be clear & specific. Be careful not to define the problem in terms of a solution!  Write this at the head of the fish.
2.    What might be the major categories of causes of the problem? (for example, materials, policy factors, people/staff factors, etc.). Write these on the large skeletal bones.
3.    Brainstorm possible causes for each category. These are the smaller bones.
4.    For each cause, ask, “Why does this happen?” Write these sub-causes as branches on your diagram.
 
Asking “Why?” multiple times along the way can ensure deep causal thinking rather than more obvious solutions that get too-easily tagged. In the fishbone analysis, it means adding sub-causes to the “bone structure” through fine-grained analysis.
 
Here’s how the 5 Why’s Protocol works: Someone states what they think is a cause. For example, if I ask someone why they were late for work, they might answer, “I was late for work because I ran out of gas.” Asking, “Why did you run out of gas?” reveals yet another layer to the problem: “I ran out of gas because I didn’t buy any on my way to work.” “Why didn’t you buy any on your way to work?” you might ask. “Because I didn’t have any money!” “Why didn’t you have any money?” “Because I bought these gorgeous shoes last night!” might be the response. “Why?” “Because when I see a gorgeous pair of shoes, I just have to have them even though I already have a closet full of shoes!”
 
Aha! Now we have revealed that the root cause of being late to work is a shoe fetish! Without the 5 Whys protocol, we would never have known! Of course, 5 is not a magic number. The point is, go deep enough to get at real answers to the question. The final “Why” should lead to a root-cause statement that helps the team take action.
 
The fishbone analysis, accompanied by the 5 Why’s, encourages a deeper consideration of the data and a focus on underlying problems. When we see dips in the data of student achievement, it’s most effective to solve directly-stated problems rather than proposing solutions to surface-level issues.
 
Finally, it’s time for the 5^th and final round of the protocol for examining the data. During this round, the group describes their key conclusions and recommendations. Taking this layer-by-layer approach stops us from jumping to unwarranted conclusions about assessment data.
 
If tackling assessment data feels like an overwhelming task, a structured analysis approach can make all the difference. By using discussion protocols, teaching teams can focus on what matters most, listen to each other’s insights, and move from simply reviewing numbers to making informed decisions that benefit students. Thoughtful collaboration turns mountains of data into clear, actionable steps for instruction and intervention.
 
(More ideas for peeling back the layers of assessment data coming next week!)
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

How and why to support and hold onto experienced teachers:

https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-heres-how-we-hold-on-to-experienced-teachers-give-them-the-support-they-need/
 
Decorations vs. anchor charts:
 
https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/clearing-the-way-for-new-growth/
 
 
Starting the year with picture books to build math identities:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/fostering-math-identities-with-picture-books/ 
 
 
Ideas for helping students who are in the fight or flight mode:
 
https://www.teachingchannel.com/blog/fight-flight-freeze
 
 
Mentors need new teachers (not just vise versa):
 
https://ncte.org/blog/2020/01/mentors-need-new-teachers/
 
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: FDNS25 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!

Instructional Coaching Rhythms

When preparing for the school year, coaches may start thinking about coaching cycles – who they’ll serve with them, what measurements they’ll have, and what the cycles will look like. There’s a place for work that has a clear beginning, middle, and end. .In coaching, that includes setting a specific goal, measuring progress, and celebrating when the target is reached. And, just like with teaching, there’s also a need for coaches, and coaching, to be flexible.
 
What if, as coaches, we thought more about being opportunistic? What if, as we think about our use of the 5 GIR coaching moves (model, recommend, question, affirm, and praise) we consider coaching rhythms, rather than cycles?  The pattern of these 5 moves is determined by teachers’ needs, flowing in real-time response to the teacher and the teacher-selected focus for the conversation.
 
To effectively support teachers while ensuring students get the instruction they need, coaches need to be nimble - light on their feet – improvising among the 5 coaching moves. We adjust the tempo and intensity of support.
 
I was talking this week with Kristen, who is an exceptional coach. She told me that in her early work as a coach, she was very well-prepared for the coaching work, going into each conversation with a clear plan, even having questions and recommendations written down. It went all right, she said, but she felt something was off. Then, during a coaching meeting, a teacher made a comment that changed the way she coached. The teacher said, “It feels like you're continuing a conversation from the past. But I'm not in that same place anymore.” Kristen said this teacher’s comment stuck with her and helped her realize that effective coaching requires us to meet teachers in the current space.
 
