Coaching with Credibility and Curiosity

Curiosity and credibility are two valuable coaching ingredients. The trust that is necessary for coaching includes both relational trust and experiential trust. The teachers you are working with need to feel seen and
safe in your presence, and they need to feel that you are credible and that you believe they are, too. Credibility comes from knowing that you are drawing from you own experience and from you knowledge in the field. Teachers need to know they can trust any counsel you might provide. So they have to know you know some things. However, your confidence will be best received if it is quiet confidence paired with curiosity.
 
When working with teachers, ask questions from a place of authentic wonder. Wonder with the teacher about why something happened and how it might happen. Ask questions that demonstrate your curiosity and openness. Asking “Why do you think…” with curiosity provokes useful analysis. Questions can evoke teachers’ curiosity, and the best questions are those about which coaches themselves are authentically curious. When coaches ask with genuine curiosity, we communicate respect and show faith in the teacher because we demonstrate that we value what he has to say.
 
It can sometimes be hard to pull away from our own knowledge and experience enough to ask an authentic question. We have to mentally set aside the answer we would give so that we can care more about the teacher’s response.
 
When a teacher says she wants students to be able to show their thinking, we might authentically ask, “What does that look like to you?”  When a teacher says she wants students to describe their problem-solving process, we might ask, “Can you think of a time when students really showed their thinking in their work?” When reviewing student work, we might ask, “What is really important to you in this assignment?” Authentic questions like these seek the teachers’ perspectives and insight.
 
Even when making a recommendation, you can frame it with wondering, “I wonder whether this or that might help?” Then ponder the possibilities together. Here are a few wonderings I’ve had during coaching conversations:
 
“I wonder what differentiation could look like for this assignment.”
 
”I wonder if there are a couple of places in this lesson where partner talk would be helpful.”
 
“I wonder if your team might have some ideas about this?”
 
These wonderings are recommendations with a soft edge that invite opportunities for discussion. Using the “I wonder” statement calls the teacher you are working with into inquiry.
 
Coaching trust is built but through a steady presence grounded in both experience and inquiry. When teachers sense that you truly see them, that you honor their work, and also that you bring hard-earned knowledge to your conversations, trust grows. It’s not about showcasing expertise; it’s about offering it with curiosity. Quiet confidence, paired with genuine curiosity, invites collaboration and deepens the coaching partnership.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Maximizing coaching in the month of May:
 
https://dianesweeney.com/maximizing-coaching-month-may/
 
 
To wrap up National Poetry Month, consider how poetry supports emotional learning:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-poetry-supports-sel-elementary-school/
 
 
Is there a writing process?
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/exploring-the-writing-process/
 
 
Creating language mindfulness about student equity:
 
https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/how-our-language-feeds-inequity
 
 
Teaching social-emotional skills: Better than a forced, “Sorry!”
 
https://offspring.lifehacker.com/what-to-say-to-little-kids-instead-of-say-sorry-1819288365
 
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!

Coaches' Noticings

During coaching conversations, sharing “noticings” and asking questions can lead to meaningful targets for instructional improvement. Those noticings can be generic, gathered over time, or specific to the teacher you are talking with.
 
I like to memorize sentence starters so that I can prompt myself during a coaching conversation. My sentence starter for noticings is, “I’ve noticed that when the teacher ____, students ____.” I’ve found this handy sentence stem is flexible and effective. The noticing can be a more general observation: “I’ve noticed when teachers use the last two minutes of a lesson for reflection, students often make new connections.” The frame can be stated as a negative, “I’ve noticed that when teachers move on to another student after a wrong answer, kids often shut down” or a positive: “I’ve noticed that when teachers probe an answer that seems wrong, they can often uncover a kernel of correct thinking to build on.”
 
The noticing could also be specific to the teacher’s class: “I’ve noticed that when you use the doc cam to model, your kids are clear about directions.” Coaching observations are opportunities for data gathering. The list we create of specific, objective noticings – what we have seen and heard – becomes a menu for conversation. When we ask, “Is there a part of that lesson you’d like to talk about?” there are examples to draw from that point us down a productive path. Oftentimes conversations that grow from the noticing stem lead a teacher to her own solution.
 
These sentence frames worked for me when I met with Angela, a vibrant early-career teacher who has much to offer the profession. She walked into my room and even before she was in the seat, she was venting her frustrations about the lesson I had observed. “The kids were all over the floor,” she said. “There were two girls playing with each other’s hair, and half the time the kids weren’t even listening!”
 
