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The Power of Questioning and Listening in Instructional Coaching - Student-Centered Coaching

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Instructional coaching is most effective when it is built on a foundation of thoughtful questioning and active listening.

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Listening in Coaching: Paraphrasing and the Power of You | Barkley

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Steve Barkley shares his coaching experiences with the power of the word ‘You’ when questioning and paraphrasing.

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Coaching is booming. There are life coaches, executive coaches, and performance coaches. There are coactive coaches, empathic coaches, and solution-focused coaches. There are image coaches, dating coaches, even Twitter coaches. In other words, if you want to learn how to do something, you can find a coach to help you do it.

Education is no exception. In this blogpost, I'll examine the three most widely employed approaches to coaching-facilitative, directive, and dialogical-alongside each one's unique strengths and weaknesses.
Three Models of Coaching

Coach does not share expertise

Coach shares expertise

dialogically when appropriate

Coach's expertise is the

focus of the coaching session

Teacher does most of

the thinking

Coach and teacher think

together

Coach does most of the

thinking

Teacher-focused goal

Student-focused goal

Strategy-focused goal

Facilitative Coaching

Facilitative coaches see collaborating teachers as equals who make most if not all decisions during coaching. As Sir John Whitmore has written in his influential book Coaching for Performance: GROWing People, Performance, and Purpose (2002), "the relationship between the coach and coachee must be one of partnership in the endeavor, of trust, of safety and of minimal pressure" (p. 20).

Facilitative coaches encourage coachees to share their ideas openly by listening with empathy, paraphrasing, and asking powerful questions. Additionally, facilitative coaches do not share their expertise or suggestions with respect to what a teacher can do to get better based on the assumption that (a) coachees already have the knowledge they need to improve, so a coach's role is to help them unpack what they already know, and that (b) coaches who share their expertise with coachees may inhibit progress by keeping coachees from coming up with their own solutions. In other words, "The coach is not a problem solver, a teacher, an adviser, an instructor, or even an expert; he or she is a sounding board, a facilitator, a counselor, an awareness raiser" (Whitmore, 2002, p. 40).

Facilitative coaching can be used in all kinds of situations, so it has the potential to address issues that dialogical and directive coaching are not able to address. For example, facilitative coaching may be used to help a teacher get along with a difficult team member, to help a principal lead culture change in her school, or to help a student use his time more effectively.

In the classroom, facilitative coaching works best when the teachers being coached already have the knowledge they need to improve. It is less effective when teachers do not have the necessary knowledge to bring about the change they want to see. For example, a teacher who is struggling to create a learner-friendly classroom culture and who has not learned effective strategies for classroom management will likely need an instructional coach to help him master teaching behavioral expectations, reinforcing appropriate behavior, and correcting inappropriate behavior. Clearly, facilitative coaching would not be an appropriate approach in such a situation. Instead, the teacher would benefit from particular teaching practices such as those described in The Art and Science of Teaching: A Comprehensive Framework for Effective Instruction (Marzano, 2007), The Skillful Teacher: Building Your Teaching Skills (Saphier, Speca, & Gower, 2008), or High-Impact Instruction: A Framework for Great Teaching (Knight, 2013).

Directive Coaching

In many ways, directive coaching is the opposite of facilitative coaching. That is, the directive coach's goal is to help coachees master a certain skill or set of skills. The directive coach and coachee relationship is similar to a master apprenticeship relationship. The directive coach has special knowledge, and his job is to transfer that knowledge to the coachee. While the relationship is respectful, it is not equal.

In contrast to facilitative coaches who set their expertise aside when working with teachers, the directive coach's expertise is at the heart of this coaching approach. Since their job is to make sure teachers learn the correct way to do something, directive coaches tell teachers what do to, sometimes model practices, observe teachers, and provide constructive feedback to teachers until they can implement the new practice with fidelity.

Directive coaches work from the assumption that the teachers they are coaching do not know how to use the practices they are learning, which is why they are being coached. They also assume that teaching strategies generally should be implemented with fidelity, which is to say, in the same way in each classroom. Thus, the goal of the directive coach is to ensure fidelity to a proven model, not adaptation of the model to the unique needs of children or strengths of a teacher.

The best directive coaches are excellent communicators who listen to their coachees, confirm understanding using effective questions, and sensitively read their coachee's understanding or lack of understanding. Since the goal is high-quality implementation of a new practice, directive coaches need to especially be effective at explaining, modeling, and providing constructive feedback.

When teachers are committed to learning a teaching strategy or program, directive coaching can be effective. However, directive coaching tends to de-professionalize teaching by minimizing teacher expertise and autonomy, and, therefore, frequently engenders resistance. Telling teachers they have to do something a certain way whether they want to or not treats teachers more like laborers than professionals, and it often leads to resistance more than change.

The directive approach to coaching also often fails because it oversimplifies the complex world of the classroom. The unique, young human beings who attend our schools are too complex for one-size-fits-all approaches to learning. What teachers and students need is an approach to coaching that combines the facilitative coach's respect for the professionalism of teachers with the directive coach's ability to identify and describe effective strategies that can help teachers move forward. That approach is the dialogical approach-the very approach I adopt in all of my instructional coaching work.

Dialogical Coaching

The facilitative coach focuses on inquiry, using questions, listening, and conversational moves to help a teacher become aware of answers he already has inside himself. The directive coach focuses on advocacy, using expertise, clear explanations, modeling and constructive feedback to teach a teacher how to use a new teaching strategy or program with fidelity. The dialogical coach balances advocacy with inquiry.

Like a facilitative coach, a dialogical coach embraces inquiry, asking questions that empower the collaborating teacher to identify goals, strategies, and adaptations that will have an unmistakable impact on students' achievement and well-being. Dialogical coaches ask powerful questions, listen and think with teachers, and collaborate with them to set powerful goals that will have a powerful impact on students' lives. They employ a coaching cycle, like my Impact Cycle, which is driven by back-and-forth conversation about the current reality and the teacher's hoped-for reality in the classroom.

In contrast to facilitative coaches, dialogical coaches do not withhold their expertise. They work from the assumption that the issues teachers face in classrooms can often be better addressed if teachers look at what the research has identified as effective teaching strategies. Therefore, like directive coaches, dialogical coaches must have a deep understanding of teaching strategies they can share with teachers to help them improve. What separates them from directive coaches, however, is that they do not do the thinking for teachers; rather, they position teachers as decision makers.

Dialogical coaches do not give advice; they share possible strategies with teachers and let teachers decide if they want to try one of them or some other strategy to meet their goals. Dialogical coaches partner with teachers to identify goals and teaching strategies and then describe strategies precisely, while also asking teachers how they want to modify the strategies to better meet students' needs. Then they help implement the strategies and gather data on whether or not they lead to students hitting their goals. Dialogical coaches don't keep their ideas to themselves, but they realize that sometimes strategies have to be modified to meet students' needs and to align with teachers' strengths. They also understand that student-focused goals that matter to teachers are essential for effective coaching.

During dialogical coaching-in contrast to directive coaching-the standard for excellent implementation is not the coach's opinion but the goal itself. That is, if a teacher implements a strategy in a way that is radically different from how it was designed to be used, the coach doesn't take a top-down approach and tell the teacher how to teach the strategy with fidelity. Instead, she simply says, "Let's see if we can hit the goal." If the goal isn't hit, then teacher and coach can go back to the description and consider whether or not the strategy should be taught with greater fidelity.

Facilitative and directive coaching both involve conversation, but they do not involve dialogue. A dialogue is a meeting of the minds, two or more people sharing ideas with each other. It is not a dialogue if I withhold my ideas, and it is not a dialogue when I tell you what to do. It is a dialogue when I share my ideas in a way that makes it easy for others to share their ideas.
A dialogue is thinking with someone.
That is the approach we take when implementing the Impact Cycle-the subject of my forthcoming book, where I offer step-by-step descriptions of how coaches can employ that cycle.
WRITTEN BY JIM KNIGHT
The above blogpost is an excerpt from Jim Knight's forthcoming The Impact Cycle: What Instructional Coaches Should do to Foster Powerful Improvements in Teaching, which publishes mid-August, 2017. The author of more than a half dozen professional books, Jim is a research associate at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning and the president of the Instructional Coaching Group. He has presented and consulted in most states, and eight countries. Jim also leads coaching institutes in Lawrence, Kansas, and the annual Teaching | Learning | Coaching Conference.

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A Close-Up Look at Three Approaches to Coaching | Corwin Connect

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Coaching is booming. There are life coaches, executive coaches, and performance coaches. There are coactive coaches, empathic coaches, and solution-focused coaches. There are image coaches, dating coaches, even Twitter coaches. In other words, if you want to learn how to do something, you can find ...

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Coaching Launch: Interview with Instructional Coaches - PEBC

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Here are some best ideas from instructional coaches for launching a successful year of coaching and mentoring.

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The ABCs of instructional coaching - SmartBrief

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Discover 26 strategies to elevate instructional coaching, writes Donna Spangler, ranging from active listening to zeroing in on teacher needs.

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Listening in Coaching: Paraphrasing and the Power of You | Barkley

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Steve Barkley shares his coaching experiences with the power of the word ‘You’ when questioning and paraphrasing.

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Becoming a Coach: Kirsten’s Story - PEBC

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Like many before me, I was a lead teacher who said goodbye to the classroom and hello to the front of a staff room. We traded our well-oiled systems for scaffolding student growth and were asked to…

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The instructional coaching process can proceed in straightforward ways that provide encouragement and solutions-focused support.

Ground Picture / Shutterstock

Encouraging teachers' growth should be on every school leader's priority list. It's imperative to teachers' success to look at the teaching profession with a growth mindset. We value seasoned teachers and appreciate the spunk and passion of new teachers. However, it's important not to become complacent within those thoughts and ensure that we do more than admire what teachers have done. That value is wasted if we don't support them. Providing all teachers with advantageous coaching is something that can sustain them and help them grow.

It's important to coach our teachers so they know that a support system is available to them; we want to retain as many educators in the profession as possible.

Shift the View of Coaching from Evaluative to Supportive

A coaching process that focuses on empowerment instead of evaluation can help a teacher shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.

I think there's a breakdown in coaching mainly because the tone is usually evaluative. This typically leads to discouraged teachers. Moreover, evaluations are typically done at the end of the year, when there is little to no time left for improvement. As a result, educators may feel pressure during formal evaluations. However, open conversations about growing as an educator with steps that help coaches along the way are beneficial for all stakeholders.

Build Teacher Capacity With a Clear Coaching Cycle

Elena Aguilar states in her book The Art of Coaching: Effective Strategies for School Transformation, "Everyone we work with knows a lot more and can do a lot more than we think. It's our job as coaches to find out what it is that they know, care about, can do, and are committed to, and then to use that information to help them move their practice."

Using a rubric is a helpful tool for teachers to understand the path they're on. In order to build their capacity, begin with the end in mind. It's important to let teachers know what the intended outcome is if we want them to be successful, just as we would with our students. Teachers can develop their craft through collaboration with instructional coaches, a transparent coaching cycle that is crucial for success.

The following four-step cycle depicts a transformative process that gives teachers an opportunity to cultivate their teaching practices in ways that are tailored to their specific needs.

Step 1: Objective

The teacher and instructional coach work together to set a goal based on their district's framework. They collaborate to determine where the teacher currently stands (beginning, intermediate, advanced) and then create a rubric based on that goal. During this part of the process, it's important for the teacher to have a realistic expectation for where they would like to see themselves by the end of the cycle. During this step, it's also helpful to set a date for a follow-up meeting to ensure follow-through.

Step 2: Obstacles

This is where a discussion begins about things that may get in the teacher's way of achieving their goal. However, it's crucial that this be a solutions-driven process and that the obstacles be within the teacher's circle of control, which allows them to more easily outline the issues that might arise. The instructional coach can offer solutions throughout this part of the process.