We can use the 5 moves in the GIR model in response to the teacher. The appropriate support will guide, challenge, or validate. The squiggly line in the GIR model shows that coaching isn’t a linear process – it’s a fluid one. Instructional improvement is contextual, so coaching is a cha-cha. We will step forward and back, and there will be lifts and dips along the way. We know that the upward sloping line in the GIR model indicates growth, but the cha-cha of coaching includes small steps back, too. When it seems needed, don’t hesitate to lean on a move that offers more support, like modeling or recommending. If one move doesn’t bear fruit, we can lean back and try an approach that provides more scaffolding.
 
We have to be limber; if we lead too strongly, sticking too long with a move when it’s not needed, we are over-scaffolding; this reduces teachers’ agency and motivation. We know how to lead by paying careful attention to the teacher and the context. We are ready to reposition, to find a match between the support needed by the teacher and the support offered by each of the 5 coaching moves. This is the rhythm of responsive coaching.

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

Get ready for back-to-school (a 16-min. podcast episode):
 
https://stickyhope.com/28-schools-starting-are-you-ready/
 
 
Making it “our” classroom:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/who-owns-the-room/
 
 
Significant 72: Three impactful days for starting the school year:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/fresh-starts-through-community-building/
 
 
How collaboration works:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/video/teacher-collaboration-matching-complementary-strengths
 
 
6 Co-Teaching models (not just for SpEd):
 
https://barkleypd.com/blog/coaching-co-teaching/
 
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: FDNS25 for 20% off or EBOOKS for 33% off digital copies (thru Aug. 4, 2025). 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!
 

What’s Taking Up Your Coaching Time?

Emily is a school-based coach who’s deeply involved in her school community. She helps with morning announcements, assists with fundraisers, collaborates on Instagram reels with her principal, coordinates the annual readathon, and attends district literacy meetings. It’s no surprise that Emily is seen as a valued leader on campus. But there’s a downside: all these responsibilities chip away at the time she could be spending where it counts most—talking with teachers about instruction.
 
It’s a common coaching dilemma. With so many roles to juggle—some chosen, some assigned—coaches often find their time pulled in too many directions. When the to-do list grows too long, it becomes harder to engage in deep, sustained work with teachers. And without focused coaching time centered on instruction and student learning, the real impact of coaching gets diluted.
 
We know from research that coaching has the greatest effect on student learning when it includes activities like conferring with teachers, modeling strategies, observing classroom practice, and assessment-related activities.* These actions, especially when part of intentional coaching work, create space for meaningful collaboration. They lead to thoughtful reflection on student needs, instructional strategies, and curriculum planning—work that improves teaching and learning.
 
So how can coaches protect time for this important work?
 
It takes a mixture of structure and adaptability. A weekly agenda that allots the majority of your time to high-impact coaching practices ensures your commitment to these priorities. At the same time, flexibility is needed. Tasks shift, and surprises pop up during the course of the day, Coaching is opportunistic – sometimes a spontaneous hallway conversation can lead to a powerful coaching moment. The key is to stay grounded in what matters most and be intentional with how time is spent.
 
Spending your time on what matters most is important, so I’ve made a gift for you! If you’d like a free form that will track how you spend your time, click HERE and I’ll send you links to the form and to a video tutorial. Using this tool, you’ll end up with a nice pie chart of how your time is being used.
 
Teachers are eager to work with a coach when they see the impact on student learning. Student learning improves when coaches spend the majority of their time working with teachers (and planning for that work). If your schedule is overloaded with other activities, consider one change you might make next week to make teacher interactions a bigger piece of your pie.
 
*Elish-Piper, L., & L’Allier, S. K. (2011). Examining the relationship between literacy coaching and student reading gains in grades K–3. The Elementary School Journal, 112(1), 83-106.
Walpole, S. McKenna, .C., Uribe-Zorain, X., & Lamitina, D. (2010). The relationships between coaching and instruction in the primary grades: Evidence from igh-poverty schools. The Elementary School Journal, 111(1), 115-140.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Lessons for leadership:
 
https://chiefexecutive.net/from-one-pack-leader-to-another-five-lessons-of-leadership/
 
 
Ideas for getting to know students:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/revisiting-getting-to-know-my-students/
 
 
Recommendations for adolescents AI literacy:
 
https://districtadministration.com/article/ai-and-student-well-being-how-to-support-student-learners/
 
 
Using comics to support literacy (short video):
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6yqKm3zC1c
 
 
A beautiful, printable poster with quotes about banishing teacher burnout:
 
http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el201806_takeaways.pdf
 
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: FDNS25 for 20% off or EBOOKS for 33% off digital copies (thru Aug. 4, 2025). 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!
 

