Try This at Home: Ask & Listen

Summer is the perfect time to practice a skill that you can take with you into your coaching next fall - being fully present in your conversations. This summer, you can be more intentional about asking questions to deepen relationships—with the people who matter most. Before we jump back into our coaching roles, we can sharpen our listening skills at the backyard BBQ, on a long walk, beside the pool, or wherever you gather.
 
Try taking a conversation (and a relationship) deeper by asking a friend or family member:
“What’s been on your mind lately?”
Then pause. Wait. Listen. Let their words lead. Stay curious. Follow up with:
“Say more about that.”
As you listen, practice reflecting back what you hear:
“Let me see if I’m understanding you right…”
You’re not just making conversation—you’re building connection. This practice helps grow the listening muscles that make your coaching stronger, more respectful, and more responsive.
 
An instructional coach is a listener and learner first. She meets with a teacher to listen to and learn about her concerns, strengths, and needs. Listening builds connections and fosters respect, trust, and safety. By listening first, the coach indicates that she is there to support the teacher in meeting her goals, not the other way around.
 
You can seek the teacher’s perspective by focusing not on what you know, but on what the teacher knows. As coaches attentively listen, teachers realize that their ideas and opinions are truly of interest.
 
Just like with friends and family, “What’s on your mind?” is a question that says, “Let’s talk about what matters most to you!” It’s a useful open-ended question to start a coaching conversation.
 
When I met with Anna, a special education teacher, I began the coaching conversation by asking, “What’s on your mind?” The conversation moved quickly to how her role as “co-teacher” in one class turned out to be a situation where she was basically being used as an aide, a role that was not satisfying for her and not as impactful for students as it could have been. We got straight to a need and began looking at the people and processes that were part of this situation.
 
“What’s on your mind?” cues reflection and sharing that sets you up for meaningful coaching work. And don’t forget the power of wait time! Asking, pausing, and listening lets us know where teachers are in their practice.
 
After listening, reflect back what the teacher has said – not in a parrot-like way, but in a way that shows you were paying attention and offers the teacher the chance to clarify. Saying, “Let me see if I got this right” gives the teacher the chance to think more deeply and strengthens your understanding of the teacher’s needs.
 
Just like with family and friends this summer, when school starts again, you can ask the teacher to, “Say more about that” to clarify your understanding as you continue listening.
 
Between friends and family, among coaches and teachers, asking authentic questions, listening, and reflecting back what you’ve heard are practices that deepen relationships, invite openness, and create space for new insights to emerge.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Tips for new instructional coaches:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/20-tips-new-instructional-coaches-elena-aguilar
 
 
Barry Lane’s TedXTalk on the Power of Kindness:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzimmQaLzo8
 
 
Goals support independent math work:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/setting-personal-goals-for-math-independent-work/
 
 
Ideas for effective feedback:
 
https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy-posts/learning-feedback/
 
 
Questions for a team-coaching meeting on student engagement:
 
https://barkleypd.com/blog/instructional-coaches-working-with-plcs-and-teaching-teams/
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
Want more coaching tips? 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: FDNS25 for 20% off. 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.  I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!

Practice This: Power of the Pause

It’s officially summer! Hopefully, that means you can have a different pace as you walk through the days. It’s also a good time to practice attributes and practices that work in your personal life and can be carried into your coaching work when school resumes.
 
Last week’s post describes the value of focusing on strengths. This week, let’s think about the power of the pause.
 
Taking a beat, a break, a brief recess in the flow of life has many benefits. This hesitation can help us to use our senses and be more fully-present. A wait can clear our focus, elevating what’s important. Pausing – especially when accompanied by a deep breath – reduces stress, sending calming hormones through our system. Pausing increases self-awareness and improves decision-making. There is power in the pause as we determine next steps.
 
In interactions with others, pausing helps us listen more deeply, improving communication as we respond, rather than react. A thoughtful silence after listening demonstrates respect. A well-timed pause can reduce tension and deflate an escalating situation. Pausing creates a gap that invites others into the conversation.
 
Pause and consider the two paragraphs you just read. Which of those benefits do you want in your day-to-day life this summer? How will you practice the pause? Maybe you’d like to grab a sticky note and write that single word – pause – on it. Maybe you want several of them, scattered around your house or on your car’s dashboard. You could write “pause” on your mirror with a marker, offering a reminder at the start of the day until pausing becomes your habit.
 
When the school year starts, you can carry this habit forward. In classrooms and coaching conversations, pausing will help us notice. We will see subtle shifts in emotion and understanding as we take a brief break to soak in the situation.
 
During coaching conversations, pauses support teachers’ thinking, giving them the space to reflect and generate their own insights. This pause supports teachers’ agency and professionalism. Coaches who pause resist the urge to jump in with their own solutions, creating, instead, teacher-directed learning. When we respond after pausing, our words will be aligned with teachers’ interests and goals.
 
This is why WAIT time is so important. You’ve thought about it for students, and it matters with teachers, too. I use this acronym for WAIT to remind me to pause: WAIT stands for Why Am I  Talking. This little acronym encourages me to hold my tongue and really consider what the teacher has been saying before jumping in. Waiting allows me to listen better, because while the teacher talks, my mind isn’t rushing ahead thinking about what I’m going to say in response – I know I’ll have time for that once she pauses. My response is better because I’ve really listened, and because I’ve allowed myself a few seconds to think about what I’ve heard. The pause pushes my own thinking to a higher level. That thoughtful pause also sends the message that I value what the teacher has said.
 
