DIFFERENTIATING COACHING

In the summer 2009 issue of The Journal of the National Staff Development Council, Gary Waddell presents a format for identifying the professional development/coaching needs of teachers.(Who’s That Teacher? Vol.30, No.3 pg 10)

Using two skill components: Knowing Your Stuff (content knowledge and instructional practices) and Knowing Your Students, he creates a matrix with four teaching identities.

Struggler—Low in both areas
Technician—High in knowing Stuff/Low in Knowing Students
Caretaker- Low in knowing Stuff/ High in Knowing Students
Master Teacher- High in Both Areas
I recommend you read the article to find Waddell’s suggestions for Supervision and Support.
Here are some of my thoughts for coaches and principals:

Struggler-- If this is a brand new teacher, they hopefully have a mentor working most closely with them to help develop needed skills. Instructional coaches, mentors, and principals should be communicating so that the teacher is not getting mixed messages as to what “needs to happen.” If this is a more experienced teacher, it is critical that the principal is clear in the evaluation process as to what “needs to happen”. An instructional coach can be of great support to the teacher who wants to learn. I believe it is unfair and unproductive to ask coaches to work with struggling teachers who are unaware of the requirement to change from administration. Coaches can ask the struggling teacher, “What are you being asked to change?” and “Are you interested in doing it?”. If the struggling teacher knows and commits positive results are likely.

Technician—I often find that technicians are successful with some (or many) students. That success can provide a block when asking them about changing. They point to their current practice working. I tackle this from two approaches. First, spending time identifying the teacher’s desire to have all students be successful….reinforcing and valuing that belief and recognizing where the teacher’s current work is succeeding. Then, having the technician identify what the unsuccessful students would need to do to succeed. If the teacher doesn’t know… that becomes our coaching focus… finding out…studying the learners. When we’ve agreed on what the students would need to do, we then focus on what the teacher might do to cause the student to perform.

Caretaker- Similar to working with the technicians, coaches begin by reinforcing the strengths that caretakers bring to their classrooms. In this case the approval is focused on the relationships and commitment to students. In most cases the caretaker is unaware of the additional depth of learning that their students are capable of achieving. Coaches create opportunities for caretakers to self discover the untapped learning. This could occur through the caretaker enhancing their own depth of content. In this case they will want to share their knowledge with their students. Observing how master teachers use instructional strategies or expectations to increase student effort toward higher standards can also promote the self discovery of caretakers. Commitment to students will prod the growth and change of caretakers.

Master Teachers- I often suggest to new instructional coaches and principals new to having the services of coaches in their buildings to begin their coaching with master teachers. This is the best way to model that coaching is not a deficit based activity. Often master teachers are unconsciously talented. They are unaware of many effective practices they have. As coaches identify the reasons for the master teacher’s success, understanding and esteem are built. Master teachers who are conscious and confident can be key players in continuous school improvement as they interact with colleagues. Conscious, confident master teachers are effective mentors for new teachers. Coaches should also engage master teachers in experimentation. Through action research these professionals can contribute to new learning for all educators.

Coaching is for everyone…and students are served when all teachers learn.

WOWS FOR LEARNING

In Wow! Adding Pizzazz to Teaching and Learning , I illustrate the power of teachers creating Wow experiences for their students….things that hook students …sparking their interest and attention to “what is coming next.”

The opening of school is a time that Wows can be especially important to create the enthusiasm and emotions for setting the learning stage….communicating that students are important and a great year is ahead of them.

I recently received the following note from a faculty that has planned a Wow to open school.

Steve,
I just thought I would let you know how your book has inspired Howard Elementary. I have attached the brochure with the details. We are having WOW West Wednesday.

The teachers are all dressing in western clothes and riding stick horses into Rise and Shine. We have planned a skit to introduce the program of the 5 A's:

Attendance
Attitude
Achievement
Accelerated Reading
Arithmetic

We have a Power Point and music from the "Lone Ranger", "Bonanza", "The Good, Bad and Ugly" and "The Wild, Wild West". This will help set the tone.

The lessons in the classroom will follow with each class cooperatively making their own rope. They will do math lessons to determine how much twine is needed to make their rope so that each student can be responsible for one foot of the rope. The idea is to "Rope in your future". A rope can not hold its shape without "everyone" taking care of their part, and working together.

The school is decorated in a western theme and we will end the year with students going to Frontier City in Oklahoma City. We will have fundraisers and quarterly rewards all year long.

Everyone is really inspired and it is spreading all over the school. We just finished our practice for Rise and Shine so we are all pumped. I plan to make a video of the first day of school. Thanks for the idea about a "WOW"!

Rebecca Macy
Math Facilitator
Howard Elementary School
rmacy@fortsmithschools.org
"Have a blessed day!"

Have you got a Wow to share with others? If you’ll share with me, keep spreading them around. Hope you are having a WOW filled opening of school.

