It’s
the time of year when you may be wrapping up many of the coaching cycles that
have recently kept you busy. You’ve been
working closely with teachers – one-on-one or in PLCs. You’ve been working together on new teaching
practices, and at this point teachers have made these practices their own. It is time for your swan song – that last
refrain in the coaching cycle, the finale that shows teachers you have full
confidence in their new-found abilities.
Of course you’ll continue working with these teachers as colleagues and
collaborators, and you may even begin new coaching cycles with them, working on
new skills. But now is the time for you
and for them to recognize the benefits that have been hard-won, to bask in the
glow of a job well done. Praise can be the beneficial finale to the coaching cycle. In fact, when you see that praising is your dominant coaching move, that is your cue to drop the curtain on the coaching cycle. Specific, personalized praise is an authentic coaching response when teachers are making sound instructional decisions. Coaches can provide praise that applauds knowledge, commends practice, and acknowledges teachers’ effective instructional decision-making. Praising teachers confirms the non-threatening role of a coach. This acknowledgment bolsters confidence and contributes to the teacher’s future development.
Offering warranted praise helps teachers see themselves as competent instructors. When coaches offer praise to their teaching colleagues, they acknowledge that the teachers have successfully taken on the responsibility of providing instruction tailored to meet the unique needs of their students. The goal for coaches is to work themselves out of a job – at least with that particular teacher or team on that particular skill. But don’t worry: even if effusive praise is signaling that you’ve reached the end of a coaching cycle, there will always be new teachers or new practices to be worked on. Educators have the goal of continuous improvement, meaning that this swan song will surely not be your last!
This
week, you might want to take a look at resources for reading and
end-of-the-year projects:
A
video with Patrick Allen and his students using comprehension strategies with
non-fiction:
Read alouds
of Mem Fox’s books – by the author herself!
A video about using
stickies (my favorite!) to prepare for text discussions:
End-of-Year
Projects (ideas to pass on to teachers now!):
That’s
it for this week. Happy Coaching!
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