REFLECTION AND COACHING

I recently provided a faculty professional development session at Edgewood High School in the Buckeye Local School District , Ashtabula, Ohio. I have been working with the Learning Improvement Team (LIT) designing professional learning plans around their school goals. (Teachers learning to impact student learning.)

I was asked to provide the entire faculty with a personal experience to demonstate the value of reflection generated by coaching conversations.

Note Dale Vidmar’s (Southern Oregon University) thoughts on reflection and coaching:

As instructors reflect upon their experience in the classroom with a colleague, they discover important information about the intended results in comparison with the actual lesson. They share both accomplishments and frustrations. By making the collegial conversations part of instruction, instructors build upon the everyday classroom experiences, complementing class time with the conversations before and after teaching. They learn to be conscious in the classroom, using the thinking that goes along with performance to manage their actions. They address and self-monitor their teaching practice on a continual basis, ultimately learning not by experience alone, but through critical reflection upon their experiences.
"Reflective Peer Coaching: Crafting Collaborative Self-Assessment in Teaching." Research Strategies. 20 (3). 2005. 135-148.

In Quality Teaching in a Culture of Coaching , I outline the value of coaches asking open-ended questions to generate teacher thinking and reflection. Questions that contain no sense of right/wrong…allowing the coach to understand the teacher’s thinking and create and atmosphere of trust. Since this was an initial experience for the staff, I provided a list of questions to guide their conversations. After one model where I conferenced with a member of the LIT team, teacher pairs conferenced with each other about a lesson plan they’d be using the next day. (Teachers were asked to bring plans to the meeting and were assigned partners)

............Leanne Hartzell and Paul Blum in a coaching session

Here are the questions they used:

How does this learning activity fit into the current unit of study?

What are the most important student actions/behaviors needed in this lesson?

What are the critical teacher actions/behaviors needed in this lesson?

How difficult is the concept/activity for your learners? Groups of learners? Individuals?
1______________________________10
Easy ...................................Very Difficult

How does the difficulty level effect your instruction?

Describe the assessment you’ll be doing during the learning activity that might modify what you’ve planned? … influence future lessons?

What could I observe and provide feedback on that would have value for you? [Watching teacher, students (all or some) or teacher student interaction, etc]

Is there a question, problem, or opportunity for which you are interested in getting ideas ?

Paul Blum, pictured above, coached by his partner Leanne Hartzell stated, “I don’t recall having a conversation like this in all my years of teaching.”

My further questioning of Paul reveled that the 12 minute conference conversation felt good as it respected the importance of his work and the reflection generated a new idea about the lesson he was going to teach.

I received an email from the Edgewood principal informing me that several teacher pairs from the session did classroom observations or met to conference after they taught their lessons. Others have expressed an interest in more coaching activities.

Teachers do value reflection.

FEEDBACK ON INDIVIDUAL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANS (IPDP)

In the last blog I responded to reading Advancing Formative Assessment In Every Classroom by Moss and Brookhart and noted the issue of teachers and students flying blind and working in the dark without clear learning goals that can be used to self assess and regulate learning. (pg 9)

Reading further highlighted that a similar sense of working in the dark occurs for many teachers working on their IPDPs.

On a positive note, many programs calling for teacher growth plans require a focus on student achievement. In other words, student learning needs drive teachers’ continued learning as illustrated in Florida’s 2009 statue:

1012.98 School Community Professional Development Act-

5. Require each school principal to establish and maintain an individual professional development plan for each instructional employee assigned to the school as a seamless component to the school improvement plans developed pursuant to s. 1001.42(18). The individual professional development plan must:

a. Be related to specific performance data for the students to whom the teacher is assigned.

b. Define the inservice objectives and specific measurable improvements expected in student performance as a result of the inservice activity.

c. Include an evaluation component that determines the effectiveness of the professional development plan.



But as I reviewed additional plans, (see Livingston, KY)
I discovered little or no focus on the skill development sequence that leads to the teacher learning (change in practice) that precedes the payoff of increased student achievement. How would a teacher know if they are progressing toward their desired learning goal prior to the student learning goal?
Further, the focus on a measurable student improvement could cause teachers to look for shortcuts to “scores”, such as what has occurred in Florida writing exams:
Writing exams from 49 schools were found to have "template writing" -- instances in which students from the same school used identical or similar phrases on FCAT essays, such as "Poof! Now I'm in dragon land." The patterns were discovered when the exams were scored.1

Teacher’s IPDPs should identify the changes that will occur in teacher practice over time, the changes that will occur in student work or practice over time, and then the change in student achievement.

