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How to Build a Successful Instructional Coaching Program

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How to Build a Successful Instructional Coaching Program

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I found this article on Jacob's Padlet and really enjoyed the deliberate action plan for creating a instructional coaching program. As a member of an organization who recently implemented an instructional coaching program, I feel my leadership could have benefited greatly by following this plan.

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How to Build a Successful Instructional Coaching Program

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Here are practical questions that principals and district leaders can ask themselves to give their coaching programs the best possible chance of succeeding.

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This image, although filled with lots of humor, explains the difference between a growth and fixed mindset. A friend of mine showed me this image about a year ago, and now I keep a copy of it on my desk. It serves as a small reminder of how easy it is to fall into fixed mindset.

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COACHING - Build buy-in, strengthen teaching,and meet learning goals

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COACHING - Build buy-in, strengthen teaching,and meet learning goals

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I found this journal while attempting to further my understanding of PEERS goals. There happens to be a lot of great information on Instructional Coaching as a whole, however, pages 12-13 focus on PEERS goals.

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This website provides lots of growth mindset and activities for adults. It has worksheets for various growth activities, as well as, checklist and team-based exercises.

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Mindset Kit - Professional development activities and resources, Growth Mindset for Educator Teams

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This page provides a list of downloadable professional development activities and resources.

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The book titled Instructional Coaching in Action: An Integrated Approach That Transforms Thinking, Practice, and Schools written by Ellen Eisenberg has been an essential tool for understanding the necessity of instructional coaches. Specifically, during the module 4 assignment for the planning conversation map, I found this book to be extremely helpful. Chapters 2-4 discuss the BDA process (or Before, During, After cycle) used by instructional coaches and teachers to plan, collaborate, and reflect. Below is a picture of the cover page, however, the book can be found by searching the Porter Henderson Library.

Eisenberg, E. B. (2017). Instructional coaching in action : An integrated approach that transforms thinking, practice, and schools. Alexandria, Virginia: ASCD. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.easydb.angelo.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1530802&site=eds-live

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Probing Questions for Instructional Coaches

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Probing Questions for Instructional Coaches

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The picture below provides a list of various probing questions instructional coaches can use to help facilitate collaboration with a teacher. The chart is broken into four categories. Many of the suggestion might help with the conversation script for the module 3 assignment. The article containing the picture below can be found at: https://annhayesbell.org/effective-communication-questioning-when-coaching/

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The key to an effective instructional coach is active listening. The article below defines active listening and provides some benefits and challenges of active listening. The article can serve as a quick reminder to use active listening when coaching.

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Education Week - The Art of Coaching Teachers

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I'm just about ready to declare that active listening is the highest priority skill for a coach to master and that it must be mastered prior to success using any other strategy. This is because I have seen and experienced innumerable instances where a coaching conversation either results in deep insight and big changes as a result of the coach's skill in using active listening or because a conversation has struggled because a coach didn't use active listening.
Active Listening Defined
Active listening is a deceptively simple skill. It's a communication technique which requires that the listener feed back what the other person has said and reflect that hearing the complete message that was expressed. Here's the biggest challenge: You can only do this if you're paying really close attention. Your mind can't wander, you can't drift into your own memories, you can't start generating solutions for the issue at hand, and you can't start mentally arguing with the speaker. You have to fully concentrate to get what it is the speaker is saying.

You're probably familiar with active listening--or paraphrasing--statements. They sound like:

* I hear that you worked really hard on that lesson and it didn't go as you wanted. You sound frustrated.
* It sounds like you're feeling really good about that interaction, that it went the way you'd hoped it would.
* What I'm hearing is that you'd like more acknowledgement of your work. You wish your principal had appreciated your efforts at the staff meeting.

The basic active listening stems: I hear...It sounds like...What I'm hearing is...So...In other words...
Active Listening Challenges
There are a few tricky things about using active listening. First, it can be hard not to sound like a parrot. If you just repeat back what the speaker has said, he/she won't feel heard, because it's not about accurately remembering and repeating the words. However, using some of the speakers words can also help the speaker feel like you really listened--you paid attention to the exact words. Repeating a few words that might have been particularly meaningful to the speaker can be effective.

The second challenge is to be cautious that you're not overly interpreting what someone else is saying. For example, you might say, "It sounds like you were really angry when your teaching partner said..." And the speaker might respond by saying, "No, I wasn't really angry. I was just upset, I wasn't angry." If you overly interpret too much, you risk losing your coachees trust in your ability to understand him/her.

One of the ways to navigate these tricky parts is to always add a statement to the end of an active listening stem that is something along the lines of, "Did I get that right?" Or "Is that correct? Or is there anything else you want me to know?" This allows the speaker to clarify what was said, to take ownership of the communication, or even to change his/her mind. For example, someone might say, "It's true--I did sound really angry. But now that I think about it, it wasn't so much anger as hurt. I felt really disrespected."
The Key to Active Listening: Empathy
One question I'm often asked about active listening is "How can you do it and not sound like a robot? How can you make it authentic?" I understand this question--when I first started incorporating active listening into my coaching (and into conversations with my husband!) I felt like those "I-hear-that-you..." came sputtering out. I was trying hard to show that I could do this thing and that I'd heard the precise language. But I hadn't quite understood what the whole active listening thing is all about.

Here's the key, the core, the reason why it's so powerful and transformational: Active listening is about empathy. It's not so much about the exact words that you use as the listener, it's about the feeling behind them. It's about who you are being when you use them--are you being a caring, compassionate coach? Or are you being someone who is trying to be right--to get the right sentence stem out of her mouth?