For example, if a teacher begins speaking negatively about their students, the coach can encourage the teacher to reframe their sentences to focus on what is in their control. Bright Morning offers useful coaching sentence stems that can help coaches guide teachers for positive results. Reframing a question can be tough, but it's necessary for the conversation to continue in a solution-oriented way. Some teachers might also lack motivation, which can make this stage of the coaching cycle challenging for them. Coaches who ask thoughtful questions can help uncover the root of difficult issues and lead teachers to finding ways to overcome their problems.

Step 3: Opportunities

In this part of the cycle, the instructional coach identifies learning opportunities that support growth and foster excitement. Thinking about the new things being added to their tool belt can be helpful for teachers to define or reconnect to their "why." Examples of these opportunities could be adopting a new digital tool, embracing a new teaching style, or even increasing their planning efficacy.

Step 4: Observe

To be clear, this step isn't a typical evaluation or observation moment for the teacher, where an administrator sits in the corner of the classroom watching. Prior to the observation, the coach and the teacher can specifically discuss what the teacher needs and reach a consensus together. This final step is conditional and should be based on what the teacher wants, needs, and, most important, is ready for.

There are different formats of observing and working with a teacher. For example, this part of the process could be a modeling time (performed by the instructional coach or another grade-level teacher) or just a one-on-one planning session. Other options could include coteaching (the coach and teacher in the classroom together) or the teacher observing a mentor teacher. Some teachers may also want a watch-me experience where there are multiple opportunities for observation.

Effective coaching is situational, not procedural. Instead of evaluation, the goal of this entire process should be for coaches to give teachers encouragement and best practices to help them improve their instruction.

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The instructional coaching process can proceed in straightforward ways that provide encouragement and solutions-focused support.

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Are you a good listener? Or do you just *think you are a good listener? Listening is an act that is so important to the relationships that matter to us. Teachers spend the majority of their day being listened to. It seems logical that so many of us are bad at JUST LISTENING to the people we work with. I made a specific and consistent effort to cultivate my skills as a listener this last year. I wanted the people that I work with to feel valued and trust that I feel that they are important.

Chances are that you are guilty of one or all of these unproductive listening patterns. I know I am! Even after a full school year of practicing, I STILL find myself doing all four of the patterns that you will read about below. Read on for examples and what you can do to promote good listening on your team, at meetings, and in all interactions at school. Being a teacher is stressful enough. These unproductive listening patterns can add unnecessary stress, wasted time, and hurt feelings to your school life.

Who knows?! If you make an effort to refrain from them and other bad listening habits (looking at your phone or computer while someone is talking to you) others in your school will follow and you will feel respected as a speaker. More about how you can spread good listening around your building below.

While these listening patterns are directly related to Instructional Coaching, if you are a classroom teacher, an administrator, or anyone who works with other people and not in a deep dark cave all by yourself, read on. I am sure you will find that the school examples could translate to many other venues.

Autobiographical Listening:
The story or situation that the speaker shares sparks an association in the listeners brain. The dangers of this unproductive pattern are that the listener's attention is now focused on their own recollection, that the listener's personal experience can influence them into judgment, and that the listener is now comparing their own experience instead of being immersed in listening to the speaker.

Examples:
You are sharing a frustrating or wonderful classroom experience with colleagues. Your friend and mentor takes an opportunity to share a similar experience, taking the focus off of you. You are left to either find a way to bring the attention back to you or leave your story unfinished. Taking the focus off of the speaker sends the message that your story is more important, entertaining, or informative. The speaker can feel disrespected or undervalued.
Your teammate comes in for advice about a student. As she is sharing, you think of a similar student and then find that you have missed what she was saying. You were lost in your own thoughts. You have to either go off of only what you heard or ask her to repeat herself. Not giving your full attention to the speaker can leave them feeling disconnected with you.

Your friend is venting a frustrating situation with your administrator to you. The situation connects to a negative interaction that you previously had with the same administrator. You launch into that story. Your positive or negative emotions associated with your experiences can skew your perspective and lead you to take your focus from the person you are listening to.
Consider:
I am not saying to never share a story, but keep in mind that some of the above circumstances are real possibilities. Ask yourself, is this the right time and context to share this story? I can remember a year that a teammate of mine was very frustrated at being "trumped" by a colleague whenever she began to share. After I was paying attention, I noticed that she was, in fact, often cut off. She was hurt and I could see why. I am certain that the colleague wasn't intentionally falling into a autobiographical listening pattern.

I often find that sharing a story is something that is warranted during "bonding time" in a classroom after school while others are unwinding and sharing as well. I might not share a story if my role as listener, rather than speaker, is obvious.

Solution Listening:
Solution listening is often intended to be helpful in nature. When someone shares with us, they are not always looking for ideas or solutions to their problems. Many times, we jump in with the solutions to a problem because we are eager to share and help. This can be a problem when the speaker isn't looking for ideas or in our haste to provide a "fix" we impair the higher-level thinking of the speaker.

Examples:
You go to your principal to share a problem in your class regarding a writing unit. The provided curriculum that you used with students last year fell short of your expectations and you would like to try a different strategy that your teammate has had previous success with. Before you can get to the idea, your principal starts sharing a list of possible solutions to your writing unit. Not wanting to sound as if you disagree, you go back to your classroom and try to work out what just happened.

Your teammate is crying in her room. She has had a rough day in regards to classroom management and can't understand why the class is not listening. You start sharing ideas about how you think she could get the attention of the class. She could try some of the callbacks you use. She could make sure that the class knows the consequences of not complying. Instead of thinking about WHY her students are not listening herself, she tries your ideas the next day, fumbling through the strategies in turn, none of them quite hitting the mark.

Consider: Sometimes we are so eager to solve all of the problems of the world, we forget that listening can be exactly the solution that is needed. Our colleagues often just need an ear to vent frustrations. They might need someone to ask a question that helps them take the next step themselves.

This sums it up for me! Others might not want us to solve the problems for them...even if all of their sweaters are snagged.

Judgment/Criticism:
Judgment and criticism both focus on the flaws in what the speaker is saying. Criticism is likely to stop a discussion before it can really start. Judgment implies that the speaker has the right answers.

Examples:
You make a suggestion to help a student with organizational difficulties by providing them few materials to manage. Your teammate say that she has tried that with a previous student and it didn't work. The fact that she tried it and it failed implies criticism and that the idea is inferior, regardless of context.

As you are in a meeting discussing possible school-wide incentive programs, your assistant principal says that she likes Carol's idea. The message is sent that her judgment regarding the ideas shared is most important and is damaging to the self-confidence of others who shared ideas. Trust to share ideas freely can be lost.

As you share with your teacher friend about a behavior issue in your classroom, she replies, "Why did you do that?" Using "why" questions can be negative and imply that the speaker should be defensive of her actions.
Consider:
Judgement and Criticism Listening has a place. The problem is that when one becomes a PATTERN. Always poo-pooing ideas or saying that a strategy wouldn't work can be a sign that the listener is against trying new ideas before they are shared.

Using one person's idea over another's is inevitable. The key in this situation is to front-load what you like about each approach, or even better, gain buy-in from all members of the group, rather than stating "like" of one which could send the message that you dislike others.

Try using phrases that show your curiosity without the negative connotation of "why" questions. You could substitute a phrase like, "Tell me more about ______." One exception of using "why" questions could be using the 5 WHYs strategy in meetings. Watch this video to see more about it.

Inquisitive Listening:
Curiosity can be a good thing, but it can also kill the cat... In the same way, asking questions that detract from the important part of what another is sharing can kill the share completely. Inquisitive listening is what happens when asking questions about details can take away from the main idea the speaker is trying to get across.

Examples:
You are sharing with your teammate about a negative parent conversation. All you want to do it get the situation off of your chest and out of your head, but she keeps interrupting with questions about the behavior incident that you were calling the parents about. When did it happen? What consequence did the student have? What was the name of the other student who was involved? You leave feeling unsatisfied and unheard.

Are you guilty? Know someone else who is?

Where can you go from here?

Start small. Choose one of the above listening patterns and create a goal. Share your goal with one person. Ask them to help you reach your goal by holding you accountable. As you are an example and you work on your goal, share it with others. Maybe your team or a colleague that you regularly interact with. Want to go big? Share your goal and these unproductive listening patterns with your administrator. The more good listeners in your building, the merrier!

Remember! Practicing good listening behaviors promotes trust and respect.

The book, Coaching Conversations, is an excellent resource to help you have growth conversations in your school.

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Teaching is hard. Find a little help from your teacher friend with ideas, resources, and content for the modern teacher.

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Who do you want to be? Who are you being?

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Who do you want to be? Who are you being?

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How to Make Coaching Cycles the Center of Instructional Coaching Work

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How to Make Coaching Cycles the Center of Instructional Coaching Work

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Coaching research, evidence-based data, and teacher surveys show that coaching cycles are the key coaching action that improves student learning. However, if you're an instructional coach, you know all too well that we are often tasked with so many other responsibilities. These run the gamut from developing and leading traditional professional development sessions to collaborating with school teams, facilitating and organizing school-wide assessments, organizing learning walks and other forms of public teaching, and analyzing student achievement data.

Each of these activities can contribute to positive change in schools. The constant work that supporting these large-scale activities requires, though, oftentimes means that the one-on-one coaching cycle-the primary vehicle of instructional coaching-can all but disappear.

I'd like to make the case for why prioritizing coaching cycles over some other efforts will make a significant impact on student learning in your schools. In this post, I will explain how you can advocate for prioritizing coaching cycles to school leaders. I will also discuss a flexible structure for coaching cycles that makes them possible, despite the widely varying instructional coaching assignments and workloads each instructional coach may carry.

What is a coaching cycle?

There are many different models of coaching cycles used in education, but most can be boiled down to this simple definition: A coaching cycle is the process in which a teacher and instructional coach work collaboratively to set an instructional or student learning goal, make a plan for supporting the goal, monitor progress toward the goal, and then reflect on how well the plan supported the goal. Each cycle usually includes three phases:

1. A goal-setting and planning pre-conference

2. Coaching actions for implementing and monitoring the plan

3. A reflection post-conference to assess impact

Coaching actions in the middle phase can vary based upon the goal. They can include co-teaching, modeling, observation, co-planning, and the potential for other actions. The reflection post-conference is usually rooted in evidence to assess impact: student work, assessment data, video, student surveys, and/or an observation tool.

Why do coaching cycles matter?

Coaching cycles are an effective antidote to the knowing-doing gap. When teachers engage in traditional professional learning, many of them still struggle with implementing new learning in their classrooms, despite their best intentions.

Simply holding workshops, sharing information, or engaging in role plays is not enough to transfer skills, but coaching is highly efficacious in transferring skills to the classroom, where teachers can impact students most. In 2002, Bruce Joyce and Beverly Showers presented research that showed that almost no learning based in theory and discussion, demonstration by a trainer, or role playing with feedback transferred to classroom practice. However, coaching in the classroom resulted in 95% of learning transferring to classroom practice.

Instructional coaching is effective! The process of coaching is contextualized, and personalized professional learning is co-designed specifically to support the needs of teachers and their students. Teachers need ongoing collaboration and support while they implement what they have learned from professional development, and this is why following up professional learning with in-person coaching is recommended.

What is the evidence?

Many studies continue to support the efficacy of instructional coaching for supporting, improving, and elevating classroom instruction. Here are just a few samples:

Linda Shidler's research shows that well-defined coaching cycles, especially when aligned to school-wide goals, yield increased achievement on different measures of assessment compared to looser, more ambiguous instructional coaching activities. The "type and quality of the interactions," she explains, matter more than the amount of time one is engaged in coaching.

A study from Rebecca Frazier found that students in classrooms where teachers received coaching in the form of cycles outperformed students in non-coached teachers' classrooms on MAP® Growth™.

Teachers have remarked that engaging in coaching cycles has improved student engagement in their classrooms. They have also said that they implemented more new literacy strategies with the support of coaches, according to a study by Kelly Feighan and Elizabeth Heeren.

