After making a recommendation, ask, “How does that sound to you?”
Making Recommendations
When teachers are coming up empty in their
search for a more effective approach, coaches’ recommendations can play a
helpful role. Recommending isn’t always the right move, but when a suggestion
is called for, coaches’ recommendations are a useful resource. Making
recommendations can appropriately scaffold teachers as they develop new
instructional strategies.
As coaches draw on their relevant
background knowledge and experience and review available data, including
classroom observations, they might advocate for particular choices and actions.
Recommendation can move the work forward when coaches offer relevant insight
while acknowledging that the teacher knows his students and their needs, The
teachers’ insights, gained from first-hand experience, will help the teacher
decides how to apply the craft. So, after making a recommendation, it’s helpful
to do a temperature check, asking something like:
* “How does that sound to you?”
* “What
do you think about this?”
* “What
might this look like in your classroom?”
* “What
about this seems important or interesting to you?”
* “How
might this work for you?”
* “How
might this work for your students?”
Increasing Ownership
Another benefit of doing a recommendation
temperature check is that it increases ownership in next steps, and ownership
increases motivation. Coaches can get involved in the details in appropriate
ways while keeping the ownership with the teacher.
Coaches can support the use of high-yield
strategies as they make recommendations that are tailored to the context and
owned by the teacher. Change is hard, and giving a teacher a recommendation is
a nudge that can move things along – as long as the teacher has taken ownership
for the work.
Improvement in the complicated work of
student learning occurs only when teachers are empowered to discover and
discern. Teachers’ commitment to learning and growth increases when their role
as professional decision-makers is honored.
Recommendations are valuable when they are
part of a two-way conversation. Listening to suggestions is a passive
experience: a monologue of
recommendations is unlikely to engender change. Instead, creating a dialogue about a strategy you’re
suggesting allows important learning to emerge. Asking questions about the
nuances of what you are suggesting helps the teacher think about possibilities.
Inviting her to weigh in increases the chance that there will be uptake – that
student outcomes will improve as a result of coaching recommendations.
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You can find
My Coaches Couch, the podcast (with different content) in your
favorite podcast app or at MyCoachesCouch.podbean.com.
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This
week, you might want to take a look at:
April is National Poetry month! Celebrate by including a poem about whatever content you're teaching. Here's a list of non-fiction poetry picture books where you might find just the right thing:
https://readingpowergear.wordpress.com/2016/04/12/nonfiction-picture-book-10-for-10-nonfiction-poetry/
Building
effective support systems for new teachers (hint: it includes coaches):
https://edsource.org/2026/supporting-new-teachers-retention/750763
Discussion
or Dialogue?
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/fostering-classroom-dialogue/
Contemporary
literature fosters literacy:
https://www.edutopia.org/article/jason-reynolds-young-readers
The
importance of positive feedback when coaching:
https://simplycoachingandteaching.com/blog/2018/08/28/2018-8-27-fostering-strong-relationships-through-positive-feedback/
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: APR2026 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!
