As
a young adult, I was sometimes accused of being unobservant. With my nose in a book, I could easily be
lost to the world around me. That
changed, however, when I became a teacher.
Teachers develop the uncanny ability to know what is going on all around
them and they are sometimes accused of having eyes in the back of their heads. Although that would be a medical oddity, it would
certainly be handy in the classroom!
Lacking
that extra pair of eyes, it is helpful to have a coach around! Although teachers have well-honed observation
skills, it’s not possible to attend to everything at once. Even expert teachers benefit from another’s
perspective on the teaching and learning occurring in their classroom. Brenda Powers points out, “When someone else
is poring over notes from an observation with you, or seeking clues from
student work, you can’t help but see things that weren’t in your field of
vision before.” She calls these oversights
“blind spots.” In my car, I minimize my
blind spots by positioning my mirrors just so.
Coaches can be like the mirrors, reflecting back for the teacher what
has occurred.
It’s
helpful, if possible, to meet with a teacher before observing so that you can
jointly determine a focus for the observation.
That way your noticings are more likely to be useful to the teacher,
focused on a concern she has already identified. Another way to determine what noticings you’ll
share is to begin a debrief conversation by asking the teacher what she
noticed during the lesson. Linking your
comments to what the teacher is already considering increases uptake. But what if there are things that seem
glaring to you but are missed by the teacher?
I can often find a way into these comments by asking a question, “What
did you notice about XXX.”
Remember
the classroom management advice, “Catch them doing something good”? We can also help to improve instruction as we
notice, note, and share the moments when things are going well. Just like with young students, improvement
happens when something we only do occasionally becomes something we do
regularly. Drawing teachers’ attention
to these occasional successes is likely to increase their frequency.
With
all that is going on during a lesson, we want to be sure that the things we
notice and discuss will be helpful. Having another pair of eyes to see, another
pair of hands to record, improves instruction when the noticings are thoughtfully
gathered and shared.
This week, you might want to
take a look at:
Benefits
of a flipped classroom:
Engaging
students through play-based learning (not just for the little ones!):
A podcast on dealing with student grammar errors:
Resolve of a struggling early-career
teacher:
Teaching children to fail well:
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
No comments:
Post a Comment