How to Coach Novice Teachers

In last week’s post, I talked about how to coach veteran teachers, which is usually a more vexing topic for coaches than the one we’re tackling here: How to coach novice teachers. Supporting novice teachers is important, both for them and for their students. As coaches, we can help to fill in the gap between what early-career teachers may be able to do and what students need. There is a steep learning curve for novice teachers – even those who have been well-prepared in traditional teacher-education programs. The reality of having full-responsibility for a classroom doesn’t hit home until you’re really in it.
 
Surprisingly, studies show that novices learn more from their successes than from their mistakes – making it even more important for their teaching experiences to be positive ones.
 
This triplet of verbs offers a template for supporting early-career teachers: Coaches help novice teachers know, grow, and show.*
 
Modeling to Support Knowing
 
Coaches help novice teachers know in many ways. When we model, teachers see things they’ve read and heard about in action. A key to modelling for early-career teachers is the before-observation conference. Because there is so much going on during any lesson, narrowing the focus is important.
 
A narrow focus also keeps the novice teacher engaged. Because they may be feeling overwhelmed with the teaching load, a novice teacher may take the opportunity when someone else is teaching their class to catch up on email or grading. While this reduces their burden, it doesn’t give them more pedagogical knowledge.
 
Selecting a specific focus beforehand with the teacher, so that he has something to watch for during modeling, provides a target for his attention. Tell the teacher what you are wondering about. Will students grasp the concepts as intended?  Will they have success with the mini-steps leading up to that concept? Will they find the work interesting? Share your wonderings and encourage the teacher to share his. If the teacher doesn’t initially identify his own focus or objective, I sometimes provide several broad possibilities related to what we’ve been thinking about together. Observing with a specific focus can help novice teachers increase what they know.
 
Recommending to Support Knowing
 
Early-career teachers are often requesting or at least open to recommendations. The key here is not to over-recommend. I learned this the hard way when coaching Kyra, a novice kindergarten teacher. She wanted richer and more authentic experiences to develop her students’ phonemic awareness skills. Well, she had asked just the right person! I love teaching phonemic awareness and shared lots of good ideas for authentic activities – lots and lots and lots (and lots). Even though it’s been a long time since this conversation, I still remember the deer-in-the-headlights look in Kyra’s eyes after my recommendations.
 
There’s a limit to how much anyone can take in and try at any one time, so be sure to limit recommendations to just one or two. Our care in making recommendations determines whether those suggestions feel like weight or wings.   
 
Asking Questions to Support Growing
 
As early-career teachers gain additional working knowledge, they need fewer recommendations and are ready to grow through thinking deeply about questions of pedagogy.
 
If we have observed a lesson in a novice teacher’s classroom, it may be easy to jump to judgment. But feeling judged siphons a teachers’ energy into defensiveness and self-protection. So, as we plan for debrief conversations, it’s helpful to step away from any judgments we may have made and instead ask questions that help us to understand the teacher’s thinking.  Looking back at our concerns and turning each into a question can help the teacher figure out where she wants to turn her attention. Restraining judgment and, instead, asking questions encourages the teachers we are working with to take a more active role during debrief conversations.

Here are a few general questions to guide reflection after teaching:

·       What did you notice…?
·       When were students most engaged?
·       What stands out in students’ work?
·       What are your hunches about what may have caused…?
·       What insights can you take from this?
·       What do you want to stay mindful of as you’re planning?

Of course, follow-up questions more specific to the lesson content and context will be helpful.
 
Affirming and Praising to Support Showing
 
When we affirm and praise, we choose what to nurture. For example, Sydni was a first-grade teacher who listened carefully to student responses and used those responses to build students’ understanding. When I mentioned this to Sydni, she smiled shyly and was humbly pleased, but surprised! My comments affirmed something she was doing but unaware of. By shining a spotlight on things novice teachers do well, we build their confidence and encourage more of the same.
 
Teachers may not be aware of their own strengths. This can happen because of an inclination to focus on what isn’t working. Coaches, too, have this tendency because our work is focused on improvement. But focusing on weaknesses is relatively ineffective. Instead, we can look with kind eyes for positive features to affirm. As you find practices to celebrate and discuss them with novice teachers, your affirmations can help them reframe their own experiences in a more positive light. They can press into their strengths. The energy novice teachers gain from affirmations and praise helps them move forward productively.
 
