Saturday, March 23, 2024

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!
---------------------------------
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
 
 

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Talk is Not Collaborating

Musical augmentation changes a melody by increasing the value of each note. Lengthening the notes opens the music to “add dignity and impressiveness.” Augmentation creates a sense of majesty or expansion. Collaboration, like musical augmentation, can increase the value of each contribution and expand ideas.
 
Coaches are not always collaborators. At times, they best serve as mirrors or sounding boards. But it’s important to understand elements of collaboration for those times when you do act as a collaborative partner and for when you support the collaboration of others.
 
What is Collaboration?
 
Collaboration is pushing an idea forward together. Collaborative conversations connect thoughts and build momentum. We take an idea and jointly make it better. Collaboration is a collective discussion about how to do something. It’s a lot of back and forth. We pull each other up. We talk with each other, not at each other.
 
Collaboration is not like an ineffective turn-and-talk, with each saying their own piece and then it’s done. It’s not like toddler play, with two-year-olds side-by-side narrating their own Duplex constructions. It’s more like preschool sociodramatic play: “Okay, I’ll be the mom and you play sister, and we’re going to the store.” When we collaborate, we’re in the adventure together.
 
How Can Coaches Create Collaboration?
 
Time and expectations help collaborative relationships form. To support collaboration, we can:
 
·       Promote a spirit of inquiry
·       Prioritize pausing (before and after comments)
·       Paraphrase what we are hearing
·       Ask for clarification
·       Share ideas as possibilities rather than answers
·       Assume that everyone is bringing their best self
 
We can keep conversations on target. If an unhealthy culture of complaining exists, we can listen for a potentially-solvable problem. We can create flexible agendas. We can listen with openness. Whether it’s just you and one other teacher or you’re working with a whole team, these practices help to create collaborative relationships.
 
Once collaborative relationships and norms have been built, collaboration can happen anywhere, anytime, in the nooks and crannies of the school day and also in the scheduled, focused times we have together.
 
Collaboration is More Than Talking
 
Collaboration is a think tank. It is productive talk where the sum is more than the pieces. It’s hard to say where one person’s idea ends and another’s begins. The ideas are our ideas. As we process together, our goal is not just to fill in a lesson template. We combine our experience, knowledge, skills, and strategies, back and forth, back and forth, to think through all the pieces, consider research and resources, and be open to different options. We discuss thoroughly and create potential plans and solutions.
 
Collaboration might be embedded in our coaching work with individual teachers and teams. It might also be the eventual goal of our coaching work – to create interdependence, as illustrated in the GIR model (below). Like musical augmentation, collaboration can increase the value of each individual note, creating a satisfying expansion as the finale of a coaching cycle.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

This video on helping students create ABC priority lists:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/video/developing-executive-function-priority-lists/
 
 
Helping students build their own stories of perseverance:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/everybody-wants-to-be-a-hero-and-needs-a-guide/
 
Ideas for coaxing poems (April is National Poetry Month!):
 
http://www.poemfarm.amylv.com/search/label/Coaxing%20Poems
 
 
Teach thinking by supporting noticings:
 
https://tomakeaprairie.wordpress.com/2017/09/14/thinking-about-thinking-the-power-of-noticing/
 
 
Ideas for better partner and small group conversations:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juR87aAg4vM
 
That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!
 
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
---------------------------------
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!

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Coaching for Teacher Creativity

“I took out the earbuds, and I started having ideas again!”
 
When I read that sentence, it hit me with force. I’ve become a bit of a podcast junky, and I often listen to articles and audio books as I get other things done. I realized my mind was usually crowded with other people’s ideas, leaving little space for my own. I started wondering whether that was also true for the teachers I coached. Were other people’s ideas – in the form of curricula, TPT, and even my own recommendations to them – smothering their own creativity?
 
Creativity is a teacher attribute worth nurturing. So I’ve decided to brainstorm with teachers before we open the teacher’s guide, not after. We’ll play with a blank page before we search online for a template. We’ll consult the literature to confirm our hunches about best practice. We’ll envision the students’ faces in our minds and think about their needs. We’ll play through a potential plan in our heads, imagining how students will respond at each turn. We’ll figure out a fun, new way rather than revising an old plan. It sounds refreshing! It sounds like spring!
 
