Coaching for Challenge

Creating a safe and challenging learning environment is a goal that can be embedded in coaching work. No matter what instructional practice you and the teacher you are working with have chosen as a coaching focus, you can simultaneously examine elements of classroom climate.
 
Charlotte Danielson, whose work on teacher effectiveness has been widely acknowledged throughout the country, describes classroom elements that are crucial to engagement and meaningful learning:
 
“Teachers whose classrooms constitute a safe and challenging environment for student learning have artfully combined challenge with support. This teaching is not formulaic; it is a high-level professional enterprise in which teachers know when to cajole, when to reteach, when to praise, and when to enlist the participation of other students, all in the service of high-level learning.”*
 
My last post focused on creating safe classroom spaces. This week, let’s explore the idea of challenge. Frederick Douglas is quoted as saying, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” It seems to me that this truth applies in the classroom. When students experience appropriate challenge, they are happier and more focused. As coaches, we can help to ensure that struggle is something that is expected, productive, and worth celebrating by encouraging appropriately-high expectations, assuring meaningful activities, fostering students’ critical thinking, and promoting autonomy.
 
Appropriately-High Expectations
Players stay engaged with video games because the level of challenge is adjusted – not too easy, not too hard. Just right. “Just right” in the classroom means rigorous learning activities coupled with high expectations and appropriate support. Warm and safe doesn’t mean easy. In an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect, students can stretch to increase their skill and understanding and to develop their gifts.
 
Coach teachers not to over-scaffold. Some teachers may rush in to save a student from challenge by hinting, interjecting an idea, or suggesting a solution.  Appropriate challenge should be challenging. Learning is often uncomfortable. If a teacher is rushing to rescue, you might recommend that the teacher use prompts such as:

·       What have you tried?

·       Tell me what you did here.

·       What are some other things you know about…?

Meaningful Activities
Meaningful activities engage and inspire. When students see connections between school and the world, learning feels relevant. When learning activities connect with students’ interests, experiences, and culture, they are more likely to persevere. When students are expected to do something  with the knowledge they acquire, they are more focused.
 
Including collaboration also increases the power and appeal of learning activities. Students benefit from hearing their peers’ ideas and explanations. They help each other improve.
 
To support teachers’ planning of meaningful activities,
 
Offer: 

·       Culturally-appropriate resources

·       Structures that support collaboration (think-pair-share, jigsaw, reciprocal teaching, etc.)

·       Suggestions for effective grouping

Ask:

·       What experiences might students have had outside of school that connect to this lesson?

·       What size group would work best for this activity?

·       What roles could group members play?

·       How can students show what they know?

·       What will you see if students are getting it? What will you hear?

Critical Thinking
Critical thinking prepares students for a constantly changing world. Opportunities to see the same information in different ways can promote an understanding of perspective. Opportunities to analyze can develop students’ ability to evaluate information. Opportunities to reorganize, synthesize, or transform information can increase understanding.
Critical thinking skills are needed to not only understand our world, but to change it.
 
To foster critical thinking in classrooms where you coach, you could:

·     With the teacher, brainstorm scenarios that illustrate concepts or use the targeted skills. Encourage teachers to select a few (not just one!) scenarios to use.

·     Share student-friendly resources that explain different views on a topic (allsides.com, procon.org).

·     Encourage teachers to include hard conversations. 

Student Autonomy
To build confidence as learners, students need opportunities to share their thoughts, make decisions, and work independently. Teachers promote autonomy when they involve students in setting norms. Offering choices about how students will learn also enhances autonomy. Including self-assessment increases motivation and promotes reflection and self-monitoring. These attributes all increase students’ self-sufficiency and prepare them as thinkers and learners. 

Teachers can gradually release responsibility to students so that they see themselves as capable. Students stand a little taller as they develop autonomy and grow as learners.

To encourage student autonomy, you might ask the teacher questions like:

·       What resources do you have in your room that support students’ independence? How comfortable are students with using them?

·       Where could you give students choice about how they will learn?

·       How can you include opportunities for students to explore and problem-solve for themselves?

Embedded Work
Coaches help teachers create a challenging environment where learning can thrive. Encouraging high expectations, meaningful activities, critical thinking, and autonomy can be embedded in our support, no matter the coaching-cycle focus. 

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SPECIAL ACCOUNCEMENT:
Our online book group for my book, Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching in Education is underway on Facebook! Each week between now and March 24, I’ll post a video and discussion prompts on Facebook here:
 
facebook.com/mycoachescouch
 
You can post anytime. You can participate in the discussion without officially joining, but if you’d like a reminder whenever a new video and discussion are available, please sign up here.
 
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This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
Promoting executive function in secondary grades:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/executive-function-skills-secondary-grades
 
 
Classroom routines for gratitude – all year long:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/routines-for-building-gratitude/
 
 
Screen Pal is a Chrome extension that lets you drop video feedback into any text box or comment:
 
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/screenpal-screen-recorder/kfbjihgmkgahpocjppdkdmdalinpnabb
 
 
Coaching for equity:
 
https://www.teachingchannel.com/free-videos
 
 
Reasons to do an author study:
 
https://www.readingrockets.org/books/authorstudy/reasons
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
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For more thoughts on coaching, 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! You can use the code: FEB2023 for 15% off plus FREE SHIPPING. 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.  Or join our free online book group here. I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!

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