Instructional Coaching Rhythms

When preparing for the school year, coaches may start thinking about coaching cycles – who they’ll serve with them, what measurements they’ll have, and what the cycles will look like. There’s a place for work that has a clear beginning, middle, and end. .In coaching, that includes setting a specific goal, measuring progress, and celebrating when the target is reached. And, just like with teaching, there’s also a need for coaches, and coaching, to be flexible.
 
What if, as coaches, we thought more about being opportunistic? What if, as we think about our use of the 5 GIR coaching moves (model, recommend, question, affirm, and praise) we consider coaching rhythms, rather than cycles?  The pattern of these 5 moves is determined by teachers’ needs, flowing in real-time response to the teacher and the teacher-selected focus for the conversation.
 
To effectively support teachers while ensuring students get the instruction they need, coaches need to be nimble - light on their feet – improvising among the 5 coaching moves. We adjust the tempo and intensity of support.
 
I was talking this week with Kristen, who is an exceptional coach. She told me that in her early work as a coach, she was very well-prepared for the coaching work, going into each conversation with a clear plan, even having questions and recommendations written down. It went all right, she said, but she felt something was off. Then, during a coaching meeting, a teacher made a comment that changed the way she coached. The teacher said, “It feels like you're continuing a conversation from the past. But I'm not in that same place anymore.” Kristen said this teacher’s comment stuck with her and helped her realize that effective coaching requires us to meet teachers in the current space.
 
We can use the 5 moves in the GIR model in response to the teacher. The appropriate support will guide, challenge, or validate. The squiggly line in the GIR model shows that coaching isn’t a linear process – it’s a fluid one. Instructional improvement is contextual, so coaching is a cha-cha. We will step forward and back, and there will be lifts and dips along the way. We know that the upward sloping line in the GIR model indicates growth, but the cha-cha of coaching includes small steps back, too. When it seems needed, don’t hesitate to lean on a move that offers more support, like modeling or recommending. If one move doesn’t bear fruit, we can lean back and try an approach that provides more scaffolding.
 
We have to be limber; if we lead too strongly, sticking too long with a move when it’s not needed, we are over-scaffolding; this reduces teachers’ agency and motivation. We know how to lead by paying careful attention to the teacher and the context. We are ready to reposition, to find a match between the support needed by the teacher and the support offered by each of the 5 coaching moves. This is the rhythm of responsive coaching.

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

Get ready for back-to-school (a 16-min. podcast episode):
 
https://stickyhope.com/28-schools-starting-are-you-ready/
 
 
Making it “our” classroom:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/who-owns-the-room/
 
 
Significant 72: Three impactful days for starting the school year:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/fresh-starts-through-community-building/
 
 
How collaboration works:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/video/teacher-collaboration-matching-complementary-strengths
 
 
6 Co-Teaching models (not just for SpEd):
 
https://barkleypd.com/blog/coaching-co-teaching/
 
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 or EBOOKS for 33% off digital copies (thru Aug. 4, 2025). 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!