Coaches and administrators who engage teachers in deep, rich conversations around IPDPs, establish clear indicators of the teacher’s learning progress and provide ongoing feedback on progress model the goal setting and formative assessment we want teachers to use with their students.
1 Orlando Sentinel article- July 18, 2009 by Leslie Postal

COACHING AND ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING

After observing a high school science class this week for the purpose of modeling a coaching conference, I was wrestling with an approach to my post conference that would have the teacher reflect on the need to increase the percentage of students actively engaged (thinking) with the material.

My observations identified some students who were thinking about the material and asking questions that sought application to their experiences. Other students were watching and listening, filling in a worksheet as the answers were provided by other students or (too often it seemed to me) by the teacher. Still other students were doing homework from another class or reading a different book.

I began the post conference with a few open-ended questions that asked the teacher to share his thinking regarding his approach to the instruction I observed and what indicators he had that he gained his desired outcomes.

He immediately pointed out the questions that students had asked,connecting the lesson content with their personal experiences. (Electromagnetism -- Is that like the junkyard magnet? Does that have anything to do with an MRI?)

I agreed that the questions provided the evidence he was seeking and shared several other indicators (comments and questions from students) that I had observed and recorded. I then asked about what he knew about the non responsive students. The teacher felt that a quiz the next day was probably his best indicator.

We then discussed strategies that would have allowed the teacher to assess more of the students understanding...
Paired conversations where he could listen in
Calling on non participants with questions
Asking students to answer questions raised by classmates
Having students rate their understanding 1-10

The teacher’s review, presentation, and discussion were followed by a “hands on” (groups of three) activity. With broader assessment prior to this activity the teacher would have identified students needing additional support and could have provided it either as a small group pull aside or one on one as he moved among the groups during the activity.

I’m currently reading ASCD’s Advancing Formative Assessment In Every Classroom…a Guide for Instructional Leaders and identifying how to build more formative assessment questions into my coaching.

“In too many classrooms, teachers and their students are flying blind. Teachers cannot point to strong evidence of exactly what their students know and exactly where their students are in relation to daily classroom learning goals. The lack of detailed and current evidence makes it particularly difficult for teachers to provide effective feedback that describes for students the next steps they should take to improve. Students are operating in the dark as well. Without the benefit of knowing how to assess and regulate their own learning, they try to perform well on assignments without knowing exactly where they are headed, what they need to do to get there, and how they will tell when they have arrived.” (pg 9)

After coaching the science teacher, I observed a math class where a new teacher had students in groups of three working on problems she modeled on the Smart Board and presented on a worksheet. As the groups went to work, the teacher prepared her next step on the Smart Board….missing the opportunity to observe the group conversations and assess student understanding. She will be planning the next instructional period without important knowledge about where students are in the learning process. My observation was that most students understood the concept at the beginning of the lesson and did not need to invest the time in the lesson’s activity.

I have been building questions about teachers’ observations of student learning behaviors into my coaching conferences. I’ll be adding more specific questions about what assessment decisions teachers are making during and immediately following instruction. I’m thinking that these questions in a pre-conference may have the teacher direct my coaching observation to assist in or confirm her assessment decisions.
I’ll be reporting what I find.

OBSERVING LEARNERS

I have lead several school faculties through classroom observations where teachers visit each other’s classrooms and spend time observing student learners. The purpose of the observations is to decide if students are doing what they need to do to achieve.

The thinking behind the activity is: teachers don’t cause student achievement; students cause student achievement. The teacher’s task is to create the right learning activities, environment and desire for individual students. This requires constant observation and continued adjustment on the teacher’s part.

Observations in colleague’s classrooms provide an opportunity to “watch learners” with an intensity and insight that differs from observations done while teaching. After the observations I debrief the group charting two areas of response:

Positives—What did you see students doing that you believe will create student learning and desired achievement?

Questions- What questions emerge? (I recommend withholding any evaluative conclusions from a short observation).
Ex: Having observed a line of students waiting for work to be checked…I wonder how much time students spend waiting during our school day? Noticing students during independent reading who never turned a page in 8 min..What accountability do/should students have during independent reading?

I am often asked to provide a form for those observations. I continue to resist and instead have a short discussion prior to the observations where we discuss student behaviors that the participants believe will promote learning. (Students discussing the topic with each other, asking questions, risk taking in sharing thinking, comfortably making public mistakes, reading in free time, etc.)

My reason to avoid a check list is that I feel there is a complexity to engaged learning behavior that needs to be examined while it’s happening in the context of the learning activity.

I recently found a blog by David Warlich where he explored the difference between student engagement and student empowerment.

David states:
We want our children to learn and we tend to believe that if we see more engagement in them, then we will see more effective and perhaps more relevant learning. This is possibly true, though I can’t help but feel that the formula that ignites these results is far more complex.