For me, once I'd tackled my own monster judgments, I was truly able to listen to another person and get their message. I learned to manage distractions and stay focused, to listen for the underlying sentiments, and then to find the words--simple ones often work best--to convey that I heard and felt what the speaker was communicating.

When someone actively listens to us with empathy, we feel it. We feel acknowledged and recognized. We feel that the listener has connected with us and seen us. It's a powerful experience.

When a coach (or principal or parent or spouse) uses active listening it can create an opening into other conversations. I've seen this over and over and over again. Coaches who effectively use active listening can guide their coachees into all kinds of conversational explorations--into the scary realm of equity, into conversations about beliefs, and into making big changes in their classrooms. But without using active listening--without verbal ways to express empathy--those conversations struggle.

New coaches often ask me, "What's the one thing I can work on to improve my coaching?" Active listening. It's foundational for building trust and connection between you and your client.

Here's a Active Listening.docx you can print out and carry around with you, or post in a visible location, to remind you of these ideas.

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Active Listening: The Key To Transforming Your Coaching

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I'm just about ready to declare that active listening is the highest priority skill for a coach to master and that it must be mastered prior to success using any other strategy.

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The article written by Dr. Goleman breaks down the four quadrants in a digestible manner. Additionally, the article thoroughly describes the characteristics and traits associated with each quadrant.

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Overview of Emotional and Social Intelligence

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Overview of Emotional and Social Intelligence

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This website provides a quick overview of the emotional and social competencies related to leadership. The content contained in the article is based primarily off of Dr. Goleman's research.

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by Key Step Media April 11, 2017 Time to read: 3 min.

Emotional Intelligence, a different way of being smart, is a key to high performance at all levels, particularly for outstanding leadership.

Emotional Intelligence is the capacity to recognize our own feelings and those of others, and to manage emotions effectively in ourselves and our relationships. It is about much more than just having empathy or being "sensitive" - that's a common misconception about EI.

Emotional and Social Intelligence Leadership Competenc ies are each a learned capacity, based on Emotional Intelligence, which contributes to effective performance at work - and often greater satisfaction in life as well.

There are four parts, or domains, to the Emotional and Social Intelligence Leadership Competency Model developed by Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis:

Self-Awareness

Self-Management

Social Awareness

Relationship Management

Within each of these four domains nest learned competencies based on the underlying ability that make people outstanding performers in the workplace. These are skills that can be developed, just as you can improve upon anything that you practice regularly.

Richard Boyatzis, a business professor at Case Western Reserve University, and Daniel Goleman analyzed the range of competencies that companies identified in their outstanding leaders. They distilled them down to twelve generic competencies that embody the core of distinguishing abilities of leaders in organizations across a broad spectrum of industries.

The twelve competencies and their brief definitions are below. For more in-depth information, see our Primer Collection (available individually, or a set), or Crucial Competence, a video series with Daniel Goleman and fellow thought-leaders in research and Emotional Intelligence.
Self-Awareness

Emotional Self-Awareness: The ability to understand our own emotions and their effects on our performance.
Self-Management

Emotional Self-Control: The ability to keep disruptive emotions and impulses in check and maintain our effectiveness under stressful or hostile conditions.

Achievement Orientation: Striving to meet or exceed a standard of excellence; looking for ways to do things better, set challenging goals and take calculated risks.

Positive Outlook: The ability to see the positive in people, situations, and events and persistence in pursuing goals despite obstacles and setbacks.

Adaptability: Flexibility in handling change, juggling multiple demands, and adapting our ideas or approaches.

Social Awareness

Empathy: The ability to sense others' feelings and perspectives, taking an active interest in their concerns and picking up cues about what others feel and think.

Organizational Awareness: The ability to read a group's emotional currents and power relationships, identifying influencers, networks, and organizational dynamics.

Relationship Management

Influence: The ability to have a positive impact on others, persuading or convincing others in order to gain their support.

Coach and Mentor: The ability to foster the long-term learning or development of others by giving feedback, guidance, and support.

Conflict Management: The ability to help others through emotional or tense situations, tactfully bringing disagreements into the open and finding solutions all can endorse.

Inspirational Leadership: The ability to inspire and guide individuals and groups towards a meaningful vision of excellence, and to bring out the best in others.

Teamwork: The ability to work with others towards a shared goal; participating actively, sharing responsibility and rewards, and contributing to the capability of the team.

Based on their findings, Goleman and Boyatzis developed a 360-degree rating instrument called the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI). A 360-degree assessment instrument has leaders rate themselves, and also be rated by the people whom they trust and whose opinions they value. This gives the fullest picture, combining a self-assessment with the same evaluations by other people.
Recommended Reading:
Our new primer series is written by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and fellow researchers, thought leaders, and coaches in the field of Emotional Intelligence. Each primer provides a full definition of the competency, and offers research and guidance for the reader to develop the competency in their own personal and professional life.

These primers are concise and easily digestible, and are an excellent for resource for leaders and managers, HR professionals, coaches and consultants, educators, and anyone interested in developing the Emotional and Social Intelligence Leadership Competencies.

See the complete primer Collection (available individually, or a set).

For more in-depth insights, see the Crucial Competence video series!

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Emotional and Social Intelligence Leadership Competencies: An Overview

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by Key Step Media April 11, 2017 Time to read: 3 min. Emotional Intelligence, a different way of being smart, is a key to high performance at all levels, particularly for outstanding leadership. Emotional Intelligence is the capacity to recognize our own feelings and those of others, and to manage emotions effectively in ourselves and our relationships.