To coach for creativity, we can:
 
·       Begin by promoting presence (take a deep breath, play Jenga for 5 minutes)
·       Ask “Why?” and also “Why not?”
·       Consider a situation from multiple perspectives
·       Expect surprises
·       Display art
·       Challenge a belief
·       Go outside
·       Catch a fleeting thought
·       Stand up. Move.
·       Ask the teacher to sketch a situation
·       Detach from our own opinions
·       Generate as many ideas as possible before settling  

Get creative! See how many other ideas you can come up with for supporting teachers’ creativity!
 
Unfortunately, teachers frequently experience stress, isolation, challenges, discouragement, and stagnation. As an antidote, research suggests that creativity relieves stress, encourages teamwork, supports problem solving, boosts morale, and can drive personal development.
 
With all this creating, of course, there will be failures. But we’ll fail in increasingly interesting ways! The benefits of coaching for creativity are too good to miss!
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
March madness in the classroom:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/march-madness-meets-ap-lit-brian-sztabnik
 
 
Drop in visits for coaching connections:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/coaching-connections-drop-in-visits/
 
 
Get ready for National Poetry Month in April with these recommendation of novels in verse:
 
https://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/2023/12/30/the-2023-nerdies-poetry-and-novels-in-verse-announced-by-donalyn-miller/
 
 
Picture book biographies with older students in mind (introduce scientists, artists, and historical figures in a friendly way!):
 
https://www.middleweb.com/36313/picture-book-biographies-for-the-middle-grades/
 
 
Strategies to calm young brains (that work for old brains, too!):
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/7-ways-calm-young-brain-trauma-lori-desautels
 
That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!
 
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
---------------------------------
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!
 

Saturday, March 2, 2024

Champion in a Division of One

This week, I listened to an episode* where the podcasters described the experiences of their daughter Lily, a teenager with Down Syndrome, who won two gold medals recently at their state swim meet. Even though she was the last one still in the water in both of her heats, when it came time to announce the medals, they found out that Lily was in her own division – and she won first place both times. They described Lily’s joy as she stood in the top spot on the podium and waved, Olympic style, at the cheering crowd. Even though she was competing only against herself in the state meet, Lily had worked hard all season for those gold medals. She’d consistently shaved time off her finishes, and that day, both times were personal records.
 
As instructional coaches, we can make sure each teacher we work with sees herself in a “division of one.” Her challenges and goals are unique to her situation. She will have daily wins (and occasional setbacks) as she moves toward her goal in her own way, By the end of the coaching cycle, hopefully she’ll experience a PR in the goal that she’s set.
 
For example, Sarah’s goal was to improve whole-group discussion. During a read-aloud lesson, she focused on asking text-dependent questions throughout the book. For another lesson, she wrote out a few questions in advance, using a “Depth of Knowledge” chart to craft meaningful open-ended questions. In later lessons, she focused on wait time and making sure many students had the opportunity to respond (not the same fallback students who she could always count on to answer). The lesson that the coach observed near the end of their coaching cycle was a PR for the teacher, who felt confident about facilitating meaningful whole-class discussion.
 
Imagine the power of each teacher you work with becoming a champion in a division of one!  Imagine if they pass this mindset along to their students!  Imagine that you, too, see yourself in a division of one as you improve your own coaching skills. Hopefully having this mindset will help you, and those you serve, make meaningful progress.
 
* https://www.theawesomefactory.nyc/podcasts/what-could-go-right

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

Harness the power of self-directed learning:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/hanging-out-messing-around-geeking-out-or-how-to-give-students-the-resources-space-and-time-for-self-directed-literacy-learning/
 
Arts vs. crafts:
 
https://www.preschool-plan-it.com/arts-vs-crafts.html
 
 
What is number sense and why is it important:
 
https://players.brightcove.net/1740322051001/default_default/index.html?videoId=5724225624001
 
 
Teaching is a creative profession. Here are 10 ways to boost creativity:
 
https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/boosting-your-creativity-10-great-ways.html
 
 
Teacher well-being podcast:
 
https://www.selfcareforteachers.com.au/podcast/
 
That’s it for this week - Happy Coaching!
 
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
---------------------------------
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!

 

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

Friday, February 23, 2024

Pain Points and Praise Points as Possibilities for Instructional Coaching

Pain Points
 
On a recent hike, I felt a pain in my heel each time I stepped forward. I was with a group and didn’t want to step off the trail, so for a while, I just kept going. But the pain was persistent and worsening, so I eventually stopped, sat on a rock, and took off my shoe to investigate. Unsurprisingly, there was a tiny thorn in my shoe. When I dumped my shoe and put it back on, there was no more stabbing in my heel.
 
