In
last week’s post, we talked about the value of having the teacher choose the
focus of the coaching work you’ll do together.
Once a focus for coaching has been selected, the GIR coaching model (see
below) can provide a guide for the work you do together, reminding you to
gradually increase the teacher’s responsibility and ownership for the things
she’d like to improve.
Not
all teachers will need the first (and most supportive) coaching practice –
modeling. With some teachers or focuses,
Making Recommendations is the coaching move to lead with as you begin a
coaching cycle. As with choosing a
focus, the recommendations you make will be most effective if they grow from the
teacher’s specific concerns or comments.
This is why WAIT time is so important during a conversation. We’ve all heard of wait time, but I like the
reminder I read recently: WAIT stands for Why
Am I Talking? This
little acronym encourages me to pause, hold my tongue, and really consider what
the teacher has been saying before jumping in with a recommendation. Waiting allows me to listen better, because
while the teacher talks, my mind is not 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.
A
children’s book, I Have
a Little Problem, illustrates
this concept well. The book begins with
a bear looking for a solution to a problem that we (as the reader) don’t know
about. After having unsatisfactory
solutions posed by the shopkeeper, the shoemaker, the doctor, and various other
townsmen, the bear dejectedly walks out of town and sits on a hill. There he meets a friendly fly, who takes the
time to listen and finds out the bear’s real problem: he is alone and afraid. As the fly and bear go off together, we
recognize that listening provided a way for the bear’s problem to be
solved.
As
with the bear, so with the teacher! 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. The pause
works on both sides of a recommendation.
When we pause after making a recommendation, the pause becomes an
opportunity for the teacher we’re coaching to thoughtfully consider how that
suggestion might apply in her teaching,
with her students. It demonstrates our faith in the teacher’s
own judgment and the insights she has about learning in her classroom.
As
you make more space for silence during a coaching conversation, I think you’ll
like the outcome. Sandwiching a
recommendation between thoughtful pauses is likely to increase the
effectiveness of that recommendation and of your ongoing work as a coach.
This week,
you might want to take a look at a plethora of math resources and a bit about
reading:
Here’s a free online game for developing number sense with
fractions:
Here’s a video of a kindergarten math lesson using a game to
develop number sense:
An
interesting series of articles about the importance of math in the classroom:
(Explore the colored buttons on the top menu to find wonderful low- and
high-tech math games for any grade.)
Ideas
for helping students document their reading (and other great comprehension
suggestions):
An article about the power of rereading:
That’s
all for this week. Happy Coaching!