Coaches support novice teachers to increase what they know, stretch their understanding, and show instructional improvement.
 
*I am borrowing these verbs from Susan H. Porter, who used them in a spiritual context.

This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
Strategies to reduce student procrastination:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/supporting-students-not-track-pass
 
 
Enhancing critical reading skills:
 
https://www.middleweb.com/50526/5-questions-to-help-kids-become-critical-readers/
 
 
Lesson idea for poems about objects (National Poetry Month continues!):
 
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/color-silence-sensory-imagery-1104.html?tab=4#tabs
 
 
DIY place-value cups (I love these manipulatives!):
 
http://suedowning.blogspot.com/2012/08/place-value-cups.html
 
 
I’ve always thought we should have mentors, not just mentor texts, for our writing, and this post gives some great suggestions for making that happen:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/mentors-for-process-and-habits/
 
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! TODAY you can still use the code: APR2024 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!
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Here are a few general questions to guide reflection after teaching:

How to Coach a Veteran Teacher

In my first year as an instructional coach, I remember my anxiety about working with two veteran teachers. Both had taught for many more years than I had. One was confident and competent, with peers looking to her for advice. The other was referred to me by the principal, who felt that significant improvement in her instruction was needed. Although these two teachers spanned the spectrum of instructional expertise, they had something in common: Both needed their experience to be validated and built upon during our coaching cycles.
 
For Karen, the confident teacher, I affirmed the assets she brought to the table. Coaching gave her the chance to deepen already-strong practices.  Even exceptional teachers profit from working with a coach. Teaching is hard work, and we all need both celebrations and support. So time spent working with master teachers is worthwhile.
 
Judy, the teacher I was assigned to coach, pinpointed a focus for our work that was focused on students’ needs. She said their reading fluency was poor. As we focused on improving fluency, opportunities to strengthen instructional practices became a natural part of our work. The focus on students created a safe space for coaching this veteran teacher.
 
5 Coaching Moves
 
What coaching moves do you use with experienced teachers? The GIR Model for instructional coaching includes five coaching moves (from most- to least-supportive scaffold): Modeling, Recommending, Asking Questions, Affirming, and Praising. As you consider these five coaching moves, you will choose approaches tailored to a teacher’s current needs. Even an experienced teacher may need high levels of support when implementing a new teaching innovation.
 
Modeling
 
Karen, the master teacher I worked with, said that “the great thing” about coaching is “you have someone who can come and model lessons.” An elementary school teacher has to be jack-of-all-trades. Karen was an amazing, passionate history teacher, but when it came to reading comprehension, her approach needed updating. Karen appreciated the chance to see strategy instruction in action when I taught a lesson in her classroom. For Judy, I often modeled instructional decision-making by thinking aloud about the factors under consideration as we planned lessons together.
 
Even very experienced teachers may benefit from modeling. A new technology application could be demonstrated, or an approach to formative assessment might be modeled if that is the focus area for a coaching cycle. A coach who was working with an experienced teacher on whole-group discussion said, “She really didn’t need the modeling, or the recommending, either. I jumped right in with questioning. That helped support her thinking and reflection.”  But later, when the same teacher was working on differentiation – a complex teaching skill – modeling was included before moving to less-supportive coaching approaches.
 
Recommending
 
Even veteran teachers confront new experiences and expectations, and they sometimes have challenges that making recommendations welcome. Teachers are often receptive to new ideas when they are unfamiliar with a topic, skill, or strategy, or when they are feeling overwhelmed or frustrated.
 
Angela, an experienced teacher whose wisdom I valued, came to me frustrated about the schoolwide use of clip-up, clip-down behavior charts. She had been using this approach for years, but felt there might be a better way. I was careful in my coaching, being sure to:
 
Value the teacher. I assured Angela that I valued her as a professional and affirmed specific things she was doing right.
Have positive assumptions about her desire to improve.
Create safety. When Angela blamed the district and her teacher preparation for the strategies she was using, I didn’t counter her. She needed to deflect blame before she could safely explore her own practices.
Validate concerns. Instead of pointing a finger back to her, I validated her concern about not knowing other management strategies.
Reinforce best practice. I quickly summarized research about effective classroom management.
Connect with present practice. When I said, “There are some kids who need something more tangible” I was, in essence, saying, “You are doing something right with this clip-chart practice.” I was trying to build a bridge between current and hoped-for practices.
Use restraint! Some recommendations are best left for later. I didn’t spill out all the suggestions that were racing through my mind, but I did make a mental note of one that would be useful for later.
Recognize complexity. I acknowledged there was no quick fix – true for every classroom question.
 
