The Coach ADVenture. Amy Illingworth
continues, the presenter provides details about a teaching strategy that you are not only familiar with but one on which you have received other professional development and on which you’ve focused in your own classroom for an extended period of time. You get frustrated that the presenter never acknowledges the work you and your colleagues have been doing on this strategy. You look around for your principal, but he is not present in the workshop. You get bored with the repetition, and by lunch time, you shut down. After lunch you consider skipping the afternoon session but realize you might “get into trouble,” so you show up, only for the presenter to repeat part of his morning session again.
When the day ends, you are tired, even though you’ve done nothing but sit and listen all day. You are annoyed that you wasted an entire day away from your students for nothing new. You are angry that your principal wasn’t there to realize that the entire workshop was a repeat of what your school had already been doing. And you realize that you and your friend didn’t even have any time to talk about lesson plans together throughout the day, so now you must spend time outside of your professional development day collaborating for upcoming lessons.
Now imagine a different senario: You are a teacher, and you’ve determined that one of your professional goals for the year is to learn about different ways to structure student talk so that all your students use academic language in meaningful ways throughout class. You have been reading books, articles, and blogs about the topic. You’ve tried a few ideas in your classroom, but you are feeling stuck with the lack of progress. Then you realize there is a resource on your campus that you haven’t turned to yet: the instructional leadership coach.
You schedule a meeting with the coach to talk about your goal and what you’ve done. Your coach asks you a number of reflective questions that get you thinking about your students’ strengths and areas of need in the upcoming unit. Together you collaborate on a structure you can build into your next lesson plan. At the end of your planning session, which was guided by your coach’s questions that forced you to think deeper about the topic, you feel okay but not quite confident. Your coach offers to come co-teach the lesson with you, so you both can see the students in action. You happily accept his offer, and you plan who will do each part of the lesson to try out this new student talk structure.
After the lesson, you meet to discuss what went well and what didn’t work. Your coach was able to capture the specific language he heard some of your students using during the lesson, which helps you see that the strategy was successful for a large group of students. Together you discuss what revisions you should make to help the students who haven’t yet been successful. You commit to trying the revisions the next day, and your coach offers to come back to observe. You invite him back anytime because you appreciate a second set of eyes and ears in the room. After the next lesson, he shares with you his observation notes and asks you questions to consider for next steps. Through his questioning, you make decisions about how to move forward with your structured student talk strategies, and you have evidence to support the progress you are making on your professional goal.
Based on the two scenarios above, which teacher learned something that impacted his or her instructional practice? Which teachers’ students benefited from the learning that took place? Which scenario had instructional leadership coaching built in?
These scenarios are based on real experiences I’ve had. Obviously the second scenario is more beneficial for the teacher as well as the students. In the first scenario, the adults sit passively, with no choice in their own learning and no support or accountability afterwards. In the second scenario, the adult learner has a voice and choice in the learning topic and the outcome, there is support and reflection built in through the coach, and the learner is more committed to a successful outcome, using the new strategy.
These scenarios illustrate why schools and districts need to offer instructional leadership coaching. If the goal is to impact student learning, the first step toward that goal is to make positive changes to the teaching practices used in classrooms. Teachers already work hard on their own. As leaders (be it a teacher leader, coach, or an administrator), we want to enhance the great work our colleagues are already doing through a side-by-side coaching approach that provides instructional leadership support.
Principals and teacher leaders with instructional leadership coaching skills can provide that side-by-side support to the hard work teachers do. While principals typically have many additional duties on their plates, few would argue about the importance of supporting teachers so that all students can be more successful. And in the age of budget cuts, many schools and districts do not have the ability to hire instructional coaches to serve in this role. It is therefore even more important that site leaders (principals, assistant principals, deans, and teacher leaders) build their own instructional leadership coaching skills.
Choose the Coach ADVenture
If you have just arrived from the Introduction and are curious about those to whom Mr. Fox reaches out for help as he dives into planning a PD day with his staff, or you’ve come from Chapter Seven where Mr. Fox was learning how to listen, keep reading about Principal Fox.
If you’ve just arrived from the Introduction, where you learned that Ms. Martinez worked with her own coach, skip down a bit to continue the journey with Principal Martinez.
Principal Fox
When we last left Principal Fox, his request to hire an outside consultant for an upcoming professional development (PD) day had been denied. His boss advised him to consider his site’s needs and his teachers’ expertise when planning a PD day that would benefit them directly.
Principal Fox decides to try a new approach for planning this PD day. He goes straight to his teachers, specifically his grade-level leaders. He calls a meeting with the leaders of each grade level and begins by asking them each to name what they believe the school’s focus has been this year. (He read about this idea in Lead Like a Pirate: Make School Amazing for Your Students and Staff by Shelley Burgess and Beth Houf.) As they go around the table sharing, it becomes evident that each teacher has a different idea. Some ideas that are shared include support for English Learners, student talk, academic language, increasing parent engagement, and math.
After listening to each person, Principal Fox takes time to address what they all just heard. He says to the group, “Wow. This is an important learning opportunity for me. Hearing you each mention something different makes me realize we need to work on clarity. Our school needs a clear direction and a focus on which we are all working together. It seems like our upcoming PD day might be a good time to get some clarity. What do you think?”
For the next hour, the group discusses activities they could do with the entire staff during the PD day. Teachers who have never spoken in front of their peers are volunteering to facilitate parts of the day. Principal Fox feels uncomfortable releasing so much control over to the teachers, but as they continue to plan, he sees their excitement, and their energy helps him realize how valuable this PD can actually be for the entire staff.
After the meeting, Principal Fox takes time to reflect in his office. He realizes that hiring an outside consultant would have been a really bad idea for his staff right now. Instead of bringing in yet another new idea, he has crafted an agenda for the PD day that was co-created with his teacher leaders. It considers where they have been, what their students need, and for what their teachers have been asking: time to collaborate around a common focus. He believes that after this day, his site will have clarity around one or two key initiatives on which their entire site will focus and that his teachers will have time with their colleagues to collaborate on planning lessons to meet their students’ needs.
To learn more about how Mr. Fox’s PD day goes, go to Chapter Three: What Is the Role of an Administrator as Instructional Leader and Coach?
To learn alongside Mr. Fox as he learns to build capacity and share responsibility, go to Chapter Four: What Is the Role of a Teacher Leader as an Instructional Coach?
Principal Martinez
Ms. Martinez, the principal of Learning for All High School (LAHS), considers herself a strong instructional leader. She knows a lot about pedagogy and feels that one of her most important roles as principal is to serve as