ORIENTATION FOR COACHING

I had the opportunity to work with two school districts who are implementing new or reorganized instructional coaching positions. In Gallitin, TN (Sumner County Schools), Instructional Coaches will be working in each of the buildings this fall. They will be joining some Title 1 , Reading, and Special Education Coaches who were already supporting teachers.

While the coaches trained in and practiced verbal skills for one-on-one coaching conferences, we also explored their role in creating a culture of coaching within the district. How would they generate teachers coaching teachers as a common professional activity?

As identified in an earlier blog (8-17-08), the coach/principal partnership is critical to establishing a culture of coaching among the staff.

Here is the invitation program coordinators Carla Cushman and Nina Morel prepared for principals’ and coaches’ orientation. Great ideas for any coach principal conversations for the start of the year.


Orientation for Instructional Coaches
Principal’s Role

Acknowledging the role of the principal as key to the success of any instructional coaching program, we invite you to participate in the orientation process for new coaches in the following ways:

-Participate in the Principals and Coaches Joint Kick-Off Breakfast on Wednesday, August 12, 8:00 – 10:00, at the Teacher Center.

-Identify a space in your building to house your instructional coach one to two days per week. Have this space move-in ready by August 14 (suggest teacher’s desk or table, chair, electrical outlets, and trash can).

-Prepare a list of superstar teachers for your instructional coach to start coaching during her first week in your school. (High school principals should identify all department chairpersons as well.) Inform these superstar teachers of the coach’s upcoming visit and tell them why they were selected.

Be available to meet with Nina or Carla and your instructional coach in a brief meeting structured around the following questions:
1. If you went into a classroom, what would you see that would help you predict that the kids will be successful? What district initiatives are most widely implemented in your school? (Quantum Learning, brain-based teaching/learning strategies, differentiated instruction, instructional technology, DIBELS, benchmark assessments, etc.)
2. In general, what should the focus of classroom visits and professional conversations between your instructional coach and your teachers be? (engaging strategies, use of technology, student/classroom management, etc.)
3. How can your instructional coach best assist your school in achieving your school improvement goals?

-Welcome and introduce your instructional coach to your staff and encourage teachers to invite the coach to their classrooms.


My second training was with a team of instructional facilitators from Fort Smith, Arkansas schools. These facilitators with a focus on literacy, math, science, or social studies will be working with staff and administrators from several buildings to build student achievement.

Our two day training session culminated with a luncheon for the facilitators and building principals. We reviewed the backward planning process that begins with defining student achievement, then identifying the student behaviors that will produce the achievement, then the teacher behaviors most likely to generate the necessary student behaviors, and the staff relations likely to produce the environment to support individual teachers as learners….and lastly, the administrator behaviors that support the process.

Now that we’ve planned from the student achievement, we start the change process with administrator behaviors.

The concept clicked as facilitators and principals began to plan the start of the school year. What behaviors on their parts were most likely to generate the necessary staff thinking and doing?

It was exciting to see principals offer to be coached as they conducted a faculty meeting. Some requested that they be video taped teaching and then be coached on their instruction as staff observed. That vulnerability and modeling on the part of leaders will have a powerful impact on staff actions and student behaviors and achievement.

I’d love to hear your strategies for coaches and principals communicating in action the messages you want staff to receive and act upon.

OPENING SCHOOL: TEACHERS AND STUDENTS

August provides a great time to be thinking about the messages educational leaders want to be providing teachers and students as the new year begins.

Consider the following thoughts from McCombs and Miller in The School Leader’s Guide to Learner–Centered Education:

To develop human potential, we believe it is essential that the students have an opportunity to study real world problems and learn for understanding in self directed ways……help students develop into critical thinkers, self-directed learners, problem solvers, time managers, and life long learners needed in our complex society.(pg27)

When the focus is on standards and coverage of materials, students are bored, and they know the system isn’t about them. (pg 27)

What message will your teachers be hearing as they gather to plan for the start of school?
What message will their students hear in the opening week of school?

Some time back I was working with a group of school administrators and asked them to consider what three changes in teachers could produce the greatest improvement in student achievement. I asked that they write down their three before beginning discussions in small groups. As I walked around the room looking over shoulders, I observed that many of them had recorded similar statements in their top two. They were statements connected to relationships with students, knowing students better, having students know that they were known, and communicating caring for students.

When I shared my observation with the group they quickly informed me that my discovery was VERY common knowledge. I then asked that they list the number of staff development activities they had held connected to relationships with students. I asked how often it had been the topic of a faculty or department or grade level meeting. The topic of relationships was mysteriously missing. Isn’t that strange? Leaders said it was extremely important…. yet missing from conversations with teachers.

I thought about that experience as I attended the New Jersey Department of Education’s Summer Literacy Conference, Keeping the Promise: A Renewed Commitment. I was there to present breakout sessions on coaching for reading coaches and administrators. I was fortunate to hear Dr Robert Brooks’ keynote, The Power of Mindsets: Nurturing Motivation and Resilience in Students. Brooks is an assistant professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School who has written extensively on school climate, motivation, resilience, family relationships and qualities of effective leaders.