This wise, veteran teacher was open to recommendations, and I made them while acknowledging her own experience and expertise.
 
Asking Questions
 
Asking questions is a powerful coaching tool for gathering information, engaging others in discussion, clarifying perspectives, and facilitating self-discovery and self-direction. By asking questions, coaches encourage the experienced teachers they are working with to flesh out their own objectives and search for answers.
 
When I met with Anna, an experienced special education teacher, I began the coaching conversation by asking a broad question: “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 constructing this situation.
 
Broad questions like “What’s on your mind?” can get a conversation rolling. More specific questions can both broaden and deepen thinking to move the work along. For example, the question, “What misconceptions might students have about this topic?” invites the teacher to consider students’ background knowledge and experience in a generative way. The question, “Are there students who aren’t making the progress you’d like to see?” asks the teacher to consider formative data and specific students. Specific questions like these invite experienced teachers to draw on their own knowledge.
 
Affirming and Praising
 
Affirmations and praise sound the same – it’s the stance of the teacher that differs. An affirmation is like a nod when the teacher wonders if she’s headed in the right direction. Praise comes unlooked-for; specific, authentic praise is often warranted and well-received by experienced teachers.
 
Coaches can assist experienced teachers by confirming what is working in their classrooms and by verifying the potential of innovative practices they’re ready to try. Encouraging veteran teachers to share their insights with others is another way to affirm. These affirming practices recognize the assets that experienced teachers bring to the table and encourage continuous improvement. Sometimes that’s all they need from a coach.
 
Lifelong Learners

 
As models for their students, most teachers want to be lifelong learners seeking continuous improvement, and coaches can play a supportive role. Effective coaches adjust their approach as they work with veteran teachers. The five coaching moves of the GIR Mode. can be used intentionally and flexibly in response to the needs of the teachers they are working with. 

 
As coaches, we also strive to be lifelong learners. We can learn as we watch and listen to veteran teachers, gleaning from their experience and wisdom. We also grow as we strengthen our coaching practice, differentiating our coaching approach to align with the needs of both novice and veteran teachers.

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

National Letter Writing Month ideas for young writers:
 
https://www.lwtears.com/blog/celebrate-magic-letters-national-letter-writing-day#
 
 
6 Flaws of PD (and how to fix them):
 
http://www.gettingsmart.com/2018/02/the-six-flaws-of-traditional-professional-development/
 
 
Writing a scientific explanation:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOnYkc2ncsk
 
 
“Say Something” activity boosts reading comprehension:
 
https://www.middleweb.com/50604/use-say-something-to-boost-reader-response/
 
 
It’s still Poetry Month! Fusing poetry and content with apostrophe poems.  Here are some ideas:
 
https://www.saraholbrook.com/2014/08/11/fear-courage-and-poetry/
 
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! TODAY you can still use the code: APR2024 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!
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Was this helpful?  Please share!
Want to know about new posts? Click “Follow” (bottom right)
Follow on Instagram @Vicki_Collet_Educator, on Facebook at: facebook.com/mycoachescouch and Twitter @vscollet for more coaching and teaching tips!  You can also find me at VickiCollet.com

Remembering or Reflecting?

Supporting reflection is one of the most impactful instructional coaching practices. In their busy days, with their many roles and responsibilities, teachers benefit from time specifically set aside for reflection.
 
To make the most of reflective conversations, it’s helpful to have a clear understanding of what reflection is. I like this equation:
 
Reflecting = Remembering + Learning
 
Remembering is pulling something out of memory. Reminiscing is nostalgic recollection – it is thinking back. Reflection is purposeful recalling – it is thinking forward. Reflection supports action: How will teachers plan, prepare, and enact instruction differently next time because of what they noticed about last time?
 
Time for such consideration is an important element provided by a coaching conversation. Coaches can further support reflection through asking questions, offering objective observations, and modeling a reflective stance.
 
Asking Questions to Support Reflection
 
After a lesson, using questions intentionally can give the teacher opportunities to gain her own insights through reflection. Questions can guide reflection on fleeting thoughts from a lesson.
 