In Diane Sweeney's research on the student-centered coaching cycle model, student proficiency on learning targets improved from an average of 5% in the coaching pre-conference to an average of 73% in the coaching post-conference.

My own coaching feedback surveys with teachers revealed that teachers who engage in individual coaching cycles are more likely to say that coaching improved learning for their students and that they could sustain using new teaching practices in the classroom in the long term.

What should I do now?

If you're an instructional coach, here are three ways you can prioritize coaching cycles:

1. Consider creating a coaching menu. The menu can focus on supporting a few school-wide goals. Use it to engage individual teachers in individual coaching cycles. I used a simple Google form that allowed teachers to share their goals for students and coaching actions they believed would help us collaborate well. If you want to learn more about creating your own coaching menu, check out "The Digital Coaching Menu: Four Reasons Why You Need One," a post I wrote on the topic.

2. Audit your time. Record all your activities for a week and make a chart to see where you are spending your time. Strive to dedicate at least 50% of your time to coaching cycle work. Ask your supervisor for help if you need it.

3. Advocate for time to coach. Share this post with your administrator, direct supervisor, or team. Discuss how support for students and teachers in your school would be strengthened if your work were firmly centered in coaching cycles.

Coaching cycles are the bridge over the knowing-doing gap for many teachers. Instructional coaches are in a unique position to impact student learning based on their capacity to offer contextualized, ongoing professional learning for those they serve. Bringing coaching cycles to the focus of coaching work will have lasting benefits for students, educators, and the communities we serve.

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How to make coaching cycles the center of instructional coaching work

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Research and teacher surveys show that coaching cycles are the key instructional coaching action that improves student learning.

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We make our free tools available to support our community in growing their skills by engaging in ongoing practice. To grow your craft in the most powerful way possible, we invite you to join us at an upcoming event.

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We make our free tools available to support our community in growing their skills by engaging in ongoing practice. To grow your craft in the most powerful way possible, we invite you to join us at an upcoming event.Read More

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What is Cognitive Coaching? | Brian Marshall | TEDxYouth@TCIS

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How to Get Started With a Coaching Conversation

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How to Get Started With a Coaching Conversation

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Hello, and welcome back! How's distance coaching/teaching been going for you?

I feel like I'm finally starting to get my groove with all of the distance learning things (now that school is almost over, geez!). And just like you, I've been adjusting to new technology, new schedules, new expectations, and establishing a "new normal" work-life balance.
Today I thought I'd walk you through what my schedule is currently looking like and how I'm managing my time, so my days don't turn into one big blursday (ha!). Let's get started!

So the main strategy I've used to help give structure to my days and weeks is...block scheduling or time blocking. Time Blocking! It's pretty amazing when you put it to good use. Jordan Page at Fun Cheap or Free has a great blog post I recently revisited that got me energized to use the time blocking strategy during these distance learning days.

Let me start by giving you an overview of how I've set up my distance learning blocks/schedule.

I created this schedule given the guidelines provided by our school, but I was also able to "bundle" my instructional time to all be in the morning which works better for me.

Since I'm nearing the end of the school year, I've also done some planning ahead for what I want my summer time blocks to look like. You'll see they look very similar to what my current blocks look like! I just switched out the "teach" block with work I'll be doing for myself...working on my blog, as well as keeping up with the FIVE classes I have signed up to take this summer!

OK. Now that you have the overview in mind, I'll give you a closer look at what's happening in each of my blocks.

And as we take this walk through be thinking about how you might structure your own time blocks!

I'm a morning person, so my morning block is a big chunk of my day ...and my favorite! I've structured this time so I'm able to work on my priority projects and also get myself set-up and energized for a great teach from home day.

Next up, is my "Teach" block. As I mentioned, I was able to bundle all of my student instructional time to be during this block which has really worked well. My instructional time includes daily crew meetings with students, one-on-one instructional support time, as well as small group instruction.

I've been working from the kitchen table which has been just fine. I set up all of my supplies...laptop, Time & ToDo Planner, weekly work-box, water bottle and I'm ready to go!

After teaching and before planning meetings I make time for a tea break with my favorite work from home buddy...Sombra! (Luke is holding up a treat for him to pose for the pic, so he's looking very serious :)

For my morning meetings:
Every day I meet with the third grade team for planning and check-in's.

And on Tuesdays, I meet with IDT. This is our instructional design team. We're currently getting started on work planning for next year.

Oh, and as far as coaching goes, my primary focus during this time has been on teaching. Lynsey (math coach/teaching partner) and I have been able to collaborate to share and present ideas with teachers for how to structure their small group instruction. Otherwise, coaching has really taken a back seat. Depending on what next year looks like, distance/virtual coaching is something I'm really going to need to wrap my brain around!

After a morning of teaching and a few meetings, it's time for my "Plan & Meet" block. First, I'll stop and have some lunch. One positive about working from home is that Luke and I have been able to have lunch together every day. He has always worked from home, though my being here to make him something to eat has been a treat!

After lunch I'll work on any planning related tasks, and I'll take another look through any emails that have come in.
In the later part of the afternoon, I often have various meetings. A few this past week have included:

Interviews

Planning for coaching next year with our principal

Planning for the new interventionist roles for next year

Meeting with our new interventionists (I will start next year as a mentor for this team)

Leadership Team

Next up, is my "Personal" block! First, I'll head out and take Sombra for his afternoon walk so we can both get some fresh air. I've been working hard during the day so I may also make a cup of tea and catch up on a book I've been reading.

And then lastly, it's time for my "Evening" block. I'll make some dinner, clean up the kitchen, and pat myself on the back for a job well done today. After all that is done, Luke, Sombra and I will snuggle up and either watch a show together OR I might just jump straight into bed with my book! (Yes, I do go to bed quite early :).

A few additional tips for time blocking your days:
Color code your planner/calendar -> I like to draw colored lines in my Time & ToDo Planner to help me stay visually on track throughout the day (ps - 2020-21 planners are coming soon!)

I also LOVE to use checklists for routine or recurring tasks during each of my blocks. For school I have been using Google Keep. And for home, I keep a laminated checklist in my planner.

Phew, we made it! That was fun, huh? I know I love a good day in the life post.

I hope I have given you some ideas for how you might integrate time blocking into your own time management system. Whether this week, this summer, or even next year, give it a try!

As always, thanks for taking the time to hang out with me today and I will talk to you soon!

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Hello, and welcome back! How's distance coaching/teaching been going for you? I feel like I'm finally starting to get my groove with all of the distance learning things (now that school is almost over, geez!). And just like you, I've been adjusting to new technology, new schedules, new expectations, and establishing a "new normal" work-life balance.

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Strategies for Building Relationships as an Instructional Coach

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Strategies for Building Relationships as an Instructional Coach

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At TeachBoost, we love to ask instructional coaches what tools they include in their instructional coaching toolbox. Our guest blogger, Megan Ryder, was generous enough to share some of her acquired strategies for building relationships as an instructional coach.
Before becoming an instructional coach I was a classroom teacher for seven years. As a new coach, I came to realize that not only is building relationships one of the most important steps to coaching and collaborating with teachers, but that it doesn't happen overnight either.

Now that I've been in schools for a few years, I have moved from building relationships to maintaining them with a majority of the staff. While there are new staff members who I start relationships with every year, for the most part I have worked hard to make connections that allow for more meaningful coaching interactions.

Below I've reflected over my favorite five strategies from my instructional coach "Relationship Toolbox" that have been successful for me as a coach over the past few years.

A few years ago, one my colleagues saw me in the teacher's lounge as I was working on professional development resources and said something that really stuck with me. She told me that when she sees me, she always remembers something she wants to share or ask. When she doesn't see me on a regular basis, she forgets to reach out to me when she has a question. This reminds me of the phrase "Out of sight, out of mind"--even though my office is in a different location from my schools, I am rarely there. I make it a priority to be in my schools as much as possible.

At the beginning of the school year, I remind the teachers where they can find me when I am not working with a teacher in a classroom. My schedule and location vary from day to day and, since I have multiple buildings, I indicate my location during the day by using the status updates in Gmail Chat or Hangouts .

Just as important, to "be present", I've taken note where teachers in each of my buildings gather before, during, and after school. This allows me to join in personal conversations about everyone's weekend, pets, children, etc.--getting to know teachers on a personal level is important when building relationships.

Before I could start building relationships, however, teachers needed to have an understanding of what my job was and why I was there each week. Introducing myself and defining my role in my schools was important.

Every year I have given the same message in each of my buildings--just in a different manner and every year I have requested time from my building's principals to be able to do this. Their support has been wonderful and has been an integral part in communicating how I can support teachers as their colleague .

Since I am constantly Tweeting when co-teaching in classrooms, I decided to take my Tweets and create a monthly newsletter using Storify . Using Storify to categorize my Tweets into 3 categories (lessons in the classroom, teacher collaboration, and resources) helps me communicate my monthly coaching happenings. My newsletters have sparked conversations with teachers and have lead to more co-teaching and collaboration sessions.

Most of my time is spent working one-on-one with teachers. In between teacher coaching, collaboration, and co-teaching, I take time to visit the classrooms. Since my role is non-evaluative and I am a supportive colleague, this helps in building relationships with the teachers. My visits are short, but they have a purpose.

The goal is to have an understanding of what students are learning so I can best support teacher and student growth, and I communicate this to teachers at the beginning of the year. Visiting classrooms can lead to small, but mighty coaching opportunities.

Who doesn't love candy or chocolate? Throughout the year I create mailbox notes to communicate and connect with the teachers. Some notes are little "pick me up" notes to encourage teachers. Others focus on reminders of how I can support teachers after district institute days. Even though I send occasional emails to all of the teachers, I also try to create paper notes because this communication method stands out more than an email.

On the first day of school I try my best to see each teacher in my three buildings. I give them each a water bottle with a personal greeting and wish everyone a happy "First Day of School". This lets them know that I am thinking of them and hope they have an awesome start to the year.

The tweets from teachers in our district are my priority. To stay organized with Twitter, I use TweetDeck. I setup my TweetDeck columns so that I have our district hashtag, individual school building hashtags, and my own generated list of district teachers.

These are the first tweets I look at when I'm using the tool. I can use teacher tweets to start up conversations that lead to coaching and collaboration opportunities, and teachers now come to me and ask if I have seen their recent tweets to talk about learning targets and classroom activities. Retweeting teacher tweets can help share our district's story with the global education community.

Overall, it's important to remember that building relationships with teachers takes time. I've worked hard to create positive collegial connections so that I can best support teacher and student growth and each year I reflect and add new ideas into my "Relationship Toolbox".

What are some of your favorite strategies to build relationships as an instructional coach?

About our Guest Blogger

Megan Ryder started her educational career on figure skates, teaching basic skills to skaters of all ages while working on her elementary education degree at Western Michigan University. Megan completed her masters degree in Instructional Technology from Lewis University in 2012. After teaching fifth grade for seven years, she became an instructional coach for two elementary schools and one middle school.

She is also an Apple Distinguished Educator , Class of 2015. Follow Megan on Twitter @MrsRyder58 and @365DaysEDUCoach for daily instructional coaching ideas, tips, and resources.

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Strategies for Building Relationships as an Instructional Coach

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At TeachBoost, we love to ask instructional coaches what tools they include in their instructional coaching toolbox. Our guest blogger, Megan Ryder, was generous enough to share some of her acquired strategies for building relationships as an instructional coach. Before becoming an instructional coach I was a classroom teacher for seven years.

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The Art of Coaching Teachers (Many Blogs)

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The Art of Coaching Teachers (Many Blogs)

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The Art of Coaching Teachers - Education Week Teacher

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Elena Aguilar, an experienced K-12 educator, trains individuals and teams to build resilient, just communities. She is the author of The Art of Coaching , (2013) The Art of Coaching Teams , (2016) and Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators (2018). She is also the founder of Bright Morning Consulting (brightmorningteam.com) and is active on social media.