Dr Brooks had a great analogy for school leaders to think about. He compared providing teachers with strategies to giving them cookbooks. “Wouldn’t it be awful to give a cookbook to someone who didn’t like to cook? OR worst…….to someone who hated the people they were cooking for? He proceeded to discuss that when exploring the stories of people who were resilient, who had overcome difficult situations, he found that they reported the effect of a “charismatic adult” in their lives. Often, that person was a teacher.

Brooks identified the mindset of teachers who truly touch the hearts and minds of students; Click here for the presentation on Creating a Positive School Climate.

They believe that all children want to learn and be successful and that all students are motivated (Some students have avoidance motivation to protect themselves from failure and humiliation).

They examine student lack of learning with the question, ”What can I do differently?”. This question comes not from a sense of blame but a sense of empowerment. Effective teachers believe in their own capacity as well as the capacity of their students. ”How effective you feel you are influences how effective you are.”

They have empathy. They can see the world through the eyes of their students.

Performance Learning System’s course, Building Communication and Teamwork in the Classroom, provides specific training in the empathy statement which enables teachers to show understanding and acceptance of a student’s feeling. Sometimes students need to be invited to deal with their feelings and not merely talk about the content of their concern. Reflective statements that convey the listener has heard the underlying emotions as well as cognitive content are frequently most beneficial. Statements such as “You’re disappointed in how your classmates treated you” communicate that deeper understanding.(pg 350)

See the following video for a concrete example of a teacher being that charismatic adult: DL Hughley thanks his teacher (CNN).

As you plan the opening of school, “What message are you preparing for your teachers and students to hear?” As school leaders, “How will you model that message?”. “What educator behaviors are most important for students to observe in the opening days?”

Here’s a great reminder to examine and communicate beliefs from Starkville, MS.

MENTORING AND COACHING ADMINISTRATORS

I recently had the opportunity to provide some training and facilitation for Education Service Center Region XI in Fort Worth, Texas for their Administrator Mentoring Program. An outstanding group of retired administrators have been selected to provide support to:

Aspiring Administrators- potential administrators

First Year Administrators- who are required to be in an induction program with a mentor

Growing Administrators – those developing into strong instructional leaders

Veteran Administrators- those who may be moving from campus to central office positions

We identified how to use a backward process beginning with a definition of student achievement, then identifying student behaviors that would generate the desired student achievement and the teacher behaviors most likely to promote the desired student behaviors. This work provides the observation “look for”s for administrative walkthroughs and classroom observations.

This backward process is for planning. When it comes to implementation, action begins with the leadership. Therefore the questioning sequence an administrator coach might use is:

What patterns have emerged from your walkthrough observations?
How has your behavior changed since identifying those patterns?

Increased student achievement begins in the behavior of leaders.

We also identified the important role of staff collegiality in creating student achievement. That means that administrators need to create and support collegiality.

In The School Leader’s Guide to Learner-Centered Education: From Complexity to Simplicity, authors Barbara L. McCombs and Lynda Miller state:

Collegiality and ongoing dialogue are critical to ensure that changes are thought of in context of their interrelationships with each other and the shared vision. In addition, data collection and analysis, continual staff development and learning, and reflection are necessary components of continuous improvement.(pg25)

Mentors can help administrators identify what leadership behaviors would be required to get the necessary staff behaviors.

McCombs and Miller also point to the work of Margaret Wheatley:

….leaders need freedom to make intelligent decisions based on how well they understand the situation rather than how well they understand the policies and procedures. They need to trust that people will invent their own solutions and to expect and value the unique solutions that emerge. Compliance to one-size-fits all will no longer serve our global and local needs. Leaders need to know that they can rely on human creativity, compassion, caring, potential, and self organizing capacities. (pg 26)

Wow! That kind of leadership needs mentoring and coaching to support the kind of continual reflection and assessment that would model what the leader sought from his/her faculty.

The following diagram is one that I created after reading A Simpler Way by Wheatly and Kellner-Rogers. It illustrates the interconnection of three key elements in an organization:

The flow of information- How do we organize for information to flow throughout the system.. working for everyone to know everything.. grade to grade….department to department…school to home to school...student to teacher to leadership, etc.

Rich and diverse relationships- How do we organize for the development of relationships? How do we use staff development and faculty meeting for building relationships? Do we communicate the importance of relationships in classrooms and learning?

Common vision- How do we organize so that conversations where we connect with each other around common beliefs and the desired future continually occur?

“The work of educational leaders is to encourage local experiments, to watch for and nourish supportive beliefs and dynamics, and to sponsor faculty and staff to connect with all the kindred spirits now working in isolation. This is how we intentionally work with emergence to create the future we desire.”
How Large-Scale Change Really Happens - Working With Emergence
Margaret Wheatley Ed.D. and Deborah Frieze ©2006 The School Administrator Spring 2007

The Pay Off-When our organization has information flow, rich and diverse relationships around common vision, the pay off is creativity People create solutions and improvements. This is what we want from Professional Learning Communities…student achievement!