Reflection-supporting questions can begin broad:
 
What stands out for you from that lesson?
What did you notice?
What do you want to celebrate?
 
Then they can get narrower:
What stands out for you about their partner talk?
What did you notice about students’ responses to the read-aloud?
Were there times during the lesson when students seemed disengaged?
 
When a teacher expressed frustration during a coaching conversation saying, “They just don’t get it,” the coach followed up with the probing question of, “What are some examples of students’ confusion?” By asking this question, the coach moved the conversation in a productive direction. She encouraged a closer look at evidence that could pinpoint students’ confusions or misconceptions—information that was helpful as they considered plans for re-teaching.            
 
When supporting a teacher who was experienced in leading whole-group discussions, another coach posed the thought-provoking question: “How do you choose who to ask?” Her question prompted reflection on the part of the teacher – introspection that led her to refine this decision-making process that happens almost instantaneously.
 
Reflective questions lead to deeper, richer, and more thoughtful coaching conversations. Asking questions builds the teacher’s capacity as a reflective practitioner.
 
Offering Observations to Support Reflection
 
If a coach has had the opportunity to observe a lesson in a teacher’s classroom, she can support reflection by sharing snippets from her objective notes. This is especially helpful when the coach’s questions don’t initially evoke meaningful reflection.
 
The details matter, and careful notes can support productive reflection. Recording exact words and noticing actions and even facial expressions is revealing. For example, noticing the affective responses of students could give us clues about the fit between the lesson and students’ culture. Noting the “aha” expressions and the looks of confusion can give us a sense of whether the lesson is successfully building on students’ background knowledge. 
Pinning the reflective conference on observations that are objective and specific, rather than evaluative or general, is likely to reveal nuances of practice that enhance the learning experience.
 
Modelling Reflection
 
When coaches have the opportunity to teach a lesson, we can encourage the teacher to take objective notes that will offer insight later. A simple T-chart, with steps of the lesson listed on the left, and observations (what is seen and heard) added on the right during the lesson can be an effective structure to keep notes organized as the lesson moves quickly forward.
 
After the lesson, we can model reflection as we look back together. We can encourage the teacher to share her noticings. We can demonstrate how drawing on these details helps us revise our instructional plans so that things go better the next time. We can model the notion that being a good teacher is about being able to reflect and adjust. 
 
Teachers need to see how other teachers respond when things don’t go as planned. As we model a cycle of teaching, reflection, and revision, we can be open about perceived missteps, demonstrating that teaching requires us to be pliable, and that both successes and challenges offer insight to guide future instruction.
 
Questioning, Observing, and Modeling to Support Reflection
 
We all learn as we go by reflecting on successes and less-successful aspects of lessons. Through dialogue, coaches encourage flexible and appropriate use of teaching practices and improve the effectiveness of teachers’ reflection.
 
Coaches’ questions encourage teachers to reflect on students’ needs and how their practice is supporting those needs, to analyze their own assumptions about learning, and to consider options for how to move forward. Objective observations add details that enrich reflection. When coaches model reflection on a lesson they’ve taught, teachers can hone a vision for their own reflective practice.
Reflecting together helps teachers recognize not just what they did, but why they did it. Looking at underlying assumptions and beliefs makes teachers more intentional in their future decision-making. Reflection maximizes the construction of meaning and is a critical step for improving instruction.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

30 ways to celebrate national poetry month (April!):
 
https://www.poets.org/national-poetry-month/30-ways-celebrate-national-poetry-month
 
My guest blog post about coaching reluctant teachers:
 
http://blog.teachboost.com/breaking-down-the-coaching-barriers
 
 
How self-monitoring and self-control relate to classroom management:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/an-identity-of-success/
 
 
Building students’ research skills:
 
https://www.middleweb.com/50515/taking-small-steps-to-build-research-skills/
 
 
Science experiments kids can do at school or at home:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MHn9Q5NtdY
 
 
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! TODAY you can still use the code: APR2024 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!
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Was this helpful?  Please share!
Want to know about new posts? Click “Follow” (bottom right)
Follow on Instagram @Vicki_Collet_Educator, on Facebook at: facebook.com/mycoachescouch and Twitter @vscollet for more coaching and teaching tips!  You can also find me at VickiCollet.com

Coaching in Complexity

Teaching and coaching are complex acts. That’s because our work is with humans, and each is unique. Some professionals work with computers or other equipment, which tend to respond in consistent and predictable ways. Humans, however, are inconsistent and unpredictable. We are spontaneous, whimsical, and variable. That makes teaching and coaching both joyful and challenging!