Principal-Coach Agreements: On the Same Page

The new school year will be underway before we know it, so now is a good time to make sure you and your principal are on the same page when it comes to coaching roles and responsibilities. Across the country, coaches take many different forms, and assigned tasks vary. Assuming that you and your principal visualize your job in the same way can create problems for you, your principal, and the teachers you serve. Starting the year with a principal-coach agreement in place creates clarity and makes the work smoother and more effective.  
 
If you are a returning coach – heading back to the same school with the same principal – familiar coaching routines with well-established systems may already be in place. For others, coaching may be brand new, the coach may be in a new school, or the principal may have changed – or perhaps the coach’s role has never been clearly defined. In these cases, taking the time to clarify expectations through a principal-coach agreement can help create a more purposeful start to the year.
 
A principal-coach agreement outlines how the coach and principal will collaborate and what the coach’s responsibilities will look like. Putting these expectations in writing helps eliminate ambiguity and builds a shared understanding of the work ahead.
 
Key questions that a principal-coach agreement might address include:

·        What will communication between the coach and principal look like? How often will they meet?

·        Which teachers will the coach work with? (Ideally, every teacher!)

·        What content areas or topics will the coaching focus on?

·        What specific roles will the coach take on? (e.g., co-planning, modeling, analyzing student work)

·        How will coaching be embedded into the school day for teachers?

·        What boundaries around confidentiality will be honored in the teacher-coach relationship?

·        How will the success of coaching be measured?

·        What tools, time, or other resources are available to support the coach?

Coaching thrives with strong leadership. Research shows that when principals visibly support the coach’s expertise, affirm that all teachers benefit from coaching, and trust the coach to manage their time independently, teacher participation in coaching increases.*  A supportive principal and clearly defined coaching role are essential for success.**
 
To help you get started, I’ve created some tools to guide the development of a principal-coach agreement: reflection questions, templates, and samples that illustrate how others have approached this work. If you’d like to receive these resources, just fill out this form and I’ll send them your way.
 
Once you and your principal have reached clarity, think about how to share your agreement with staff. When teachers see the principal and coach working in partnership, it sets a powerful tone for the collaborative work ahead.
 
When I began as a literacy coach years ago, coaching was still a new thing – no other schools in my district had a coach, but my principal wanted to give it a try. We didn’t have a roadmap—we found our way together, often discussing questions like those listed above. While coaching has become much more common, it still varies widely from school to school. That’s why taking time to co-create a clear, shared vision at the beginning of the year is an important first step for the school year. Having a shared understanding of the work right from the start sets a tone that makes coaching effective.

* Matsumura, L. C., Sartoris, M., Bickel, D. D., & Garnier, H. E. (2009). Leadership for literacy coaching: The principal’s role in launching a new coaching program. Educational Administration Quarterly, 45(5), 655–693.
 
**Matsumura, L. C., Garnier, H. E., & Spybrook, J. (2012). The effect of content-focused coaching on the quality of classroom text discussions. Journal of Teacher Education, 63(3), 214–228. 

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

Saying “no” respectfully prevents burnout:
 
https://www.smartbrief.com/original/why-saying-no-can-be-a-smart-career-move
 
 
Coaching for “will” vs. “skill”:
 
https://www.smartbrief.com/original/dig-deeper-offers-a-framework-for-coaching-teachers
 
 
Rewarding intelligent rule-breaking fosters innovation:
 
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-algorithmic-mind/202507/how-to-teach-kids-to-break-the-rules-intelligently
 
 
Offering opportunities for students to keep thinking:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/alert-mistakes-in-progress/
 
 
Effective teacher-to-teacher communication:
 
https://www.thoughtco.com/the-importance-of-effective-teacher-to-teacher-communication-3194691
 
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: FDNS25 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!

Try This at Home: Don’t Interrupt

This week’s post is the final in the summer series, “Try This at Home.” Summer will continue on for a bit, but I’ll shift the focus here to getting ready for school. The practice for this week is, don’t interrupt. It’s a practice that will serve you well in any situation – now, with friends and family, and later, in your coaching work.
 
Reasons Not to Interrupt
 
Although we all likely fall into the interrupting trap at times, the damage of interrupting is intuitive. If we pause to consider, we’ll recognize some of the following reasons.
 
First, interrupting interferes with psychological safety. Psychological safety is the belief that you can speak up, take risks, and make mistakes without worrying that you might be humiliated or punished. Psychological safety is the foundation for trust and authentic connection. We want that at home and we need it to make coaching effective.
 