We have probably all been a victim, at one time or another, of a solution that was provided by someone who didn’t really understand the problem. My goal is to avoid that situation by talking less and listening more during coaching conversations. The pregnant pause – silence – sometimes makes us feel like no one is thinking. But, in actuality, that pause is usually when the highest-level thinking occurs, for both you and the teacher.
 
A thoughtful pause is important when asking questions. Silence sponsors a teacher’s thoughtful response, leaving room for the teacher to consider. It grants the teacher the opportunity to process both your question and her answer. This means not rushing in to fill the quiet with words of your own. A pause for uninterrupted thinking is a courtesy in teachers’ overfull days.
 
After asking a question, give teachers the gift of time and receptivity. Make eye contact. Don’t appear rushed or make the teacher feel rushed. When the teacher pauses, don’t be quick to give a response. Instead, ask them to “Say more about that.” Or say, “Yes, go on.” Or just pause and offer silence. There’s a wise Quaker saying that applies to coaching: “Never miss a chance to keep your mouth shut.”
 
This lack of action sounds like it should be easy, but waiting can be hard work! As we give our full attention to teachers’ thinking, we give them space to reflect. We give them space to wonder. We give them space to generate new ideas. It can be difficult to keep your mouth shut, to offer a silent, thought-filled pause – but the coaching rewards are worth it!
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

Using number lines to support deeper understanding:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/developing-flexibility-with-number-lines/
 
 
Boosting comprehension through movement:
 
https://ccira.blog/2025/06/17/boost-student-comprehension-through-intentional-movement/
 
 
Skillsets for AI Literacy:
 
https://community.theeducatorcollaborative.com/prompting-progress-teaching-ai-literacy-in-the-classroom/
 
 
Using wordless picture books in middle school:
 
https://www.middleweb.com/37177/4-ways-to-teach-with-wordless-picture-books/

4 Ways to Build Safety in Coaching:
 
https://tinyurl.com/CoachingSafety
 
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
Want more coaching tips? 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: FDNS25 for 20% off. 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.  I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!

Practice This: Enhancing Strengths

As we enter into the summer season, there’s a shift in the day-to-day tasks for coaches. Hopefully we’ll make time for rejuvenation and pause. The better we refill ourselves, the more we have to share with others.
 
Summer can also be a time to coach ourselves, practicing stances we’ll take with us into our coaching work later. One approach for coaching ourselves this summer is to set goals that focus on enhancing our strengths. We can reinforce and refine rather than attempting to do away with a chronic trouble. When we identify strengths and frame goals as positives, our motivation increases.
 
Summarize Strengths
 
When taking this approach, it’s helpful to begin by summarizing strengths. Instead of a list of lacks, catalog things you’re good at. For practice this summer, this list can include a range of physical, intellectual, social, and emotional attributes. Divide a blank sheet of paper into 4 quadrants and label with these 4 categories; then begin listing your strengths. For example, I’m including hiking in my physical section, theorizing for intellectual, listening in the social section, and self-efficacy in emotional. Of course, adjust categories so that they make sense for you.
 
Identify Focus
 
Once you’ve got an index that includes many of your strengths, review the list and put a star by a few you’d like to enhance this summer. Next, think about how you can take these assets to the next level. Build a goal based on previous wins. How will you boost them? It’s helpful to write out a concrete statement. For example, my short-term hiking goal is to walk at least 1 mile at least 4 times per week, with each walk including an incline (my long-term dream goal is to hike the Alps with my siblings!).
 
Identity Shift
 
When we focus on strengths, we are becoming more of our best self – the person we envision ourselves to be. We reflectively ask, “What went well?” and “When have I had success in a situation like this before?” Building on strengths makes it easier to see goals as an identity shift rather than a to-do list. We visualize and celebrate successes and cultivate an attitude of becoming. Even if the changes are tiny ones, we are re-forming and transforming ourselves in positives ways.
 
Strengths-Based Coaching
 
This summer, as you take a strengths-based approach to reaching your own goals, you’ll be developing a stance that you can take with you into your coaching work in the fall. Strengths-based coaching amplifies assets, building on the valuable skills and experiences teachers have had that can be leveraged for growth in teacher practice and student learning. You will look for what’s working well – routines, relationships, strategies, and content expertise – and use these as a foundation for your coaching work. You will look for possibilities, not problems, as you work side-by-side with teachers, acknowledging their voice, agency, and expertise. It may not be your only or always approach, but strengths-based coaching can be a helpful tool – especially when you are establishing new coaching relationships and when teachers are experiencing doubt or lack of self-efficacy. And this summer is a good time to practice strengths-based coaching on yourself!

This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
10-Minute Podcast: 5 awesome things for teachers to do this summer:
 
https://www.coolcatteacher.com/5-awesome-things-for-teachers-to-do-this-summer/
 
Fun with words:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/vocabrity-fun-with-words-for-middle-school-students/
 
Kindergarten relationship skills that predict college success:
 
https://www.inc.com/amy-morin/kindergarteners-with-these-two-skills-are-twice-as-likely-to-get-a-college-degree-according-to-a-19-year-study.html
 
 
Handling negative coaching responses:
 
http://cultureofcoaching.blogspot.com/2018/04/how-do-you-handle-angry-or-negative.html
 
AI and writing instruction:
 
https://community.theeducatorcollaborative.com/processes-problems-and-possibilities-where-2025-finds-us-with-ai-in-writing-instruction/
 
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
Want more coaching tips? 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: FDNS25 for 20% off. 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.  I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!