The learning experience needs to be meaningful, powerful, and empowering to the learner. It is not something we should try to see or do, but something the learner should feel. It’s what fuels the work that enriches the learner in some self-realizing way.

Recently, I was conducting a series of classroom observations with a high school principal. The first seven classrooms that we observed had teachers center stage…lecturing, explaining, modeling, questioning. In most cases, students were expected to be recording notes, often with the teacher prescribing exactly what and how information should be noted. Student engagement varied from room to room. In some classes, the majority of students were focused on the learning and recording notes as directed…sometimes questioning the teacher for more details or help with understanding (a student behavior that I rate high in engagement and empowerment). In too many classes the number of students engaged in the lesson was 50% or less, including three girls whose purses remained on top of their closed notebooks throughout the observation.

As we walked the halls between classrooms, the principal noted his concern regarding the unengaged students we had seen. In the 8th classroom late in the period, we found a Scrabble tournament occurring in a 10th grade English class. Groups of four had every student in a game, including one group where the teacher played. Boards were full of words and students were struggling to use the last of their letter tiles. There was a buzz of noise with cheers and jeers as words were offered or challenged.

As we stepped into the hall the principal smiled and looked relieved as he turned to me and said, “Now that’s what we’re looking for in engagement.” I replied, “Yes, students were involved in the activity with enthusiasm in most cases. My question is how connected is the activity to the desired learning outcomes of the course or individual student objectives?”. (This is an honest question on my part as I don’t know. It is a question I’d explore in a coaching conference or PLC conversation).

I believe we need many more conversations about the learning behaviors that produce achievement, including conversations with our students. What are the student behaviors most likely to increase learning in today’s lesson? Maybe debriefing after an activity where students identified what they did and then rated its effectiveness. Students could identify personal learning preferences that increase their success.

That would be empowering.

Extension: Consider observing learner behaviors in professional development, coaching sessions and PLC activities. How can leaders enhance teacher engagement and empowerment to increase teacher learning to impact student learning?

TRUST AND STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

I have several projects during the first weeks of the year that deal with Professional Learning Communities examining student data and generating ACTION from those conversations that will lead to increased student achievement.

These PLC’s need to create trust that will encourage vulnerability and risk taking as teachers look at student learning results and consider instructional possibilities.

Last year looking into the start of 2009, I wrote about Relational Trust connected to the work of Parker Palmer.

Parker sited the work of Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider, two scholars at the University of Chicago, who studied school reform in Chicago through the 1990’s.(Trust in Schools: A Core Resource in Improvement)

"What factors, they wondered, made the difference between schools that got better at educating children over the course of that decade—as measured by improved test scores—and schools that did not? The answer was not money, models of governance, up-to-date curricula, the latest in teaching techniques, or any other external variable. The answer was “relational trust” between teachers and administrators, teachers and parents, teachers and teachers. Schools with high relational trust, and/or leaders who cared about it, had a much better chance of serving students well than schools that ranked low on those variables." (Center for Courage and Renewal)

In the December 16,2009 issue of Education Week, Kim Marshall’s commentary “Is Merit Pay the Secret Sauce For Improving Teaching and Learning?” includes the following thoughts on trust:

Getting this collaborative “engine of improvement” running is not easy. Some of the success factors are technical- 24 hour turn-around of interim assessment results and clear data displays, for example—but others have to do with the level of trust among teachers and administrators. Just as important as shifting the conversation in a school to results is keeping the assessment process informal and low-stakes, so that teachers feel safe admitting when things aren’t working and will listen to ideas from colleagues. The process is similar to Total Quality Management, a successful business strategy emphasizing small adjustments during a process rather than officious inspection at the end of the line.

Bret Simmons’ blog describes the connection between stretch goals and vulnerability which requires trust:

If we are really stretching, there will always be a gap between where we are and what we are trying to become. Those gaps take time to close, and they make us uncomfortable because they reveal our vulnerabilities. As a leader, you can find strength in vulnerability if you can learn to live with the creative tension that exists in the gap between where you are and where you need to be.

What messages are you hearing as a PLC facilitator, member, or observer?

Words of limitation, escape, and blame;

My students can’t reach …
I don’t see a way we could…
If only parents would…
Administration just doesn’t understand…
I didn’t bring my data...
I don’t want a coach in my room...

OR

Words communicating vision, trust, vulnerability, personal and group accountability:

We need to find a way…
How can we use the student’s strength…
Here is student work from my lesson…
I wonder what else I can/could…
What ideas do you have for another way…

How can I help…
Who can observe the group in my room…

Collect some statements from your PLC activities and assess the current trust level.

COACHING AND STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

In the December(09)/January(10) issue of Kappan, Jon Saphier and Lucy West describe, "How Coaches Can Maximize Student Learning".