Interrupting can be viewed as disrespect. It sends the message that you feel the speaker’s words are unimportant. Interrupting dismisses the other person’s ideas, pushing your own ideas to the top.
 
Interrupting diminishes trust. It feels controlling, sending the message that the interrupter wants to drive the conversation. Others feel manipulated or undervalued.
 
Interruption disrupts thinking. Ideas that are in the process of being shared may not come to fruition, or at least aren’t fully expressed. Both the speaker and the interrupter miss out.
 
Jumping in too soon creates misunderstanding. The interrupter may make incorrect assumptions and respond based on their own interpretation rather than what was actually meant.
 
Of course, interruption interferes with listening. If you’re just listening for a chance to interrupt, you’re not really listening.
 
These real reasons should dissuade us from interrupting.
 
How to Avoid Interrupting
 
We know that interrupting has negative consequences, but it can be a hard habit to break – especially when our brains are spilling over with ideas we’d like to share. If interrupting is a habit,  not  interrupting  can become a habit, too. That’s why it fits well as a summer “Try This at Home” exercise. Here are some ideas to help you avoid interrupting.
 
To avoid interrupting, practice the pause. Take a breath and ask yourself, “Is it my turn to talk?” Stay focused and listening. Along with your own pause, wait for the speaker’s pause…It will come.
 
To avoid interrupting. pay attention to the tone and body language of the speaker. These give us cues about whether the speaker has finished. They also help us tune into their message so that we’ll be less-likely to disrupt it.
 
Be curious. Previous posts have talked about curiosity as a key coaching mindset, and it’s one that serves us well as we proverbially bite our tongues to keep from interrupting. Staying curious keeps the conversation open.
 
Another way we can avoid interrupting is to reserve judgment. Interruption often occurs when we feel the need to correct. Instead, keeping judgment at bay helps us listen longer.
 
Practice Now
 
There are four ways listed above to avoid interrupting, and each could serve as a cue or impetus. But we can’t do everything at once!  It might help to pick just one of these to start with. What will you do this week to avoid interrupting? Will you pause, attend to tone and body language, stay curious, or reserve judgment? What will be your first focus? I’m going to work on reserving judgment. Although it’s something I try to be mindful of, I know I could use more work with this, and judgment (especially to correct) is probably the main reason I interrupt some of the people in my personal life.
 
Avoiding interruption is something we can practice now and carry into our coaching work in the fall. When we don’t interrupt, we build trust, deepen understanding, and foster reflection – important for creating an effective coaching climate. Listening long will offer teachers the opportunity to explore their ideas out loud, honoring their agency and professionalism.
 
Interruption isn’t just a break in speaking – it’s a break in connection that creates distance. Patience and presence are the anecdotes we can cultivate this summer to replace the urge to interrupt.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

When collaborating, colleagues match complementary strengths:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/video/teacher-collaboration-matching-complementary-strengths
 
 
Nurturing independent readers:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/nurturing-independent-reading-lives-in-middle-school/
 
 
Recommendations for adolescents AI literacy:
 
https://districtadministration.com/article/ai-and-student-well-being-how-to-support-student-learners/
 
 
Two questions to ask a teacher before coaching:
 
https://hbr.org/2018/11/if-you-want-to-get-better-at-something-ask-yourself-these-two-questions
 
 
5 Risks New Teachers Should Take:
 
https://www.teachingchannel.com/blog/new-teacher-risks
 
 
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: FDNS25 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!
 
Continuing with the "Try This at Home" summer theme, this week's post describes how conversational dynamics create relationships of power. I hope you'll gain insight for now and important practices you can carry into your coaching:
http://MyCoachesCouch.blogspot.com
 

Try This at Home: Speaking, Listening, and Power

As part of our “Try this at home” summer series, this week, I want to give you something to think about in your at-home conversations and relationships – something that I hope will offer insight you can carry with you into your coaching work. Let’s think about the relationships among speaking, listening, and power. This triad is represented in the dynamics of  power over,  power under,  and  power with.  Let’s explore each.
 
When we speak but don’t listen, we are exercising  power over  the person we are in conversation with. You might find yourself in this power dynamic when giving instructions to someone – maybe you are telling your teenager your expectations for their use of the family car; or, more appropriately, you might give a curse command to a toddler to keep them safe. Power over doesn’t usually serve a relationship well, but there are times when it’s deemed necessary.
 
A  power under  relationship is one in which you are listening, but not speaking. Maybe you are being told something by someone in a leadership position. Maybe you are holding your tongue because you don’t want to start an argument. While listening is important for any productive conversation, if that’s all you do there’s an unequal (and perhaps unhealthy) power dynamic in the situation. Power under relationships can feel suffocating.
 