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This blog by Jim Knight explores the concept of radical learners who:

believe we are here on earth to learn

use technology to learn, teach, or lead (and because it's cool)

know that to teach without hope is to damage, but to teach with hope can save the world

don't blame others but accept personal responsibility for whatever task they take on

infect everybody with their love of learning; most important, the children they teach

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Radical Learners blog by Jim Knight - Instructional Coaching Group

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This blog by Jim Knight explores the concept of radical learners who: believe we are here on earth to learn use technology to learn, teach, or lead (and because it's cool) know that to teach without hope is to damage, but to teach with hope can save the world don't blame others but accept personal responsibility for whatever task they take on infect everybody with their love of learning; most important, the children they teach

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In the early part of this decade, I partnered with a great group of instructional coaches from Beaverton, Oregon. What my research colleagues and I learned with Michelle, Susan, Jenny, and Lea, laid the foundation for what eventually became my book, The Impact Cycle.

Each year as part of our research, the coaches met with me to discuss what coaches should do and how they should do it. At the end of the project, after we'd spent 30 days together, I asked the team, "What is the one thing that you think is most important for coaches to do if they want to improve?" Their answer: "Video recording coaching conversations."

The first stage of the Impact Cycle is to Identify:

a clear picture of reality

a goal

strategies for improvement

Coaches can use video to help teachers to get a clear, objective picture of current reality so they can establish the teacher's strengths as well as areas in which they can improve. This will then help them to set their goals in the coaching process and select their strategies for improvement.

In the 2-minute video below, I explain why I think the instructional coaches from Beaverton were right and why I believe everyone can learn from video recordings of themselves. ICG experts have also compiled this helpful PDF of tips for getting the most out of watching your video.

Do you have experience using video to get a clear picture of reality in the classroom? Share your story in the comments below!

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The One Thing Coaches Should Do to Improve " Instructional Coaching Group

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In the early part of this decade, I partnered with a great group of instructional coaches from Beaverton, Oregon. What my research colleagues and I learned with Michelle, Susan, Jenny, and Lea, laid the foundation for what eventually became my book, The Impact Cycle .

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One of the presenters at this year's Teaching Learning and Coaching Conference, Peter DeWitt, shared some great news last week-he's bringing back his blog Finding Common Ground, which we consider one of the best blogs out there. In this post, we've included five of Peter's best blogs about coaching along with Jim's interview of Peter. You can learn more with Peter and many, many more coaching experts at this year's TLC!

1. DeWitt, Peter (2014). 5 Reasons Schools Need Instructional Coaches. Finding Common Ground. Education Week. November 6 th, 2014.

2. DeWitt, Peter (2015) 3 Reasons Instructional Coaches Are Used As Compliance Officers. Finding Common Ground. Education Week.

3. DeWitt, Peter (2016). Why Don't Educators Want to be Coached? Finding Common Ground.

4. DeWitt, Peter (2016). If Coaching is So Powerful Why Aren't More Principals Being Coached?
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2016/10/if_coaching_is_so_powerful_why_aren't_principals_being_coached.html

5. DeWitt, Peter (2016). 5 Reasons Principals Should Be Coached
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2016/10/5_reasons_principals_should_be_coached.html

Here are some of this year's presenters:

Joellen Killion, Chip Heath, Randy Sprick, Pedro Noguera, Elena Aguilar, Peter DeWitt, Stephen Barkley, Kirstin Anderson, Nancy Love, Ray and Julie Smith, Lisa Lande, Jamie Almanzan, Kathy Perret, Ann Hoffman, Michelle Harris, and Sharon Thomas are just some of the presenters at this year's Teaching, Learning, Coaching Conference. You can learn more about the conference here:
https://www.instructionalcoaching.com/professional-development/teaching-learning-coaching-conference/

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PETER DEWITT'S FIVE BEST BLOGS ABOUT COACHING - Instructional Coaching

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One of the presenters at this year's Teaching Learning and Coaching Conference, Peter DeWitt, shared some great news last week-he's bringing back his blog Finding Common Ground, which we consider one of the best blogs out there. In this post, we've included five of Peter's best blogs about coaching along with Jim's interview of Peter.

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What It's Like to Be an Instructional Coach

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What It's Like to Be an Instructional Coach

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It was only a few years ago that I first heard the term instructional coach. When I was in the K-12 setting, we had no such thing, at least as far as I knew. But it seems lately I hear more and more people describing themselves that way, so clearly this is a role that's growing in many schools. I thought it was time for me to take a closer look at the work instructional coaches do.

The Pennsylvania Institute for Instructional Coaching defines an instructional coach as "someone whose chief professional responsibility is to bring evidence-based practices into classrooms by working with teachers and other school leaders." Coaches are usually experienced teachers who have moved away from full-time teaching to work directly with other teachers and help them improve their practice.

Within that broad definition, roles vary from district to district and coach to coach: Some coaches refer to themselves by specific content areas-titles I hear most often are literacy coach or math coach -and other coaches focus on general instruction. Some coaches work exclusively one-on-one with teachers who have identified needs, while others may demonstrate strategies for large groups before going into the classrooms to coach individual teachers.

The path to hiring a coach can also take many forms. Coaches may be directly employed by a school or district, like Eric Sandberg, who is one of three coaches employed full-time by a single school. Other coaches, like Gretchen Schultek, work for nonprofit organizations that contract out their coaches to schools as needed. And there are other coaches who work entirely on their own, marketing their services online and building relationships with schools in their local area or even at great distances, serving clients by traveling directly to them or through online coaching.

Interviews with Two Instructional Coaches

To learn more about what coaching is like from the inside, I interviewed two instructional coaches for my podcast.

Interview #1: Gretchen Schultek Bridgers

Gretchen Schultek worked as an elementary teacher for eight years before venturing into coaching. As a coach for The New Teacher Project, she works in a variety of schools whose administrators have requested coaching services for new teachers. She also offers advice and encouragement to teachers through her blog, Always a Lesson, and her podcast of the same name.

What advice does Gretchen have for other coaches? "It's all about how you relate to one another," Gretchen explained. "You could be sharing the best piece of advice. It could be gold, but if you don't have a relationship they're not going to hear it from you and they're not going to apply it. So it's just wasted time and energy. So focus on those relationships. Also, listen more than you speak. You're going to find out a lot about someone just by listening to them. So instead of coming into a meeting ready to get right to it and share everything you planned to share, give them a minute to just share whatever it is that's on their mind because that could really be integral to their improvement."
Listen to our interview: Get Transcript
Interview #2: Eric Sandberg

Eric Sandberg is an instructional coach employed by a district in Erie, Pennsylvania. His blog, Your Instructional Coach, offers tips for coaches and tackles some interesting dynamics related to coaching.

When discussing how he approaches coaching, Eric used a toolbox metaphor. "The tools in your toolbox as a coach help teachers come to that next step, but not just always in an enforcement mode of, you know, I'm the hammer. I'm going to smash if you don't fix. So it's to be more sophisticated with your methods as a coach. Because just like in the classroom, telling is not teaching. If I just tell you, 'Oh you should really do this...' that's not teaching you in the classroom if you were the student. And it's really not very good coaching either."

Listen to our interview:

Get Transcript
What I have learned from my brief study of instructional coaching is that there's plenty more to learn. As a relatively new field, coaching has lots of room to grow, offering educators a more refined menu of coaching services from which to choose, and giving experienced teachers the opportunity to apply their skills and expertise in new roles. ♦

Learn More about Coaching

When I looked for more information on coaching, two names came up repeatedly: Elena Aguilar and Jim Knight. If you're interested in learning more about coaching, their resources would be a great place to start.

This section contains Amazon Affiliate links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you.

Elena Aguilar's blog on Education Week, The Art of Coaching Teachers, contains several years' worth of in-depth advice and information on instructional coaching. She also has a fantastic collection of coaching resources on her own website, and her book, The Art of Coaching: Effective Strategies for School Transformation, is a best seller on Amazon.

Jim Knight is the director of the Kansas Coaching Project, whose mission is "to study factors related to professional learning and how to improve academic outcomes for students through supports provided by instructional coaches." The site offers resources and forms for coaches, videos, and research on coaching best practices. Check out his latest book, Better Conversations: Coaching Ourselves and Each Other to Be More Credible, Caring, and Connected.

Keep in touch.
I would love to have you come back for more.Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration-in quick, bite-sized packages-all geared toward making your teaching more effective and joyful. To welcome you, I'll be sending a free copy of my new e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half. I look forward to having you join me.

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What It's Like to Be an Instructional Coach

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It was only a few years ago that I first heard the term instructional coach. When I was in the K-12 setting, we had no such thing, at least as far as I knew. But it seems lately I hear more and more people describing themselves that way, so clearly this is a role that's growing in many schools.

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Education Week - Peter DeWitt's Finding Common Ground

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It's time for the Olympics. It's always very exciting to watch athletes hit the biggest milestone of their lives. Going to the Olympics is a goal so many athletes have dreamed about but were never able to achieve. The Olympians we will watch with excitement, whether they get a medal or not, have all worked extremely hard to make it to the event.

One of the things that each and every Olympian has in common, regardless of what country they are from, is that they all have a coach. Some of these athletes have worked for years for a race that may only last a matter of seconds, and their coach has been with them every step, shot, swing or stroke of the way.

If coaches are so important....why is it that many teachers and leaders don't want to work with a coach?

Bringing Their A-Game
Last week I had the great fortune of working with coaches in the Lewisville, Texas Independent School District. Right when I walked into the packed room of 80 coaches and facilitators, I could tell it was going to be a great 3 days. They were laughing, leaning in, and pushing back on things that I suggested.

At one point on the last day of the Jim Knight Instructional Coaching Institute, I thought about all of the great coaches I have been able to learn from in my personal experience as a former runner (and now jog walker!), and my professional life over two years as someone who runs coaching institutes from time to time.
And I wondered why so many have a hard time getting into classes.
Over the years I have had the luxury of working with colleagues and mentors who have helped me grow. The teachers I worked with as a principal helped me grow as a leader, so I wonder why it's hard for teachers to let coaches into their classrooms? I wonder why it's so hard for leaders to let coaches into their buildings?

As I flew away on my very delayed flight, I reflected on the 3 awesome days in Lewisville and thought about the reasons coaches get the held up palm of the hand...rather than an open door welcoming them in.

I'm sure you can add to the list (feel free to in the comment section), but...

Teachers don't need coaches - Perhaps many teachers believe their advanced degrees are enough so they don't need a coach. After all, if teachers paid for their degree and worked hard to achieve it, maybe they think they don't need a coach. With that philosophy, Olympians like Michael Phelps and Missy Franklin must believe that just because they have been to an Olympics or two already, they no longer need coaches.

Critical friends all already in place - Perhaps a teacher already has a " critical colleague" who comes into observe and provides feedback, and then they do the same for them. Sometimes critical friends work well when that critical friend provides great feedback, but others times that critical friend may just stay in the " land of nice" and only provide praise. This dilemma of praise over feedback can happen with coaches as well, but is it possible they can invite the coach into the partnership to see if their critical friendship is already working?

Coaches only work with teachers in need of growth - This is a strong misperception in coaching programs. Most teachers believe coaches only work with " weak" teachers, when the reality is that coaches can work with anyone. What doesn't help this situation is when coaches are not prepared to work with strong classroom teachers and offer little effective feedback to them when they get the chance. If coaches are going to go into rooms to help all teachers grow, they need to make sure they're prepared. Additionally, this misperception of only working with weak teachers is supported by principals who only allow a coach to work with someone they believe is weak. Great coaches work with everyone.

Lack of an understanding of what coaches do - Sometimes building leaders and teachers don't understand the role of the coach (Read 5 reasons schools should have instructional coaches). It is really important that coaches have a clearly defined role (Knight) and that everyone in the district understands that role. Perhaps that clarification can help move a coaching program forward in a positive direction.

