Coaching Great Teachers

The title of someone else’s blog post recently caught my attention:  “If You Thought I Was Perfect, You Weren’t Paying Attention.”  I thought of this sentiment in the context of coaching teachers who are already very good.  As it turns out, these very good teachers often seek out feedback that will make them even better – it’s probably that characteristic that made them so good in the first place.

So how do you coach a really good teacher?  A pre-observation conference is a good opportunity to have her tell you what she’s wondering about.  Then you can support her in an investigation.  What data should you each collect during the lesson?  Then ground your observations in specifics: what you see and hear.  Get right in the center of the learning.  Lean in to hear student conversations and student-teacher interactions.  Look closely at student work.  What does that work tell you about student understanding?  Be another set of eyes and ears, figuring out what learning is (and isn’t) happening. 

When you talk with the teacher afterward, ask good questions and listen hard to the answers.  The conversations that ensue will offer the opportunity for rich professional discourse.  Discussions that are grounded in insightful observation and careful analysis of student-teacher interactions are likely to be rich and meaningful for both you and the teacher you are coaching. 

As the school year gets underway, you’ll have the opportunity to work with effective teachers.  Although offering specific praise will be appreciated, telling a very good teacher how great the lesson was will not help her grow.  She doesn’t want you to tell her she’s perfect.  She wants you to be so insightful in your observations that you can figure out together how to make her teaching even better.  Growth is what she really wants, for both herself and her students. 

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

Tips for helping teachers work together:

https://www.teachingchannel.org/blog/2014/07/18/power-of-teacher-collaboration-nea/

A video about establishing a positive classroom culture:

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/establish-classroom-culture?utm_campaign=digest&utm_medium=email&utm_source=digest

Ralph Fletcher shares his writing habits in this three-minute video. This might be a good conversation starter for a beginning-of-the-year discussion on establishing classroom routines:

                                                          

http://asuonline.wistia.com/medias/8edcvoppew

What’s an infographic and how can they encourage students’ writing across content areas?

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/infographics-visual-literacy-written-content-brett-vogelsinger

Books for launching the school year (and ideas for using them):

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=1032

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!