Adam Grant said, “The complexity of reality can seem like an inconvenient truth."* In teaching, the reality of teaching complexity may be masked by scripted curricula that expect uniformity. But the real work of teaching is seeing students one-by-one. That’s hard to do when they come 30 at a time, but possible, if teachers are open to the complexity.

The Complexity of Teaching
 

Teaching can be an enormously rewarding activity and an enormously challenging one. It can also be an activity that calls upon all of our mental faculties, an enormous intellectual experience. A high-school teacher may find their content mentally engaging; a kindergarten teacher may not be challenged by the simple mathematical knowledge his students are acquiring, but the pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge necessary for optimal learning are immense.

Teaching is a complex, contextualized activity requiring multi-factor decision-making. Planning an effective lesson requires understanding; adjusting that plan appropriately as the lesson unfolds requires insight and flexibility. Because Instruction and learning are complicated, it isn’t possible to have a pre-packaged description of how to respond in every situation. The nuances of moment-by-moment instructional decision-making offer opportunities to enact a vision for effective instruction.

Teaching is complex and messy because teachers and students are unique. There will never be a perfect lesson plan or a perfectly-taught lesson. Teaching is improvable, but not perfectible because classrooms are complex contexts. Improvement in the complicated work of student learning occurs only when teachers are empowered to discover and discern. Privileging examination of teachers’ own practice as a way to improve instruction values teachers and teaching and the work they do every day.

The Complexity of Coaching

Because classrooms and schools are complex, coaches can’t provide lessons that can be lifted and used “as is” in the classroom. They can’t provide one-size-fits-all solutions to gnarly problems. Instead, coaches provide guidance for developing best practices and for maintaining a stance of flexibility and responsiveness. Instructional coaching improves the complex and contextual work of teaching through sustained engagement that uses and grows insider expertise. Coaching provides a space for teachers to unpack experiences and think about both the observable and the inner work of teaching.

Coaching includes considerations about teaching, learning, relationships, and the change process. Successful coaches adjust based on the complexity and difficulty of the task, as well as teachers’ experience. The Gradual Increase of Responsibility (GIR) model, pictured below, provides a vision for differentiating coaching work. The GIR model is conceptually simple. In practice, however, each of the five coaching approaches is complex and nuanced.

When coaches model (the most supportive GIR coaching move), teachers observe real students in the complex chemistry of a classroom. They are freed from the ongoing, intensive brainwork of teaching and can give their energy to watching and listening. They can notice the nuances of student and teacher actions and interactions, allowing them the freedom to consider both teacher and student responses in a way that would have been difficult had they been the one teaching the lesson. Coaches and teachers dissect these intricacies together through conversations before and after the observation.

Whether it is the coach or the teacher who has taught a lesson, a post-observation conversation can be anchored in observations that are objective and specific, revealing nuances of practice that enhance teachers’ learning.

To promote learning, coaches model decision-making, elicit teachers’ thinking, encourage inquiry, guide teachers to focus on evidence of student learning, and support reflection. By bringing focus to complex, open-ended pedagogical issues, coaches position teachers to inquire and learn.

Because of the complexity of the learning process, teachers may benefit when coaches make specific recommendations about how instruction should change over time to support students’ development. Our precise questions can invite precise responses and express our genuine curiosity about the complexity of teaching.

Coaches also offer guidance through affirmation and praise. Practices that teachers know are working become polar stars to help them navigate the demands of their classrooms.

Growth, Not Perfection
 
As coaches and teachers unpack the complexities of instruction, Insight and power are gained by working together. We can adjust and apply what we learn about teaching and coaching in varied and unique situations. In complex, real-world circumstances, answers do not come neatly packaged; knowledge and skills are insufficient. When confronted with new challenges and contexts, insight guides effective response. This includes how we respond as coaches to our own complex work.