Coaches being used as compliance officers - This is a huge issue that coaches and teachers have to grapple with. I have heard from coaches and teachers across the country who say they are put in this position. They are asked to make sure everyone is pacing at the same time, and it puts the coach in a bad position, and it makes teachers less likely to want to work with them.

The coach - A bad...compliance-based...top-down coach, or one that lacks expertise, will not make it very far with teachers. Teachers are very protective of their classrooms and students. Additionally, they are very busy, so they don't want to spend time with a coach that can't help them grow.

The teacher - Sometimes teachers don't want adults to see them in action because they're insecure. Other times they don't want to work with another adult because they believe they know it all, or can handle it all, already. Additionally, there are teachers who are un-coachable, which is the administrator's job and not the job of the coach.

The culture of the building - Last but not least, a coaching program will not happen without a positive school climate. The school climate is how students and teachers feel when they enter into the building. School climate is about how much they are engaged and valued through dialogue and curriculum. The culture of the building is what dictates whether that will happen. At some point a positive school climate should overcome a negative school culture that has been created over years of top-down issues. If the culture of the building is more about rule following than risk-taking, an authentic coaching program will be hard to develop.

In the End
If leaders supported coaching programs because they understand the value, teachers will support coaching because they understand the growth that could come out of the relationship. Coaches can help teachers grow, and their coaches can grow in the process.

In less than a week we start watching the Olympians, and see glimpses of their coaches on the sidelines. We will feel a sense of excitement watching so much hard work coming to fruition, and think about how proud the coach must be to work in partnership with the athlete. And then the next morning we will get up, walk into our classrooms and close the door behind us leaving the coach on the outside.

Coaches, like those in Lewisville, are helping me to see that closing the door with them on the outside would be a very big missed opportunity.

Peter DeWitt, Ed.D. is the author of several books including the forthcoming Collaborative Leadership: 6 Influences That Matter Most (2016. Corwin Press). Connect with Peter on Twitter.

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In less than a week we will all be leaning in watching the Olympics. Thousands of athletes who have worked for years with their coach to improve in their sport. Why don't more teachers take advantage of the coaches they have in their buildings?

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When Coaching Teachers Has Curiosity as its Goal

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When Coaching Teachers Has Curiosity as its Goal

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"The key to this isn't just the sense of community that coaches have, it's the moment of intervention during practice," said Victoria Solway, director of teaching and learning at the school. That's what makes this type of coaching different from the standard lesson observation leaders used to do. In a typical observation, the teacher doesn't get any feedback until after the lesson is over, and then it usually feels evaluative. At the British International School of Shanghai, Hopkin and Solway are trying to create an experience among the staff that helps teachers notice their own teaching moves as they happen in the classroom.

"We're trying to get to a space where someone coming into your space isn't the expert," Hopkin said. "You as the teacher are still the expert with responsibility and control for your professional experience." They didn't want to follow a checklist of teaching practices or try to emulate the teaching approach of one star teacher. Instead, their goal was to help each teacher become a star in their own unique way.

"When we tried to boil down what we were looking for -- it was helping our colleagues rediscover their curiosity," Hopkin said. He wanted teachers asking themselves questions like: Why does my lesson go this way? Why don't I like this kind of student? Why did this go so well? "We wanted them to see the world with awe and wonder," he said.

Ironically, this focus on curiosity, learning mindsets, hands-on experiences, and reflection are exactly what teachers at this school offer to students. But they weren't as comfortable engaging in the same process around their own professional learning. Hopkin hopes the coaching model he's developing -- one based around partnership and shared responsibility between coach and teacher for the fate of the lesson -- will help teachers shift their mindsets about change.

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE

Hopkin and Solway quickly found that they needed to be flexible with their colleagues, many of whom were uncomfortable with this new approach to teacher professional development. The two leaders wanted coaching sessions to be positive and supportive, personalized and teacher-centered, challenging and reflective, non-evaluative and retrievable. But they also knew many teachers had not experienced that type of coaching before and were wary of anything that seemed like an evaluation.

"What they're getting is something that's right for them not only in terms of what they should be working on, but also in how they like to learn and how they like to feel," Hopkin said. He wants the experience to support teachers as they become even more independent and autonomous in their practice. To do that, he needed them to feel completely safe, so he made it very clear to the staff that nothing from coaching sessions would ever come up in annual reviews.

"No one will take a risk if they feel like they will be kicked in the teeth for landing on their face when trying something new," Hopkin said.

All coaching sessions start with a pre-lesson meeting when the coach and teacher talk about goals for the lesson and try to anticipate questions or obstacles that might arise. Together they practice how the teacher might address those scenarios. The coach videotapes the lesson with a camera mounted on a Swivel to track the teacher as he or she moves about the classroom. Depending on the teacher's comfort with in-class coaching, the coach may also be in the room quietly offering observations or questions at the point of practice. For teachers who hate that idea, Hopkin and Solway offer asynchronous coaching based on the video footage. No matter which style of coaching happens, the coach and teacher meet again to reflect on what happened during the lesson.

When Solway coaches, she likes to flag moments in the video with voiceover, pointing out strong moments or areas where she noticed something. Sometimes she'll offer resources to the teacher to help further their thinking on the goal they've identified. Solway says it's important that if the lesson goes poorly the coach shares the blame, but if the lesson goes wonderfully, it's best to give the teacher all the credit.

The pre-lesson materials, video and reflection make the experience a retrievable one. Teachers can revisit the video or the notes on their own time. Hopkin admitted it took teachers time to get used to this coaching model and many were skeptical at first. Teachers were also at very different points in their professional learning. Some were already experimental, pushing beyond what felt comfortable regularly and wondering "what if" as a matter of practice. Others, needed more coaching on the nuts and bolts, with the coach continually referring back to a schoolwide "Teaching and Learning Principles" document.

In those cases, Hopkin said "it's an interplay between are we working on the basics or are we working on something more bespoke to you?" But because the coach is working to help teachers notice and correct course autonomously, he or she is often only asking questions and leaving space for the teacher to develop her own thought or next action.

"It's painfully slow because you're just going to ask questions that you want the teacher to ask themselves," Hopkin said. This type of professional learning is akin to what many schools want teachers to provide students. Leaders at British International School of Shanghai learned that using the same teaching pedagogy with professional learners can be an effective way to shift instruction.

After one year of coaching in this way, Hopkin surveyed staff to see if they could substantiate how the coaching had improved their teaching. Teachers reported a 30 percent increase in their confidence, and they felt they were saving 40 percent of their time because they had to do less re-teaching. School leaders also looked at an array of measures like student grades and test scores, student interaction rates, questioning skill surveys, student attention rates, collaborative learning conversations, etc. to try and determine if the quality of learning had increased. Using information from teachers, students, and leaders they compiled those results and determined that the quality of learning increased by 70 percent.
A WHOLE SCHOOL INNOVATION EFFECT
In the process of helping individual teachers embrace small innovations to their teaching, the school as a whole has become more able to embrace change. Before the coaching program began, the International School of Shanghai already had positive things happening, and Hopkin wanted to retain those experiences. But he also wanted to inspire innovation and he's aware that "efficiency suffocates new thinking. The better you are at something the less likely you are to be open to something different."

So he framed the coaching sessions as little experiments, each in service of the broader school strategy. A teacher would make a hypothesis, experiment with it in the classroom, reflect on the insights garnered and how it connected to the larger community goals. The results of those experiments then became data points for broader decisions school leaders were considering.

"We wanted to have a pioneering spirit from people who are well seated in the more traditional paradigm," Solway said. They tried to allow teachers to move up and back along the innovation spectrum, with each person offering important insights to the learning community. They did not only celebrate the pioneering teachers, but also the pioneering spirit of very traditional ones.

"TeachMeets" are one way school leaders celebrate individual learning as a community. Any person who wants to share what they are working on and how it's going can do so. The rest of the "audience" -- other colleagues -- move around to different speakers depending on what interests them. Multiple mini-presentations are going on at once, with the audience moving between them fluidly. This practice helped spread insights beyond grade-level or subject-specific teams. It creates a positive buzz in a staff meeting and individuals can follow up with questions afterwards.

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When Coaching Teachers Has Curiosity As Its Primary Goal - MindShift

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"The key to this isn't just the sense of community that coaches have, it's the moment of intervention during practice," said Victoria Solway, director of teaching and learning at the school. That's what makes this type of coaching different from the standard lesson observation leaders used to do.

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Check out these six, educational ideologies that influence a teacher's decision-making. Which one represents you?

It's impossible to explore how we can work more effectively together in schools without considering conflict -- an inevitable part of working together. Conflict can be challenging and destructive, or it can lead to a deeper understanding between people, and perhaps higher quality work from a team.

There are many reasons why conflict can exist within a school or a team of educators. In December, I attended a fantastic workshop at the annual Learning Forward conference on breaking through conflict. It was led by Robert Garmston (co-author of Unlocking Group Potential to Improve Schools) and Jennifer Abrams (author of Having Hard Conversations). In this workshop, the presenters offered one way of identifying where conflict originates -- in the belief systems that we each hold about the role and purpose of education. What's most problematic, says Garmston and Abrams, is when we are working from different belief systems but haven't articulated them as such, and therefore don't understand why others do what they do. These undercurrents of conflict can exist between an administration and a teaching staff and between many groups within our world of schools.

6 Belief Systems

1. Religious Orthodoxy: This ideology aims to teach the habits and values that will lead to that religion's realization of how life ought to be lived in accordance with that faith. Educators driven by religious orthodoxy strive to help students learn appropriate norms and morality and to conduct their lives according to these norms.

2. Cognitive Process: Educators who are primarily aligned to this stance believe that the central role of schools is to help students learn to think, reason, and problem solve. Cognitive processors select instructional strategies that involve problem solving and inquiry.

3. Self-Actualization: Those who believe in self-actualization believe that the purpose of teaching is to bring out the unique qualities, potentials, and creativity in each child. They value student choice and self-directed learning and are keen to provide for students' unique and multiple needs, interests, and developmental tasks.

4. Technologist: Technologists place strong emphasis on accountability, test scores, learning specific sub-skills, and measurable learning. They might be "driven by data," and frequently use terms such as accountability, time on task, mastery, diagnosis, and prescription. This is an ideology which as been adopted by many policy-making bodies in recent decades and is associated with external assessments, high-stakes testing, and teacher performance.

5. Academic Rationalism: Academic rationalists believe that knowledgeable adults have the wisdom and experience to know what's best for students. They often deliver teacher-centered instruction, are drawn to the Classics, and use instructional strategies such as lectures, memorization, demonstration, and drill. They evaluate students through summative exams and content mastery.

6. Social Reconstructionism: Social reconstructionists believe that the purpose of education is to help students become good citizens who can help take care of the world. They view learners as social beings who ought to be concerned with social, political, and environmental issues. They believe that education is an instrument of change and that schools are an institution charged with the responsibility of bringing about a better future and world.

In his book, Cognitive Coaching, Robert Garmston (with co-author Arthur Costa) identifies six predominant ideologies that influence educators' decision-making:

You, Your Principal, and Your Colleagues

After reading these descriptions, go back and rank them according to your personal priorities and belief systems. Now imagine doing this activity with a group of colleagues. What do you think the results might be at your school? What stance do you think your principal holds? What do you suspect is the impact of working with people who hold different stances?

Credit: Elena Aguilar

As you read these, you might have noticed how some of the conflict and tension we experience in public schools is a result of these conflicting belief systems. For example, if you are driven to be a teacher because of a belief in promoting the self-actualization of each individual child, you might feel in conflict, at times, with a principal -- or education policy -- that operates from a technologist ideology. Or perhaps you realized that you highly value cognitive processing, and yet, you often make decisions about instruction that seem more aligned to academic rationalism.

Let me be clear about one thing -- it's not "bad" for a staff to hold different ideological positions. In fact, it can benefit a school staff to hold diverse perspectives. It's just that when we're not clear about where we're all coming from, or which beliefs are determining our decision-making, conflict can arise.