“You sound frustrated,” I said. “Let’s back up and think about what went right in the lesson.”
 
“What went right?” she said, seeming surprised.
 
“Yes,” I queried. “What do you feel good about?”
 
“Well, the read-aloud. The kids were really into that.”
 
We talked about all the positive comments and relevant learning that happened during the story. “That book was a great choice,” I said.
 
“And I was really pleased that some of the kids noticed the way I’d grouped the numbers. They noticed it on their own without me pointing it out. And Edgar – he is really shy and hardly ever speaks up. I saw when he figured it out. The light bulb went on!”
 
We gloried in the light-bulb moment, and then Angela returned to the frustrations she’d expressed earlier. However, she was now on more solid ground. “But it was still so frustrating that kids weren’t paying attention during the game!”
 
“Why do you think that happened?” I asked.
 
“I’m not sure,” she said, and paused thoughtfully. “Maybe they didn’t understand the procedures. I just shouldn’t have tried that game.”
 
I didn’t want her to give up on the game so easily! Now was the time for that flexible sentence frame: “I’ve noticed that when teachers are clear in giving directions, students are more engaged.”
 
“Yes, I definitely could have been more clear with the directions,” she said.
 
“Modeling would help,” I suggested, and added another sentence with my frame: “I noticed when you were clear in describing the purpose at the beginning of the lesson, students seemed very focused. I wonder if they didn’t see how the game connected to that purpose? I’ve noticed that when teachers keep bringing the activity back to the purpose, reminding students of the reason for the activity, engagement goes up.”
 
Wow, that was a lot of noticings! Had I overdone it with that sentence stem, I wondered?
 
But Angela’s face suggested otherwise. She sat up straight and seemed reenergized. “Yes,” she said, “that makes sense.”      
 
Angela thought about how she could be clearer with directions and we talked about tying each part of the lesson back to the purpose. As Angela’s experience demonstrates, noticings and questions can lead to meaningful targets for instructional improvement.
 

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

How non-cognitive factors affect learning (and what to do about it):
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/building-students-noncognitive-skills
 

Teaching how to read textbooks:

https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-students-read-textbook
 

Teaching critical media literacy:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/27/learning/helping-digital-natives-overcome-digital-naivete-four-steps-to-media-literacy.html

 
A podcast on balancing test prep and authentic learning:
 
https://thecornerstoneforteachers.com/truth-for-teachers-podcast/balance-test-prep-authentic-learning/
 
 
It’s still National Poetry Month - Poetry with paint-chip boards:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/blackout-poems-and-paint-chip-haiku-two-fun-ways-into-poetry-with-adolescents/
 
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!

Coaching with Graduated Risk

When I met this week for a coaching conversation with Erin, an early-career teacher, I had mixed feelings when she told me she hadn’t used the “Take a Stand” activity during her unit on argumentative writing. When we’d talked about the activity in a previous conversation, she’d seemed so excited! She’d asked me to send her details, and I’d sent that follow-up email. Now I learned she hadn’t done it.
 
The happy side of this revelation was that she trusted me enough to tell me so. The frustration was that I felt this could have been a meaningful activity for her students, and I thought she’d bought into it. Erin hinted at potential reasons, and when I named her fear – that students would get out of control during the activity – Erin affirmed that was a concern that stopped her from moving forward. “But I think I could do it now,” she said. “They’ve tested my boundaries enough now to know what they can get away with and what they can’t,” she said.
 
Still, I didn’t want her committing to something she might once again omit. I felt it would damage our coaching relationship if that happened. We needed a collaborative win.
 
During the conversation, Emily had already named partner talk as a strategy she thought her students could use – shifting from the individual conferring with students that she’d been doing to having them talk with each other. As we chatted, she came up with another way that she could have students share their opinions – one that didn’t risk rambunctiousness: she could have students demonstrate their opinion by placing their sticky note on the appropriate side of a T-chart. I affirmed this as a low-risk and effective option, and we talked about how that might lead to the goal she’d started with of incorporating more discussion.
 
Before closing the conversation, I laid out the three options we’d talk about on a continuum. “You have three good options for incorporating discussion so that students can share their opinions before writing,” I said. “Partner talk, sticky notes with whole-class discussion, and Take a Stand.” I described these activities as a menu she could choose from when planning the upcoming lesson. “It might even be different for different periods, and you could change your mind at the last minute, depending on how students are acting that day.”
 