Like finding the thorn in my shoe, getting to the root of a teaching pain point can offer relief. It can also be a springboard for growth. Pain is an opportunity to assess our current status and our potential for growth. It can be a catalyst for change. Coaches can help teachers take the time to acknowledge pain points, analyze them, figure out where the pain is coming from, and find solutions.
 
Getting at the root cause of a problem makes us wiser and more able to navigate future difficulties. Oftentimes, when we dive deep, we find a surprising undercurrent that leads to insight. I’ve lost track of the number of times a painful classroom management event led to coaching opportunities. At the root, we discovered lack of student engagement, so we planned opportunities for more-meaningful instruction: collaboration, discussion, hands-on activities, etc.
 
If we panic and run around trying to put out fires (addressing the symptom rather than the cause), the problem persists. But challenges, when examined, can sharpen knowledge, performance, and the future ability to address difficult situations. Out of struggle we can forge strength. Pain can be a path to progress. We’ve all experienced growing pain.
 
Praise Points
 
Thankfully, pain is not the only path toward growth! Praise can also foster progress. By offering praise, coaches utilize a strengths-based approach.
 
“Praise is like sunlight to warm the human spirit: we cannot flower and grow without it,” said psychologist Jess Lair.
 
Specific praise reinforces the use of effective teaching strategies. A teacher who hears, “The way you focused students on the learning objective and included self-assessment was outstanding!” is likely to intentionally include these practices as an ongoing part of his instruction.
 
When coaches praise, they shine a spotlight on things teachers do well, building their confidence and encouraging more of the same. What gets praised gets carried on. A coach I was talking with commented, “Praise gave her the recognition she needed to know what to continue.” Specific praise helps teachers determine what to hang on to. What we appreciate increases!
 
Specific, authentic praise also creates positive energy, broadens thinking, expands awareness, builds resilience, and bolsters self-efficacy. Self-efficacy supports resourceful problem-solving as teachers look for creative solutions to help students grow. As one teacher explained, “Praise gets me searching for new and innovative things on my own.” 
 
Pain Points and Praise Points

When coaches dig deep with teachers to get at the root of challenging situations, they foster ongoing growth. It seems ironic, but shining a light on successes can do the same. Being attuned to a teacher’s experiences, noticing how she responds to the experiences, and reflecting on your past successes with that teacher will help you navigate the path forward.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Opening and closing routines:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/14-effective-opening-and-closing-routines-for-teachers/
 
What neuroscience does (and does not) tell us about teaching reading:
 
https://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/what-does-brain-science-have-to-say-about-teaching-reading-does-it-matter
 
 
Making turn-and-talk more effective:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/turn-and-talk-then-what/
 
 
The Collective Efficacy Cycle for teacher PD:
 
https://www.k12dive.com/spons/the-5-steps-of-a-collective-efficacy-cycle/650710/
 
 
Who are the quiet powerhouses in your classroom? Check out this Ted talk about the power of introverts for ideas:
 
https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts
 
 
That’s it for this week – Happy Coaching!
 
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
---------------------------------
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: FEB2024 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!





Saturday, February 17, 2024

Why Modeling Works in Instructional Coaching

Modeling is a differentiated coaching activity, often focused on working with individual teachers to address their specific goals and needs. In addition to demonstrating potential practices, modeling creates opportunities to evaluate and talk about instruction in a non-threatening situation. Modeling provides content for teacher-coach conversations and can generate other coaching activities. Modeling can also build teachers’ confidence and efficacy. Since the end goal of coaching is to improve students’ learning, it’s important to note that research demonstrates coaches’ modeling can improve student achievement. When you stop and think about al these benefits, it’s easy to see why modeling is a popular coaching activity!
 
When coaches model in another teacher’s classroom, they make themselves vulnerable. They show that they are risk-takers, just like they hope the teachers they are working with will be. Vulnerability strengthens relationships. Risk-taking invites change. Another benefit of modeling, when it happens in the teacher’s own classroom, is that the teacher sees that the practices she observed (hopefully!) were worthwhile for her students. There is no gap to be overcome in translating the practices, and thoughts that “this wouldn’t work for my kids” are avoided.
 
Being an observer gives teachers a valuable new perspective. Observation supports inquiry and provides opportunities to further-develop teaching craft. When observing, teachers are freed from the ongoing, intensive brainwork of on-the-spot decision-making. As an observer, they don’t have to worry about what the student on the other side of the room is doing or get materials ready for what will come next in the lesson. They can give their energy to watching and listening. They get to decide what they will pay attention to and when.
 