I offer these descriptors to you in the hopes that they'll spur some conversations and reflection. Maybe these definitions of beliefs don't even resonate. Then I hope that this compels you to consider and define what you believe is the purpose of education -- and to also ask others that question. And, also, maybe ask that question of your students.

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Teacher Collaboration: When Belief Systems Collide | Edutopia

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Check out these six, educational ideologies that influence a teacher's decision-making. Which one represents you? It's impossible to explore how we can work more effectively together in schools without considering conflict -- an inevitable part of working together. Conflict can be challenging and destructive, or it can lead to a deeper understanding between people, and perhaps higher quality work from a team.

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Instructional Coach Jaclyn Karabinas on giving up control

Reading researchers have told us for forty years that allowing students to choose their own books is among the most powerful moves we can make as teachers. For new teachers with little experience to draw on, defending a philosophy outside a prescribed basal and making the shift to a reader-centered classroom is daunting. For me, it took about a year, and I knew that I'd made the best decision for the kids in my room.

The shift started at one of my first team meetings. Our task: Level the students and set a schedule for switching classes so that we could target instruction to each reader's needs. Our leadership also reminded us that everyone had to use the basal so that each child had the "same exposure."

My heart and mind swirled with questions: What about their own books? What if the basal story is too hard? Too easy? How can it help everyone if they all have different needs? Like most first-year teachers, I was barely treading water, so off I went. I read aloud, we worked through the basal-story themes, and my kids did the workbook pages. But my students showed little excitement, wonder, or feeling for reading. They didn't see themselves as readers, and they weren't invested in reading. I was doing reading to them between 10:05 and 11:00.

Frustrated, I recalled my own experiences. As a child, I somehow just read even though I had few or no comprehension strategies, and despite the time I put in with those ubiquitous SRA cards. Later, when I was a preservice teacher, organizing student-centered literacy instruction was not a core part of my training. Now, facing my first classroom, I had more questions than answers.

Then, in my second year, a colleague suggested I read Regie Routman's Reading Essentials(2002). I devoured it and felt hope. Regie recommended practices based on first-class research and on her own practical classroom experience. Those practices focused on making books enticing and plentiful so that students could choose their own reading adventures and become real readers.

So I drilled holes in my bulletin board and added rain gutters to display the covers of the books I collected for my classroom library. We spent our first week designing and personalizing reading journals. I modeled my reading life as we all got to know ourselves as readers and shared our reading lives with one another. Interest and anticipation for books was now piqued, and when we received boxes of books acquired from book order points, together we unpackaged and celebrated each new possibility, each new title.

The lights went on for my students and for me.

I had walked through a door of professional reading that illuminated a deep history of research, experience, and direct work with countless students. I wasn't alone anymore! Soon my bookshelves overflowed with titles from authors such as Ellin Keene, Linda Hoyt, and Debbie Miller. These were teachers' teachers - passionate about teaching, learning, and child development. They showed me that the concept of giving students choice had thrived since at least the early 1980s. Their classroom ideas and their belief in the importance of choice stood on the shoulders of giants in the field. People like Don Graves, Lucy Calkins, and Nancie Atwell were cited innumerable times in my favorite professional books. Others had asked and answered the same questions I had, and my heart was light with new options.

Giving up control doesn't come naturally, but it is one of the most important shifts we can make to help readers engage and grow more quickly. The notion of providing choice is not a hunch, but rather a practice that is deep-seeded in the action research, history, and experiences of numerous educators and authors. By examining ourselves as readers, modeling how to make choices, and sharing our reading lives, we can instill a love of reading and support skills that translate well beyond brick and mortar school walls, and beyond tests. I learned that I needed to carefully and deliberately step out of the way so that my students could become independent readers. By giving up control, I allowed students to engage in their own learning rather than merely comply with my instructions.

In their article, "Every Child, Every Day," literacy expert Richard Allington and Rachael Gabriel, Assistant Professor of Reading Education at the University of Connecticut, share that choice is perhaps the most important element of high-quality reading instruction. Certainly, students will (and should) encounter texts that have been chosen by a teacher for a variety of reasons, but developing the skill of choosing books they like and can read "increases the likelihood they will read outside of school." And, yes, even these high-profile researchers drew upon the deep body of research to make their points (Ivey and Broaddus 2001; Reis et al. 2007). Allington and Gabriel note further that reading performance improves when students read self-selected texts (Krashen 2011), while no evidence indicates that worksheets or computer programs create such an impact. (Cunningham and Stanovich, 1998; Dynarski, 2007).

It almost sounds too simple: Give students access to many books, provide personal choice, and off we go building skilled readers (Guthrie and Humenick 2004). However, think carefully about the wide range of needs, abilities, levels, and interests of the children in your classroom. How could a single program and workbook address all of these angles?

It can't. But I've discovered that you can, just as I did. Together, as we provide quality instruction, lots of books, daily choice, and a community of readers, we turn a simple idea into powerful teaching and learning. Choice leads us to the path. Engagement sustains the journey.

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Choosing Choice: How Research and Best Practices Changed My Teaching

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Reading researchers have told us for forty years that allowing students to choose their own books is among the most powerful moves we can make as teachers. For new teachers with little experience to draw on, defending a philosophy outside a prescribed basal and making the shift to a reader-centered classroom is daunting.

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Education Week - Peter DeWitt's Finding Common Ground

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Today's guest post is written by frequent Finding Common Ground contributer Lisa Westman. Lisa is an instructional coach specializing in differentiation for Skokie School District 73.5 in suburban Chicago. She taught middle school gifted humanities, ELA, and SS for twelve years before becoming a coach.
A few years ago, I read The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less by Barry Schwartz. I was fascinated by the effect choice has on the human psyche. My learning from this book has changed my approach to simple tasks like grocery shopping and more complex manners like child-rearing and teaching. Schwartz writes:

"When people have no choice, life is almost unbearable. As the number of available choices increases, as it has in our consumer culture, the autonomy, control, and liberation this variety brings are powerful and positive. But as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates."

In other words, having choice is vital, but, too many options to choose from is destructive.

In the field of education, choice is a commodity frequently cited as one most valued by teachers. The 2014 study Teachers Know Best: Teachers' Views on Professional Development conducted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation , found:
"those [teachers] who choose all or most of their professional learning opportunities are more than twice as satisfied with professional development as those with fewer options."
Additionally, there has been quite a bit written, both formally and informally, on educators' desire to discontinue "one-size-fits-all/sit and get" professional development as this method is met with resistance and is ineffective at producing change. Instead, self-directed professional development options are being promoted for teachers.

Choice in professional development allows educators to learn more about areas of interest and tap into perceived strengths. Both of these factors build teacher self-efficacy and in turn positively impact student growth. Fortunately, in today's educational landscape there is not a shortage of choice (for professional development and otherwise). Let's take a look at some numbers:

2174 - number of EdTech Products available for educators (most with PD/training options)

4,050,0000 - number of Google Search results for "Instructional Strategies"

Too many to count - number of EdCamps, Voxer Chats, Pinterest boards, books, blogs, podcasts, YouTube tutorials, etc.

The mere quantity of choices available to teachers could overwhelm even the most resolute of educators. Schwartz suggests that being faced with too many options causes many people to choose nothing which, ultimately, leads to disappointment:

" When asked about what they regret most in the last six months, people tend to identify actions that didn't meet expectations. But when asked about what they regret most when they look back on their lives as a whole, people tend to identify failures to act."

Here we see a paradox. How can we accommodate teachers' desire for choice and minimize the insurmountable task of evaluating all the available options?

The answer to this question is yet another reason why instructional coaching programs are crucial components to successful professional learning and growth of students. (You can read about other reasons for instructional coaching programs .)

Instructional coaching's foremost thought leader, of the Kansas Coaching Project says,

" Effective coaching makes it easier for teachers to learn and implement new ideas. Indeed, without follow-up such as coaching, most professional learning will have little effect."

Knight's research is corroborated by the meta-analysis done by John Hattie author of Visible Learning For Teachers . Hattie found that when instructional coaching is conducted over-time in conjunction with data team analysis of how students learn to inform instruction student growth is impacted with an effect size of .51 (anything with an effect size above .4 is considered effective).

Instructional coaches form long-term, non-evaluative, mutually beneficial partnerships with teachers and administrators to support the implementation of research-based best practices through coaching cycles. Choice is an essential part of coaching cycles and is one of the seven instructional coaching partnership principles outlined by Knight.

When teachers (individually or in teams) partner with a coach, the coach supports the teacher to identify a goal. The teacher may have already come to the coach with an idea they want to explore. Or, sometimes the coach will engage in some preliminary learning on behalf of the coachee(s) to determine options. Instructional coaches are not experts on all things content and instruction, but, they do have significant training on how to determine if resources are aligned to research-based effective strategies and can decipher suitability of strategies. Either way, the coach and the teacher will discuss the possible courses of action and the coachee will choose how and what they will do to achieve their goal.

The learning phase continues with the coach modeling and/or co-teaching the chosen strategy followed by the teacher putting the strategy into action. The learning portion of the coaching cycle culminates when quantifiable improvement on the stated goal is noted. Typically, growth is confirmed by comparing evidence collected before the cycle, during the cycle, and at the end of the cycle. Sustainability of the goal can also be ascertained by continued check-ins and partnership on subsequent goals.

With the paradox of choice teachers face on a daily basis, instructional coaching as the primary vehicle for professional development makes perfect sense. Whether a teacher is well-versed in the available options and readily participating in self-directed professional development or conversely if a teacher does not know where to begin, an instructional coach will accommodate the needs of the teacher and ensure that teachers reach and sustain their goals.

In the words of my favorite coach, Mike Ditka, "I think it's a wise choice."

Questions about this post? Connect with Lisa on Twitter.

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Instructional Coaching: Finally, an Easy Choice

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Today's guest post is written by frequent Finding Common Ground contributer Lisa Westman. Lisa is an instructional coach specializing in differentiation for Skokie School District 73.5 in suburban Chicago. She taught middle school gifted humanities, ELA, and SS for twelve years before becoming a coach.

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Instructional coaches are the unsung heroes of the education profession. They nimbly navigate the line between administrator and teacher as they strive to make an impact across multiple grade levels and school sites. Instructional coaches have a unique vantage point - they see things happening at the ground level and are able to offer a perspective that few educators have.

One of the biggest issues confronting schools today is how to provide continuous, high-quality professional development to teachers and staff. District budgets are not what they used to be and education leaders must come up with creative and cost-effective ways to continue to provide this level of training in their schools. One innovative way of doing this is to create the role of an instructional coach in their district by hiring a teacher leader from within. Many districts call these specialists TOSAs (Teachers On Special Assignment). Other districts call them coordinators, but they serve the same purpose: providing perpetual PD in a non-evaluative, non-judgemental environment. These "thought partners" work collaboratively with teachers by asking them what they need and showing them how it can be deployed.

Instructional Coaches/TOSAs do many awesome things. These include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Provide job-embedded professional development.

2. Model and demonstrate highly-effective best practices.

3. Offer non-evaluative, objective feedback on a regular basis.

4. Create an environment where student needs drive professional development.

5. Offer guidance and feedback at the exact time teachers need it most - in the classroom.

6. Inspire teachers to try new learning strategies and tools.

7. Facilitate the transition from teacher-centered to learner-driven classrooms.

8. Are site-based teacher leaders who support both students and their teachers.

9. Collaborate with teachers in order to engage students in innovative ways.

10. Help to close the digital use divide by ensuring that all students understand how to use technology to create content.

Click the image below to view my Instructional Coaches Smore digital flyer which includes links to a collection of resources I've curated.

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Instructional Coaches Make a Huge Impact

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Instructional coaches are the unsung heroes of the education profession. They nimbly navigate the line between administrator and teacher as they strive to make an impact across multiple grade levels and school sites. Instructional coaches have a unique vantage point - they see things happening at the ground level and are able to offer a...

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Arne Duncan, outgoing US education secretary, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, this week advocated for greater investments in education for Latinos and English-language learners during the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute policy conference. Duncan called for improvements from prekindergarten to college.