By naming options that evoked varied degrees of risk-aversion for Erin, I hope that she will end up using one or more of them and increase her teaching courage. When she tries something we’ve talked about and it (hopefully!) works, it will give traction to our coaching work. We needed to walk away with a plan that would result in action and a win. I wanted to maintain the positive momentum we’ve been building this year, and I didn’t think the relationship could sustain another follow-up conversation where the report was, “I didn’t do what we talked about.”
 
When a teacher has a fragile hold on teaching strategies and is intimidated by the idea of stepping outside of the box, naming a graduated list of options mitigates the potential for neglecting to implement. Even if Erin just does just one partner talk between now and the next time we meet, she’ll have something to share – and, importantly, she won’t feel like she failed to follow-through. Naming options with graduated risk can avoid a stall and help to sustain momentum.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

A score of ideas for National Poetry Month:
 
https://ncte.org/resources/poetry/
 
 
Enhancing motivation and belonging:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/the-science-of-student-motivation
 
 
Using brain intervals (shorter and less disruptive than brain breaks):
 
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/focused-attention-practices-brain-intervals-woven-stress-desautels/
 
 
6 Flaws of PD (and how to fix them):
 
http://www.gettingsmart.com/2018/02/the-six-flaws-of-traditional-professional-development/
 
 
This brief video about creating a culture of belonging:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/quick-take-listen-to-create-a-sense-of-belonging/
 
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: MAR2025 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!

Coaching with Specificity

Brene Brown has memorably and succinctly said, “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.”* When we are clear, we are specific. We say what we mean and mean what we say. As a coach, the pathway to specificity is best trod with objectivity. When we offer fact-based feedback and leave the task of evaluation to teachers, we are fostering reflection. And that act of looking back to move forward better is the stuff growth is made of.
 
In last week’s post, we thought about the value of guiding teachers to specificity during our coaching conversations. This week, let’s turn the tables and think about how to be more specific ourselves.
 
During a reflective conference, if we’ve observed in the classroom, sharing observations that are objective and specific, rather than evaluative or general, is likely to reveal nuances of practice that enhance the learning experience. When we push beyond broad language and kindly give specifics about what we saw and heard, it calls teachers to respond. Our tone and demeaner in delivering the specifics, of course, makes all the difference in how the teacher will respond. To reduce defensiveness, we share observations with curiosity. “I’m wondering about something I noticed” might be our lead-in. Then, the specific examples we offer can clarify both the coach’s and the teacher’s understanding.
 
Notice the difference between these two examples of feedback:
 
“The opening activity had students really engaged!”
 
and
 
“Students gasped when the egg got sucked into the bottle. They said, “What?” and “How did that happen?”
 
Or these two:
 
“Some students were off-task.”
 
and
 
“In one of the small groups, two students watched while the other two did the activity.”
 
When statements are vague, it’s hard to know where to begin. If we can’t articulate the problem, we’ll probably have difficulty articulating solutions. But specificity sparks ideas – or at least questions that lead us to ideas. Now, we can wrap our heads around what the challenges are. Is it a planning issue? Is it a timing issue? Is it an ideas issue? Once we are specific, we are off and running!
 
Sometimes, a coach offers ambiguous feedback – maybe with an intention to cushion the message, offering information with what feels like sensitivity. However, we can deliver with care and clarity when we stick with specific facts, and avoid evaluation,
 
When a statement is vague, it’s hard to solve a problem or even to know what went right so that we can build on it. If a conversation is feeling really stuck, ask, “Have we described the situation in an ambiguous way?” and if so, ask, “How can we get more specific?” Instead of spinning in ambiguity, we can move forward through specificity.
 
 *https://brenebrown.com/articles/2018/10/15/clear-is-kind-unclear-is-unkind
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Slowing down the learning:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/slowing-down/
 
 
My guest blog post about breaking down coaching barriers:
 
https://www.schoolstatus.com/blog/breaking-down-the-coaching-barriers
 
 
Supporting inclusion through SpEd and GenEd teacher collaboration:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/inclusive-classroom-support-strategies-teacher-collaboration
 
 
Printables with ideas for bringing calm and helping students re-regulate: (scroll down to the gray posters). (The first menu can be saved as an A2-sized PDF or printed.) Lots of other helpful, free resources on this page!
 
https://revelationsineducation.com/free-lesson-plans/
 
 
Mixing poetry and non-fiction in writer’s notebooks (April is National Poetry Month!):
 
http://www.sharingournotebooks.amylv.com/2018/01/dina-bolan-think-tank-of-ideas.html
 
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: MAR2025 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!