Recognizing complexity, we know there is no quick fix that is true for every classroom or coaching quandary. No one will every know all there is to know about either. No one will do it perfectly. But there’s some free-ness I knowing that you’ll never know it all, that you’ll never do it perfectly. We just jump in and give it our best go. And then we reflect and learn something from the experience, and maybe we’ll do it a little better the next time around – or maybe not. Because teaching and coaching are complex. No two days, no two students, no two teachers are ever the same. Hopefully, that variability will keep us coming back for more!  

*In Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
How poetry can build emotional intelligence (April is National Poetry Month!):

 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-poetry-supports-sel-elementary-school/


Having a tight focus (one or two school-wide initiatives) supports growth:
 
https://www.gettingsmart.com/2024/01/09/go-fast-to-go-slow-change-through-focus/


Teaching English vocabulary in context:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/learning-vocabulary-in-context-with-english-language-learners/


Vocabulary in science instruction:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seUEzVl0nYg


The importance of student reflection on writing:
 
http://www.middleweb.com/33170/why-student-reflection-should-never-be-skipped/

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! TODAY you can still use the code: MAR2024 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!
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Was this helpful?  Please share!
Want to know about new posts? Click “Follow” (bottom right)
Follow on Instagram @Vicki_Collet_Educator, on Facebook at: facebook.com/mycoachescouch and Twitter @vscollet for more coaching and teaching tips!  You can also find me at VickiCollet.com
 
 
 
 

Present But Not Predominant

It’s important for coaches to be fully present in coaching interactions, but we must take care not to be predominant. Predominant, according to Webster, means exerting the most-marked influence. Predominance means being the most important or leading factor. When a coach is predominant, she has an air of authority and exerts undue power over the teacher she is working with. A predominant coach is leading, in the sense that they are guiding someone to a predetermined location, maneuvering them to their own point of view.
 
Coaches can be a different, more effective kind of leader by being present. When coaches are present, they listen to understand. They don’t interrupt. They don’t start thinking about what they want to say while a teacher is talking – instead, they tune in completely to what the teacher is saying. They are listening to understand. When coaches are fully present, they put aside distracting thoughts and try to think about nothing other than the words that are coming out of the teacher’s mouth. They listen for the ideas that are wrapped up in those words, for the complete message that is being communicated.
 
If you want to be more fully present, practice deeply listening, noticing, feeling, and being open to the moment.  Do less multitasking. To be less distracted, you may need to deliberately slow down a frenetic pace, creating breathing space so that you can be aware and stay focused. As a coach, it can be hard to be fully present because of the many concerns swirling in your head. It may take a concerted effort to be present. Presence takes practice. To be present, we have to create breathing space so that we can be aware and find focus.
 
To be present during coaching means giving full attention to what is happening in the right now. When present, our brains focus on what is currently going on rather than thinking about what we will say or do later – the now instead of the next.
 
Being present during coaching means observing with clarity and from a place of positive assumptions and empathy. We can choose to perceive with openness and generosity. We are noticing teachers’ questions and quandaries. We also sense whether teachers are engaged in the conversation, and we make adjustments as needed. During classroom observations, we are tuned in to both teachers and students. We notice what we hear, see, and feel and what the teachers and students might be hearing, seeing, and feeling. If our minds wonder, we can pull ourselves back to the present by paying attention to the details from each of our senses.
 
Presence stems from full attention and flow of information. When we are present, our next right move will be responsive to others and to the situation. Predominance creates boundaries. But when coaches are present, boundaries collapse, creating opportunities for connection and growth.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Ideas to get students reading and writing poetry (April is National Poetry Month!):
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/three-ways-to-engage-your-students-in-reading-and-writing-poetry-this-spring/
 
 
7 Ways to support executive function in the classroom:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/7-ways-to-support-executive-function-in-your-classroom/
 
 
Taking small steps to continuous improvement:
 
https://jamesclear.com/continuous-improvement
 
 
Summarizing in science:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqKvLB2HOlU
 
 
What are trauma-informed practices?
 
https://www.turnaroundusa.org/video/edutopia-presents-how-learning-happens-getting-started-with-trauma-informed-practices/
 
 
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! TODAY you can still use the code: MAR2024 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!
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Was this helpful?  Please share!
Want to know about new posts? Click “Follow” (bottom right)
Follow on Instagram @Vicki_Collet_Educator, on Facebook at: facebook.com/mycoachescouch and Twitter @vscollet for more coaching and teaching tips!  You can also find me at VickiCollet.com