Beyond the title catching my attention as it matches much of the work I am doing with coaches and administrators, I read the article with interest because in 1972 Jon Saphier and I were teachers on the same school staff in New Jersey. Jon taught on a K12 team while I taught on a 5-6 team in an IGE (Individually Guided Education) school. The school was structured around teacher teams (usually 4 teachers with one or two paraprofessionals) working in large open areas with approximately 120 students on two grade levels. Students spent two years working with the same team of teachers. Every Wednesday, the students finished at 1:30 leaving a 2 hour team meeting time.

Notice the culture that Saphier and West suggest that coaches build: (pg46)

Teaching is public and the focus of study.
Planning is thorough, deep, and collaborative.
Conversation among teachers is constant, evidence based, and focused on improving student results.

Much of the design of our IGE teams supported the items listed above. Today in many schools coaches work hard to create opportunities for teaching to be public. In the IGE setting, one’s teaching was almost always at least informally observed. I wish we had known about peer coaching back then as we missed many opportunities for extended teacher learning.

I frequently recommend that coaches build cultures and structures where teachers are coaching each other. That practice will likely have a greater impact on student learning than the coach can generate in one on one coaching activities with individual teachers. This is especially true for coaches working with larger faculties or working in more than one building. Peer coaching is a natural extension of a professional learning community. It moves the PLC into the classroom, increasing the public element in teaching.


The shared accountability for students that the teachers possessed in the IGE school increased their commitment to each other through their commitment to students. Each of the 120 students in my 5-6 Unit was mine. I was responsible for each student’s success either directly from my instruction or indirectly through planning with a teacher who was instructing that student. I wonder now what impact an instructional coach working with us individually and as a team may have had on our student achievement. I believe it would have been quite positive. Hate to think that too many teachers are in schools today where the coach is available but due to a closed culture the students and teachers aren’t reaping the benefits.

I emailed Jon Saphier after reading the article asking his thoughts on the two us having such a similar focus on school culture and coaching. How interesting that two of us from a staff of 25 teachers at that IGE school are working on the national/international arena with schools.

Jon wrote back, "I think the formative influences on my view of coaching came when I had a job in Cambridge MA as a building based coach in a K-8 school. It was '75-'79. I was doing my doctoral work then, too, and reading quite a bit about teacher learning.

I suspect you and I have always wanted to learn more about successful teaching and learning, and continue with that mindset. That led us into creating ways for others to deepen their learning, too. Hampton (the IGE school) attracted me because I saw it as a good place to learn, but I don't think there was much in the culture there to support good coaching.”

Here’s a statement from Jon’s and Lucy West’s article that totally aligns with my work with coaches:

For a corps of coaches in a school district to significantly influence student achievement, the role of the coach must be construed as a change agent and culture builder for professional learning of all adults in the building.(pg 50)

'TWAS THE TIME BEFORE COACHING

This week’s blog celebrates coaches and teachers. It comes to you compliments of Carla Cushman, a Supervisor of Coaches in Sumner County TN.
Thank you Carla!
Happy New Year to All

(Photo of Santa and Zoey Biddelman, Steve's Grandaughter)

‘Twas the Time Before Coaching

‘Twas the time before coaching , when all through the schools,
Not a teacher was happy—they all had the blues.

Their lessons engaging and smartly aligned
With standardized testing—No Child Left Behind!

The true joy of teaching seemed lost in the past,
When teaching was fun—in fact, a real blast!

When children had recess and even took naps,
For crying out loud, they could sit on our laps!

Then something happened I can’t quite explain,
Teaching and learning had suddenly changed!

With all of the stress accountability brings,
The teachers withdrew to their rooms and their things.

The benchmarks, the standards, the DiBELing and flexing,
The TCAPs and TVAAS and End of Course testing--

It became all too much for one teacher to do,
So instructional coaches were assigned to the schools.

The coaches were eager to do their jobs right,
They trained and they practiced in daytime and night.

They learned from Steve Barkley the culture must change,
A culture of coaching is the name of this game.

From Jim Knight in Kansas, they found the Big Four:
Instruction, assessment, behavior, and more.

Equipped with their mission and technology tools,
The instructional coaches started changing the rules.

No more isolation or hoarding great plans,
We’re calling all teachers to join hand-in-hand.

Come out of your classrooms and talk to your neighbors,
You’ll find out great teaching has all sorts of flavors.

Come see for yourself, don’t just believe me,
You can meet with your coach in your own PLC!

So thank you to all who have helped raise the bar,
Whether teacher or coach, you’re considered a star!

Together we plan, together we teach,
Coaches and teachers, all children to reach!


Carla Cushman
December 9, 2009