Coaching from Comfort

As a coach, you know that not all teachers need or want recommendations, but for those who are looking for guidance, making recommendations fills an important role. By making recommendations, coaches encourage teachers and support ongoing improvement.
 
When conferring with a teacher who might benefit from your suggestions, it helps to frame the recommendation within a comfortable context. For example, when I was coaching Kate, an elementary teacher, building from her favorite content area (math) helped my recommendations feel comfortable.
 
 I’d been talking with Kate about writing conferences, but writing wasn’t Kate’s strong suit. Since she has a math brain and is a natural problem-solver, it helped when I began our conversation about writing conferences by thinking with her about how she provides feedback in math. “I love trying to figure out what they’re doing,” she said. “If the answer isn’t right, it’s like solving a puzzle to figure out what went wrong.”
 
“So think about using the same approach in a writing conference,” I said. “Just like when you’re scaffolding in math, you’ll have to first figure out where the writing process has broken down. Once you solve that puzzle, you can figure out the support that’s needed.”
 
I noted how the light went on in Kate’s eyes when I said the word “puzzle.” It was an aha moment for her. My recommendation helped her connect with successful past experiences. Couching the suggestion in a conversation about content that Kate was comfortable with made a difference.
 
When coaching Angela, a middle-school teacher, I started by acknowledging the powerful conversations she was having with students: her thoughtful attention to individuals, her calm and assuring presence and encouragement, and her recognition of students’ strengths. I labeled these individual interactions for her as “conferences,” a term that was new to her. Initially, we talked about structuring those conferences for increased impact. I built on what she was already comfortable with before making suggestions that were a bit more outside of her comfort zone.
 
Making suggestions as part of a collegial conversation, with a comfortable context, a casual tone, and a chance for dialogue, increases the likelihood that recommendations will be used, moving the teacher’s learning forward.
 
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Did you know My Coaches Couch is also a podcast? Find it in your favorite podcast app or at MyCoachesCouch.podbean.com  This week's episode offers a magic coaching question!
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This week, you might want to take a look at:

Learning walks with teachers as a coaching practice:

https://ashleytaplin.com/2021/09/17/instructional-scouting-a-new-practice-for-learning-walks/

 

This learning/PD/collaboration tool – Box It Out:

https://www.thecoachingsketchnotebook.com/2021/09/a-new-tool-for-pd-box-it-out.html

This post is about more than classroom management; consider how the conversation with teachers was facilitated (they include their agenda at the end):

https://choiceliteracy.com/article/new-teacher-conversations-management-stories-from-the-classroom/

 

Picture books to encourage writers:

https://www.edutopia.org/article/using-picture-books-encourage-student-writers

Physical activity boosts test scores:

 

https://www.the74million.org/article/jumping-jacks-lunges-and-squats-and-better-test-scores/

 

That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!

Want more coaching tips? Check out my book, Differentxiated 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: FDNF25 for 15% 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!