Guessing or Gathering

When planning– whether it’s in our personal lives or in our classrooms - we look forward and think about what the future might hold. We think about hoped-for outcomes and anticipate potential roadblocks. All this forward-thinking is essential, of course, but future-oriented forecasting is best coupled with the “look back” practice of reflection.
 
The future hasn’t happened yet, so it can’t be our teacher.  As we plan, instead of looking ahead and guessing, reflection helps us look back and gather.  Gathering beats guessing as a planning tool.
 
It’s also unrealistic to depend on the present to teach us in the moment as it happens.  The present is fleeting; it happens too fast, and we are going to miss out on the nuances if we don’t rewind to reflect. We need to name the unnamed, and this requires attention.
 
That is why reflection is such an integral part of coaching. When working with a coach, teachers have a reason to say it out loud, to make connections, to describe specific, concrete examples, to make sense of a situation.  After the moment has passed, we can connect the dots and look for patterns. We pull lots of ideas together to consider the relationships between them.
 
I had a reflective conversation with Ryan this week after observing in his classroom.  The lesson was about informational writing, and there were parts that went smoothly, along with bumps in the road.  After we had talked our way through the lesson, thinking about what we noticed and why that mattered, Ryan returned reflectively to his favorite moment in the lesson.  After sharing informational texts written by published authors, Ryan had asked, “Do you think the authors who wrote these could always write like this?  Do you think when they were in third grade like you, they could include facts, details, and definitions like this?” A student called out, “No!” enthusiastically, and Ryan asked students to turn to their partner and talk about this question.  I heard students dialoging energetically, “They can’t just know that already!” “They have to learn about it first!”  When he later reflected on this bright spot in the lesson, he realized the thing that made it stand out was how it brought authentic purpose to the lesson objective.  Students had ah-hah experiences about their own learning.  Seeing that moment in connection with and in contrast to other parts of the lesson helped Ryan gain valuable insight.   
 
During reflection, we gather information - little bits and pieces that were mostly unnoticed in the steady forward-flow of the moment. After gathering, we synthesize – that is, we pull lots of ideas together to consider the relationships between them.  Our answers won’t be definitive.  In fact, one of the valuable outcomes of reflection is the questions we carry with us into the future. For the reflective practitioner, though, the future will be guided by gathering rather than by guessing.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
The case for coaches in professional learning communities:
 
https://www.allthingsplc.info/blog/view/362/the-case-for-coaches-in-professional-learning-communities
 
A podcast - We are all teacher leaders:
 
https://learn.teachingchannel.com/tchtalks-podcast/tch-talks-episode-11
 
 
Lifting a line from mentor texts helps students’ writing soar:
 
http://all-en-a-days-work.blogspot.com/2013/11/line-lifts-great-strategy-still.html
 
 
Avoiding Zoom fatigue (for teachers and students) – check out the notes or the podcast:
 
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-09-15-is-learning-on-zoom-the-same-as-in-person-not-to-your-brain
 
 
Using single-point rubrics:
 
https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/how-single-point-rubrics-can-improve-quality-student-work/
 
That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!
 
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