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Study reveals teacher preferences for video observations

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Teachers may benefit more from self-directed, video-recorded classroom observations than in-person observations, according to a report from researchers of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University. The researchers found teachers benefited most when they had greater control over the process.

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There are countless executive coaches I would never hire for myself, no matter how wise, insightful, dynamic or experienced. Admittedly, I'm a hard guy to please, so what I require might not be a good guide for others. However, if a coach can't create an environment that dissolves the limitations of history, expectation, and assumption, I'm not interested.

How does a coach do that? By creating in the conversation with the coachee a sense of open, reflective exploration. The coaches who expand my mind, emotions and performance come to the coaching relationship from a place of inner calm. They have quiet minds. They are not beguiled by fancy techniques or elegant coaching models. They are midwives for the narrow, messy emergence into a larger world - and they rely on habits of mindfulness to accomplish that.

As you may have noticed, there's been an explosion of information in recent years on neuroscience and how the brain handles change - and it's fueling an interest in mindfulness. If you are a coach or are searching for one to boost your performance, remember this rule: mindful coaching is better coaching. And mindfulness practices have shown benefits for clients in health, decision-making and leadership.

Mindful coaches perfect a form of conscious and comfortable simultaneous attention to themselves, their coachee, the relationship between them, and the mental, emotional, and relational dynamics occurring in the moment. There are three aspects of mindfulness that have particular pertinence to leadership coaching:

1) an empty mind

2) non-reactivity

3) permissive attention

An empty mind. For the coach, mindfulness is characterized by an empty mind, a stilling of the persistent chatter and the cognitive ticker-tape of commentary. This is a challenge for most Westerners because of our devotion to activity and terror of being alone with ourselves. An empty mind is key to letting something happen in someone else. It is the essence of coaching. Like falling in love or falling asleep, it can't be achieved through greater effort or more action.

As coaches, a busy mind sabotages our efforts to let others express themselves. Think about your conversations with co-workers or with family. How often have you had the feeling that someone was not really hearing you, not really attending to you? You may have told someone about the challenge you were facing, only to find that they couldn't keep themselves from telling you how you should think about it, or that it shouldn't bother you so much, or how they have had similar experiences.

Alternatively, when someone hears us with an open, empty mind, we sense our own substance and value. No matter how 'helpful' someone wants to be, advice or correction always implies that we lack something. We have to persuade ourselves that someone cares when they give us the impression that they think we can't figure it out for ourselves. Unfortunately, more than a few coaches enter the profession because they've never been heard themselves. They picture themselves giving important advice to powerful people and receiving their gratitude. That guiding image will never benefit the coachee.

Non-reactivity. Meditation and quiet thoughtfulness help coaches sense that, as they work, they are operating in a vast mental and emotional space with clients. No reaction is required, no matter what the provocation. Instead, coaches are free to perceive the needs of their clients and respond - without escalating the emotional content or misinterpreting any intent. Still, fostering a non-judgmental attitude as a coach does not mean surrendering judgment. Mindfulness in fact leads to wiser judgment about what's important and what is not. A coach who practices mindfulness doesn't make things worse Non-reactivity on the part of the coach gives the person being coached room to roam from perspective to perspective, from one incomplete thought to another until they begin to become whole thoughts and the basis for growth.

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Three Keys to Mindful Leadership Coaching

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By Douglas Riddle There are countless executive coaches I would never hire for myself, no matter how wise, insightful, dynamic or experienced. Admittedly, I'm a hard guy to please, so what I require might not be a good guide for others. However, if a coach can't create an environment that dissolves [...]

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In my Morning Edition story today, I look at expectations - specifically, how teacher expectations can affect the performance of the children they teach.

The first psychologist to systematically study this was a Harvard professor named Robert Rosenthal, who in 1964 did a wonderful experiment at an elementary school south of San Francisco.

The idea was to figure out what would happen if teachers were told that certain kids in their class were destined to succeed, so Rosenthal took a normal IQ test and dressed it up as a different test.

"It was a standardized IQ test, Flanagan's Test of General Ability," he says. "But the cover we put on it, we had printed on every test booklet, said 'Harvard Test of Inflected Acquisition.' "

Rosenthal told the teachers that this very special test from Harvard had the very special ability to predict which kids were about to be very special - that is, which kids were about to experience a dramatic growth in their IQ.

After the kids took the test, he then chose from every class several children totally at random. There was nothing at all to distinguish these kids from the other kids, but he told their teachers that the test predicted the kids were on the verge of an intense intellectual bloom.

As he followed the children over the next two years, Rosenthal discovered that the teachers' expectations of these kids really did affect the students. "If teachers had been led to expect greater gains in IQ, then increasingly, those kids gained more IQ," he says.

But just how do expectations influence IQ?

As Rosenthal did more research, he found that expectations affect teachers' moment-to-moment interactions with the children they teach in a thousand almost invisible ways. Teachers give the students that they expect to succeed more time to answer questions, more specific feedback, and more approval: They consistently touch, nod and smile at those kids more.

Researcher Robert Pianta offered these suggestions for teachers who want to change their behavior toward problem students:

"It's not magic, it's not mental telepathy," Rosenthal says. "It's very likely these thousands of different ways of treating people in small ways every day."

So since expectations can change the performance of kids, how do we get teachers to have the right expectations? Is it possible to change bad expectations? That was the question that brought me to the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, where I met Robert Pianta.

Pianta, dean of the Curry School, has studied teachers for years, and one of the first things he told me when we sat down together was that it is truly hard for teachers to control their expectations.

"It's really tough for anybody to police their own beliefs," he said. "But think about being in a classroom with 25 kids. The demands on their thinking are so great."

Still, people have tried. The traditional way, Pianta says, has been to sit teachers down and try to change their expectations through talking to them.

"For the most part, we've tried to convince them that the beliefs they have are wrong," he says. "And we've done most of that convincing using information."

But Pianta has a different idea of how to go about changing teachers' expectations. He says it's not effective to try to change their thoughts; the key is to train teachers in an entirely new set of behaviors.

For years, Pianta and his colleagues at the Curry School have been collecting videotapes of teachers teaching. By analyzing these videos in minute ways, they've developed a good idea of which teaching behaviors are most effective. They can also see, Pianta tells me, how teacher expectations affect both their behaviors and classroom dynamics.

Pianta gives one very specific example: the belief that boys are disruptive and need to be managed.

"Say I'm a teacher and I ask a question in class, and a boy jumps up, sort of vociferously ... 'I know the answer! I know the answer! I know the answer!' " Pianta says.

"If I believe boys are disruptive and my job is control the classroom, then I'm going to respond with, 'Johnny! You're out of line here! We need you to sit down right now.' "

This, Pianta says, will likely make the boy frustrated and emotionally disengaged. He will then be likely to escalate his behavior, which will simply confirm the teacher's beliefs about him, and the teacher and kid are stuck in an unproductive loop.

But if the teacher doesn't carry those beliefs into the classroom, then the teacher is unlikely to see that behavior as threatening.

Instead it's: " 'Johnny, tell me more about what you think is going on ... But also, I want you to sit down quietly now as you tell that to me,' " Pianta says.

"Those two responses," he says, "are dictated almost entirely by two different interpretations of the same behavior that are driven by two different sets of beliefs."

To see if teachers' beliefs would be changed by giving them a new set of teaching behaviors, Pianta and his colleagues recently did a study.

They took a group of teachers, assessed their beliefs about children, then gave a portion of them a standard pedagogy course, which included information about appropriate beliefs and expectations. Another portion got intense behavioral training, which taught them a whole new set of skills based on those appropriate beliefs and expectations.

For this training, the teachers videotaped their classes over a period of months and worked with personal coaches who watched those videos, then gave them recommendations about different behaviors to try.

After that intensive training, Pianta and his colleagues analyzed the beliefs of the teachers again. What he found was that the beliefs of the trained teachers had shifted way more than the beliefs of teachers given a standard informational course.

This is why Pianta thinks that to change beliefs, the best thing to do is change behaviors.

"It's far more powerful to work from the outside in than the inside out if you want to change expectations," he says.

In other words, if you want to change a mind, simply talking to it might not be enough.

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Teachers' Expectations Can Influence How Students Perform

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Teachers' expectations about their students' abilities affect classroom interactions in myriad ways that can impact student performance. Students expected to succeed, for example, get more time to answer questions and more specific feedback. But training aimed at changing teaching behavior can also help change expectations.

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Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.Video P.1 Crysta's Entire Impact Cycle-CompleteVideo P.2 Cat's Entire Impact Cycle-Complete

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Strategies for Enrolling Teachers Are You Interested? Coaching Planning FormData-Gathering Tools Engagement Form

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Some dos and don'ts for instructional coaches striving to help new teachers make a successful start.

©Shutterstock.com/DGLimages

Articles, books, and journals have been written about how to support our new teachers-guidance on lesson planning, suggestions for classroom management techniques, and support in professional decision-making are just a few of the many components our novice teachers need as they begin their academic journey.

For an instructional coach, it may seem daunting to coach the new teacher. Where does one begin to assist him or her in creating the best learning experience possible for students, parents, and colleagues?

Offering too much advice or the wrong kind of coaching upon that first meeting can cause anxiety and trepidation for the beginner teacher. The coach may believe that he or she is helping the new teacher by demonstrating how to use the school's lesson plan or explaining how to utilize the standards-based grading procedures, or showing how to complete the reams of district forms. But in truth, this kind of help is not beneficial or necessary right away. Even though it may look like the new teacher is ready to dive in, it's imperative that the coach take the time necessary to guide him or her toward success.

We know our novice teachers are excited recruits ready to make their mark. They look forward to putting their college reading into practice. While they might not know all of the educational jargon or district-specific acronyms yet, they know they want to build a successful community of learners. They have read books, observed skilled teachers, and created comprehensive lesson plans demonstrating their abilities.

In short, novice teachers want to plan specifically, give directions explicitly, and offer student support intentionally, but how they might go about that depends on how the coach interacts with them. How the coach approaches this enthusiastic group can demonstrate respect and admiration or undermine their work and the value of the coach.

Tips for Supporting New Teachers

Introduce yourself and explain what you can offer to the novice teacher. Clarify that your goal is to collaborate with him or her to seamlessly embed the four facets of literacy-reading, writing, speaking, and listening-in relation to the subject matter being covered. Explain that you don't want to add to their plate, but instead will take what you can off their plate so they can concentrate on teaching, learning, and reflecting.

Ask to observe a class, but bring specific literacy strategies and resources with you. Do not ask the teacher what he or she needs. Often, new teachers do not know and are grateful for strategies that make their work with students more expressive and straightforward.

Never give the impression that your goal is to show the novice teacher how teaching is done. The goal is to learn along with the new teacher. It is likely that he or she has suggestions and ideas that can immediately be put into use-be ready to collaborate on implementing them.

Provide basic literacy resources that the novice teacher can use as is or, with some creativity from you, adapt for his or her students. For example, compare and contrast diagrams can be used in science classes, main idea and detail graphic organizers in English language arts, summary topic maps in phys ed, and turn-and-talk student sentence starters in math.

Consider these steps in creating a successful and rewarding relationship with your novice teacher:

Model authentic warm-ups or relevant bell-ringer ideas to get the class engaged and motivated.

Assist in writing focused and meaningful Learning Intentions and Success Criteria meant to target a lesson's skills.

Collaborate in creating formative assessments that monitor and measure student progress.

Demonstrate the value of self-reflection by providing time to contemplate on the day's lesson together.

Take notes on scheduled meetings, and always provide the novice teacher with the notes-they can be used as a growth tool and an opportunity for reflection.

Finally, small gifts of encouragement, notes of support, and a genuine "how are you?" go a long way in conveying professional respect and personal regard.