In a  power with  relationship, we, and the person we are in conversation with, are both speaking  and  listening. This might be the situation with your partner or during a deep conversation with a trusted friend. There’s a give-and-take, equanimity and equality. Power with relationships are honoring, respectful, and productive.
 
Considering the power dynamics in our everyday conversational relationships can give us useful information about our inclinations and intentions and even about the relationships themselves. Pause for a moment and examine a few of the relationships in your life. Can you identify a situation (or a relationship) in which you engage in  power over  conversations? Can you remember a time when you were in a conversation that felt like a  power under  relationship? Which relationships in your daily life typically demonstrate  power with  conversations?
 
Working now to become more aware of conversational power dynamics will help you be sensitive to such situations in your coaching work. As you aim for more equitable power distribution on the daily this summer, you’ll fall into these patterns more naturally in your coaching work next fall.

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
 
 
Build a reading pause pile to soothe, uplift, and inspire:
 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e183-permission-to-pause-how-short-stories-and-essays/id1631731255?i=1000713245426
 
 
Developing independent writers:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/developing-independent-writers/
 
 
7 ways to support students’ well-being:
 
https://www.schoolstatus.com/blog/7-ways-schools-can-support-k-12-students-mental-well-being
 
What one teacher learned from readers’ notebooks:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V2bWew1lTo&feature=emb_logo

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: FDNS25 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:

Try This at Home: Ask & Listen

Summer is the perfect time to practice a skill that you can take with you into your coaching next fall - being fully present in your conversations. This summer, you can be more intentional about asking questions to deepen relationships—with the people who matter most. Before we jump back into our coaching roles, we can sharpen our listening skills at the backyard BBQ, on a long walk, beside the pool, or wherever you gather.
 
Try taking a conversation (and a relationship) deeper by asking a friend or family member:
“What’s been on your mind lately?”
Then pause. Wait. Listen. Let their words lead. Stay curious. Follow up with:
“Say more about that.”
As you listen, practice reflecting back what you hear:
“Let me see if I’m understanding you right…”
You’re not just making conversation—you’re building connection. This practice helps grow the listening muscles that make your coaching stronger, more respectful, and more responsive.
 
An instructional coach is a listener and learner first. She meets with a teacher to listen to and learn about her concerns, strengths, and needs. Listening builds connections and fosters respect, trust, and safety. By listening first, the coach indicates that she is there to support the teacher in meeting her goals, not the other way around.
 
You can seek the teacher’s perspective by focusing not on what you know, but on what the teacher knows. As coaches attentively listen, teachers realize that their ideas and opinions are truly of interest.
 
Just like with friends and family, “What’s on your mind?” is a question that says, “Let’s talk about what matters most to you!” It’s a useful open-ended question to start a coaching conversation.
 
When I met with Anna, a special education teacher, I began the coaching conversation by asking, “What’s on your mind?” The conversation moved quickly to how her role as “co-teacher” in one class turned out to be a situation where she was basically being used as an aide, a role that was not satisfying for her and not as impactful for students as it could have been. We got straight to a need and began looking at the people and processes that were part of this situation.
 
“What’s on your mind?” cues reflection and sharing that sets you up for meaningful coaching work. And don’t forget the power of wait time! Asking, pausing, and listening lets us know where teachers are in their practice.
 
After listening, reflect back what the teacher has said – not in a parrot-like way, but in a way that shows you were paying attention and offers the teacher the chance to clarify. Saying, “Let me see if I got this right” gives the teacher the chance to think more deeply and strengthens your understanding of the teacher’s needs.
 
Just like with family and friends this summer, when school starts again, you can ask the teacher to, “Say more about that” to clarify your understanding as you continue listening.
 
Between friends and family, among coaches and teachers, asking authentic questions, listening, and reflecting back what you’ve heard are practices that deepen relationships, invite openness, and create space for new insights to emerge.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Tips for new instructional coaches:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/20-tips-new-instructional-coaches-elena-aguilar
 
 
Barry Lane’s TedXTalk on the Power of Kindness:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzimmQaLzo8
 
 
Goals support independent math work:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/setting-personal-goals-for-math-independent-work/
 
 
Ideas for effective feedback:
 
https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy-posts/learning-feedback/
 
 
Questions for a team-coaching meeting on student engagement:
 
https://barkleypd.com/blog/instructional-coaches-working-with-plcs-and-teaching-teams/
 
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: FDNS25 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!