When teachers are learning new instructional practices, they may request that a coach model these practices. For example, a teacher concerned about implementing close reading asked her coach to model. Modeling in the classroom allowed the teacher to see a close reading activity in action with her own students. This authentic situation illustrated the nuances of close reading, allowing the teacher the freedom to consider both teacher and student responses in a way that would have been difficult had she been doing the teaching.
 
As learners, teachers aren’t so different from the students they work with. Everyone benefits from a good model!
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:
This podcast episode on forming better habits:
 
https://simonsinek.com/podcast/episodes/atomic-habits-with-author-james-clear/
 
Transcripts as a coaching tool:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/transcripts-to-study-practice/
 
 
Research skills for 1st graders:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-research-skills-first-grade/
 
 
The knowing-doing gap as it applies to teacher change:
 
https://snacks.pepsmccrea.com/p/the-knowing-doing-gap
 
 
“Concept attainment” is a widely-applicable instructional strategy. Check out a description and example here:
 
https://www.middleweb.com/33825/why-i-love-this-strategy-to-introduce-concepts/
 
 
That’s it for this week – Happy Coaching!
 
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
---------------------------------
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: FEB2024 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!


Saturday, February 3, 2024

Floor and Ceiling Goals

It’s February now, and already our good intentions for the new year may be losing their sheen as the day-to-day craziness wears us down. Instead of giving up altogether, we can maintain momentum by having “floor goals” as well as the “ceiling goals” we more typically set. Having both a target and a lower limit provides a framework for consistency.
 
For example, in my overarching goal to be more fit, my personal (admittedly puny) floor goal is to do a minimum of 80 sit-ups and 24 lifts with light weights each day. This floor goal takes mere minutes and the sit-ups have been part of my daily routine for years, so it’s not much of a stretch to ensure that I get this done. My ceiling goal is to include daily aerobic exercise, too. But on days when I lack time, energy, or enthusiasm, having an achievable minimum means I’m going to do at least something. If consistency is a key to goal attainment (and it is!), my floor goal keeps me moving in the right direction. Here are some varied examples of floor goals:

·       Write 50 words per day

·       Say one compliment

·       Eat a serving of fresh vegetables

·       Tidy one drawer

Floor goals would not get you where you want to go in a hurry, but that’s not the point. They give you a daily range that allows you to hold yourself accountable, even on crisis days when you can’t pour much energy into your goal. Even if I forget about my 80-sit-up, 24-lift goal until the end of the day, I can still pull it off.
 
I’m sure your mind is already whirring with how the floor and ceiling principle could apply in instructional coaching. In addition to having their own coaching goals, Instructional coaches support teachers in achieving goals for themselves and their students.
 
A “floor” coaching goal might be doing walk-throughs in four classrooms (in the service of increasing the number of teachers you serve). It might mean leaving one positive note in a teacher’s box each day, supporting your goal of relationship-building. It could be reading 5 pages (or 1!) in a professional book. Floor goals are baby steps forward.
 
If you share the concept of floor and ceiling goals with teachers, they might lean into ideas like these:

·       Ask at least one open-ended question each class period, every day. This floor goal could support a long-term goal of developing rich classroom discussions.

·       Include at least two opportunities for partner talk, in service of a ceiling goal of regular student collaboration.

·       Comment on at least two students who are making good behavior choices, while reaching toward the goal of a well-managed classroom. 

For students, floor goals might be reading for at least 10 minutes at home, going through their multiplication flashcards once, or making sure their planner is in their backpack before heading home. Checking the box for the least we can do makes us less likely to give up all together.
 
This little mental shift of having a floor goal has made a big difference for me. My ceiling goals are the pinnacle of what I want to achieve, Many days, I can pour energy into them. But some days, they just feel too big. Having a range for achieving goals can keep students, teachers, and coaches moving forward.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Transcripts as a coaching tool:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/transcripts-to-study-practice/
 
The knowing-doing gap as it applies to teacher change:
 
https://snacks.pepsmccrea.com/p/the-knowing-doing-gap
 
 
This podcast episode on forming better habits:
 
https://simonsinek.com/podcast/episodes/atomic-habits-with-author-james-clear/
 
 
Research skills for 1st graders:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-research-skills-first-grade/
 
 
Seeing the world through a child’s eyes (so much to explore here!):
 
https://www.understood.org/en/tools/through-your-childs-eyes
 
That’s it for this week – Happy Coaching!
 
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
---------------------------------
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: FEB2024 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!