Ideas you can share to support the new teacher:

In closing, our novice teachers remind us how truly fortunate we are to be in a profession that allows us to partner with parents in influencing their most precious possessions. Therefore, embrace the eagerness and excitement of the novice teacher while becoming active listeners to their apprehension and uneasiness. They will someday be our veteran teachers and share what they've learned along the way. It's our responsibility to give them a head start.

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Some dos and don'ts for instructional coaches striving to help new teachers make a successful start. ©Shutterstock.com/DGLimages Articles, books, and journals have been written about how to support our new teachers-guidance on lesson planning, suggestions for classroom management techniques, and support in professional decision-making are just a few of the many components our novice teachers need as they begin their academic journey.

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Dana Sorenson

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Guiding teachers who have years of experience takes sensitivity and a willingness to learn from them at the same time.

There are subtle and substantial differences between coaching our novice teachers and our veteran teachers. Novice teachers, while inexperienced in the classroom, may have studied the latest technological insights or most recent academic learning trends. The instructional coach understands that this group needs the essential research, resources, skills, and strategies designed to create a community of learners.

However, what our novice teachers don't yet have is the expertise and familiarity with teaching that make a seasoned veteran. The instructional coach needs to approach veteran teachers with respect and reverence.

As an example, veteran teachers are highly experienced, having seen every "new" initiative of education. They know a recycled idea when they hear one. They remember when differentiated instruction meant a child's individual learning style, backward design meant writing the test first, and higher order thinking skills meant there could be more than one right answer. Veteran teachers understand students and know that the secret to building student rapport is to create engaging and motivating lessons that demonstrate a community of support.

In short, while we know our veteran teachers want to plan specifically, give directions explicitly, and offer student support intentionally, we also know they could probably offer teachable moments to the novice teachers as well as the instructional coach.

What can the instructional coach bring to veteran teachers that they haven't tried already? What new insights or learning could support these wise, admired experts and not seem condescending or pompous?

Tips for Supporting Veteran Teachers

Ask to observe a class as a way to gather suggestions for helping new educators inspire their students. In this way, while gaining valuable insights to assist new teachers, you might also be able to see how the veteran teacher could benefit from support.

Never give the impression that your goal is to change or uproot the years of work they've done. They've made mistakes and benefited from years of trial and error. Be cognizant of your tone and demeanor. Remember, you're a guest in their highly structured academic community of learners.

After observing the class, engage in conversation about the lesson to learn the story behind it. You might ask how they came up with the idea for the lesson, how they came up with the questions they asked, and what they hope students will remember about the lesson 10 years later.

As the veteran teacher is sharing, actively listen and take detailed notes. Get to know the teacher and their life's work. Look for entry points to make suggestions and ideas, using clarifying language to be as clear as possible. Clarifying language communicates that the listener has heard what the speaker said, but might not fully understand. Again, this is an excellent opportunity to listen to the veteran teacher and use conversation as a way to collaborate and eventually start planning together. Some specific clarifying questions might be: Did I understand you when you said _____? Did I paraphrase what you said correctly?

Ask the veteran teacher if you could support an upcoming lesson. Could you teach a specific strategy such as annotation as a whole-class activity? Could you work with a small group of students as they read an assigned chapter? Offer specific ideas on how you can partner with the veteran teacher in learning their teaching methodologies and practices.

Ask the veteran teacher if they'd be willing to showcase a lesson for the staff. Perhaps there's a strategy that has been a successful staple in this teacher's classroom but doesn't seem commonplace in other classrooms. Often the successful strategy is something they'll say they just do, without necessarily realizing that what they do is considered iconic and a best practice.

When working with veteran teachers, consider these suggestions in creating a successful and respectful coaching interaction:

Finally, the wealth of wisdom that comes from years of teaching and learning cannot be underestimated. Veteran teachers are, undoubtedly, the educational leaders among staff. As a coach and colleague, you have the good fortune to learn from them and pass on their wisdom through your practice. Cultivate these relationships and grow them to gain insight into their important work and to advance student learning.

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Guiding teachers who have years of experience takes sensitivity and a willingness to learn from them at the same time. There are subtle and substantial differences between coaching our novice teachers and our veteran teachers. Novice teachers, while inexperienced in the classroom, may have studied the latest technological insights or most recent academic learning trends.

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If you have collaborated with a literacy coach before, you understand how instrumental the coaching process can be when looking for approaches to maximize student achievement. If coaching is new for you, however, you may not know where to begin. There are numerous ways to connect with your literacy coach - the possibilities are truly endless - but here are ten ideas to get you on the path to collaboration with your coach!
1. Ask Questions
If you have questions about students, resources, lessons, or other literacy-related topics, your coach is a go-to resource. Often these questions are the seeds that lead to collaboration! Literacy coaches are there to support you and to work with you to boost student achievement, not to evaluate or judge you based on what you may or may not know. Coaches love to talk to teachers - do not be afraid to ask questions!
2. Plan Together
Planning with your literacy coach could include planning lessons, planning student groupings, or planning for future coaching. Regardless of what you plan, you get the benefit of another set of eyes and expertise. Perhaps the biggest benefit of planning with your coach is the opportunity to bounce ideas off each other and discuss options from multiple angles. Thinking through planning this way can lead to more effective brainstorming and an increased ability to evaluate the potential success or pitfalls of options.
3. Teach Together
Co-teaching allows you and your literacy coach to learn from each other. It enables you each to utilize your strengths and grow in your areas of weakness with a partner to support you. The give and take of co-teaching can be a perfect format for trying new things and approaching difficult tasks.
4. Watch as Your Coach Teaches
Observing your literacy coach in action as a teacher can be useful if you want to learn new teaching methods, if you want to get a feel for the flow of a lesson, or if you want to be able to observe student responses to instruction more objectively. This is especially useful if you plan the lesson together and take notes as the coach teaches. Then you can evaluate and discuss the lesson and the response of the students later.
5. Let Your Coach Watch as You Teach
This is intimidating for many teachers, but the benefits of allowing your literacy coach to watch you teach are worth the discomfort. You can select a focus with your coach ahead of time, and then your coach can takes objective notes to be used in later conversations as you look for strengths, determine how students are responding to different instructional methods, and look for opportunities to up your game to the next level. The agenda for this type of coaching is yours - the coach is not looking for what is right or wrong, but for evidence of learning related to what you want to focus on.
6. Have Regular Conversations
These conversations can be related specifically to coaching (setting coaching goals, discussing coaching sessions, planning for next steps), but they can also encompass a variety of other topics. Talking on a regular basis helps keep your literacy coach in the loop and gives them a window into the needs of your students. It also helps build a relationship with your coach, which is critical to coaching success!
7. Analyze Data Together
The assessment is completed...now what? Work with your literacy coach to interpret results! Are there groups of students who have gaps in similar areas? You can work together to plan small group support for those students. Are there trends that show success across the board with certain skills? Celebrate what is working!
8. Participate in Professional Development Opportunities
Attend professional development presented by your coach - you can often find ways to collaborate further about the content of the session and to personalize the learning within the setting of your own classroom. Your coach can work with you in a variety of ways as you apply your new learning!
9. Join a Study Group
If your literacy coach facilitates a study group, join in! This is a great way to connect with your coach and with other teachers, often from a variety of grade levels. You can learn more about professional resources, work with vertical teams, and develop a group of friends along the way.
10. Celebrate and Reflect on Successes AND Obstacles!
There is nothing literacy coaches love more than to celebrate successes with you! If you have had successes, share them! Reflecting on your successes can increase the likelihood of experiencing them again because you think about the process you went through and identifying what were the key factors in the success. If you are running into obstacles, reflecting with a coach can help to identify your key barriers and develop a plan of action to overcome them.

Coaching can be a valuable tool in your educator toolbox. Be on the lookout for ways to collaborate with your coach to help you grow as an educator and to help your students increase their levels of achievement!

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10 Ways to Collaborate With Your Literacy Coach | Edutopia

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If you have collaborated with a literacy coach before, you understand how instrumental the coaching process can be when looking for approaches to maximize student achievement. If coaching is new for you, however, you may not know where to begin.

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A wise person once told me that if you lose a teacher's trust, it's nearly impossible to regain it. Without trust, an instructional coach has very little influence over the professional growth of a teacher, and ultimately, student achievement. The majority of coaches, including myself, do not possess the "power of the pen," meaning that our advice is not enforced by consequences (like being written up or getting dinged on evaluations). When a coach works with a teacher, and the teacher accepts feedback and recommendations, it's because they want to improve their practice.

Instructional coaching is one of those positions within a system of schools that is complex -- not complex in terms of being difficult, but complex because of the nature of the relationships that exist between coaches and teachers. There is a balancing act between providing relevant and honest feedback and supporting the school's bottom line. How does trust fit into this act?

Trust can mean the difference between promoting a growth mindset and worthless time spent between two adults who have no intention of sharing meaningful discourse about the classroom. I have come to realize that there are three essential trust anchors that have to exist between teachers and coaches:

Respect of Privacy

Privacy continues to be one of the biggest topics in instructional coaching. How private should the feedback and observations be, and how should the school building leaders be involved in this process? As a coach, I make it clear to teachers and school leaders that my intent is to support teachers and help them. It is understood from the beginning that I do not assume the role of a tattletale. It takes courage to allow someone into your classroom and see its inner workings, knowing that you will receive honest feedback about your professional performance.

The worst imaginable scenario for a teacher is for an observer to publicly blast him or her in front of colleagues and administrators, especially when this person is supposed to support growth. Do not fall into the trap of teachers' lounge gossip circles -- keep information about the classroom between you and the teacher. Involve an administrator in certain circumstances, such as when teachers are on an official assistance plan.

Refrain from Judgment

One of the biggest pitfalls in observing the work of others is to unfairly judge them because what they're doing is not exactly what you would have done in the same situation. We all have expectations of what the "perfect" classroom looks like, and when we see a scenario that doesn't match these expectations, it's hard not to be biased and judge the teacher. Teachers who work with me know that I am well aware of the goings-on in classrooms. I recount to them the days that didn't go as planned and they know immediately that I feel the pangs of teaching. As coaches, we need to understand that teachers have the right to teach without fear of a coach saying that what they're doing is wrong.

Whether the judgmental tendencies are based on the delivery of the instruction or how he or she interacts with students, get more information from the teacher and ask for the rationale behind his or her actions before jumping to conclusions. There may be a perfectly reasonable reason for the teacher's actions and, as a coach, asking questions allows you to see if the teacher has misconceptions about content or instructional strategies.

Honor Shared Decision Making

Instructional coaches support teachers in their professional growth, and one of the most effective ways of ensuring sustained growth is to include them in the decisions made for his or her classroom. Teachers know their students best, and should be supported in making instruction pop without following a rigid checklist written by someone else.

This is where effective professional questioning can elicit reasonable and sound responses. For example, if a teacher is struggling with managing procedures in the classroom, a coach can ask the teacher "what routines may help students retrieve materials more efficiently?" And after you ask these types of questions, wait for the teacher to answer. Most usually start coming up with ideas on their own and they take ownership of those ideas. The coach can also provide teachers with a variety of possible solutions and allow the teacher to choose which will work best.

Assume good intent, and trust that teachers can and do make important decisions based on the needs of their students. Trust me -- trust is the foundation of a beautiful relationship between teachers and instructional coaches. Think about the people who've helped you grow, and chances are high that these people earned and sustained your trust. Establishing trust may take time, but it's time well spent when you're building teacher capacity and promoting growth.

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A Coach's Toolkit: Three Ways to Build Trust

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A wise person once told me that if you lose a teacher's trust, it's nearly impossible to regain it. Without trust, an instructional coach has very little influence over the professional growth of a teacher, and ultimately, student achievement.

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Marzano Research | Coaching Classroom Instruction, Tips

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One way to transform a coaching environment from threatening to nonthreatening is to transition feedback based on evaluation into feedback emphasizing inquiry and learning. Research has found that coaching cultures that focus on weaknesses or "fixing" particular qualities of a coachee are ineffective. Coaches should try to focus on encouraging the positive rather than emphasizing the negative.