Coaching Conversations: Who’s Talking?

“The one who does the talking does the learning” is an adage that is just as true for teachers as it is for students. But many coaching conversations tilt heavily toward the coach’s voice. It’s not hard to see why. Coaches are usually experienced, observant, and eager to help. When we notice something in a classroom, our instinct is to jump in with a suggestion.
 
But the more we talk, the less space teachers have to process, reflect, and ultimately own their instructional decisions.
 
The Cost of Over-Recommending
 
Recommending is an important coaching move. There are moments when teachers truly need a clear idea or next step. But when we over-rely on recommendations, we can unintentionally short-circuit teacher thinking. When we step in too quickly, we may solve the problem—but we also take away the teacher’s opportunity to wrestle with it. And there’s growth in the wrestle! It’s where judgment develops. It’s where ownership begins.
 
We can insert a pause point before speaking by asking ourselves, “Why do I want to make this recommendation?” This pause gives coaches the chance to respond, rather than react – to facilitate, rather than tell. If elevating teacher voice is the goal, one of the most powerful shifts we can make is: ask more, tell less.
 
Shifting the Coaching Conversation
 
This is what happened when Caroline and I were working on improving classroom discussions. When I observed in Caroline’s classroom, I noticed that Caroline was repeating nearly every student’s answer. Immediately, a recommendation sprang to mind: “Don’t repeat student answers.” But I stopped myself. I thought about how much capacity Caroline had shown recently; I thought about her developing self-awareness. I knew she didn’t really need my recommendation. Instead, she needed a nudge to do her own thinking. That nudge could come in the form of a question.
 
So I thought to myself, “Why do I want to make that recommendation?” Asking this question helped me get at the root of the issue and ask a question instead, to support and give direction to reflection.
 
I realized I wanted to recommend because, although Caroline was asking thought-provoking questions, the discussion remained a ping-pong conversation between Caroline and one, then another student. I knew Caroline’s students were ready to talk to each other, not just to her. So I asked, “What would have to change so that your students talked more to each other, and less to you, during whole-class discussions?”
 
Caroline began by mentioning something we’d talked about before – encouraging students to look at each other, rather than at her, when they answered a question. She wondered whether it was time to drop the habit she had of pulling sticks to see who to call on – was that constraining the conversation? I could see that she was mulling over recent class discussions as she talked. Her eyes had a reflective gaze as she revisited those conversations. Then suddenly her focus and her posture changed. She sat up straight, looked directly at me with wide eyes, and said, “I need to stop repeating students’ answers.”
 
Although it was affirming to me to have Caroline come to the recommendation I’d begun with, that wasn’t really the point. The other ideas she had suggested were equally important for her and her class. And the fact that Caroline had come to these ideas herself gave me confidence that she would be motivated to put them into practice. She knew what to do. It was in her head. My question simply started moving her thinking in that direction.
 
Questions as a Tool for Elevating Teacher Voice
 
What’s striking in this moment isn’t just that Caroline landed on a strong next step. It’s how she got there. The question didn’t lead her to one answer—it opened up a line of thinking. That’s the power of questions in coaching.
 
Well-placed questions:
*Shift cognitive load to the teacher
*Surface existing knowledge
*Create space for reflection and refinement
*Increase the likelihood of follow-through
 
Research reinforces the value of this approach: adults are more likely to implement ideas they generate themselves – not because they’re necessarily better ideas, but because they own the ideas. When we think about elevating teacher voice, it’s not just about airtime. It’s about agency.
 
Press Pause
 
The next time you’re in a coaching conversation and feel a recommendation coming on, press pause. Ask yourself if the recommendation is really needed. If a question could tap teacher’s knowledge reservoir to surface their own solution, don’t recommend – ask. Consider what question might move the teacher’s thinking forward. You might still end up making recommendations, but you’ll be offering them into a space where thinking has already begun – and where the ideas can be weighed, adapted, or displaced by something better. When the coach talks less, teachers think more. Elevating teacher voice makes room for teachers to do the kind of thinking that leads to meaningful improvement.
 
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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:

3 ways to help students manage emotions:
 
https://blog.heinemann.com/3-coping-skills-activities-to-help-kids-manage-emotions
 
 
Students with a sense of belonging perform better (and how to create it):
 
https://www.smartbrief.com/original/now-is-the-moment-to-build-belonging-at-school
 
 
Translanguaging helps students use their home language as a tool to acquire the academic and content vocabulary in English:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/making-space-students-home-languages-classroom
 
 
A podcast episode about cultivating STEM identity through creative problem-solving:
 
https://www.pebc.org/podcast/cultivating-stem-identity-with-creative-problem-solving-featuring-wendy-ward-hoffer/
 
 
Making time for students’ (actual!) voices during writing workshop:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/are-your-writers-talking-during-writing-workshop/
 
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!
 

Temperature Check: Making Coaching Recommendations

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!