The Coach ADVenture. Amy Illingworth
stated or posted about the day’s learning?
Text—What text(s) are students seeing, using, reading, or viewing?
Cognitive load—Who is doing the thinking?
Academic language—What academic language do you see or hear students using in their writing or their original speech?
Standards—Do the learning tasks align with grade-level standards? Do they align with school and district curriculum expectations?
Environmental
Room setup—Students’ seating arrangement, teacher desk, other furniture, etc.
Print-rich—Are there books, posters, or charts visible in the room?
Student work—Is there current student work visible in the room?
Cultural
Representative—Do the posters, pictures, or books in the room reflect the culture of the students? Do they reflect diversity?
Risks—Do students feel comfortable taking risks?
Relationships—Are students smiling? Does the teacher address students by name? Do students address each other by name? Do you hear respectful language spoken?
The best advice I can offer a coach in an open-ended situation like this is to stick to your school’s focus area(s). You can walk into a classroom and notice a million different things, but you will not be an effective coach if you attempt to talk about one million ideas with a teacher. You want to narrow your lens, so you can coach into a familiar area.
Another tool in the instructional coaching toolbox is the ability to build trusting relationships with colleagues. It is well worth your time to invest in getting to know your staff early on and letting them get to know you. Discover and celebrate their strengths. Once people know you are there to support them and are not “out to get them,” they will work with you to learn more to benefit students. We will explore the importance of taking time to listen as you build relationships in a future chapter.
Armed with adult learning theory, an understanding of coaching models, clarity on educational pedagogy and student learning, and the ability to build trusting relationships with colleagues, you can start your instructional coaching journey!
Choose the Coach ADVenture
If you have just arrived from Chapter Six, and you are curious about how Mr. Fox develops instructional coaching skills to work with his primary teachers, keep reading.
If you’ve just arrived from the Chapter 3 and want to learn how Ms. Martinez helps her teachers understand her coaching role, skip down a bit to continue the journey with Principal Martinez.
Principal Fox
Our elementary principal colleague, Mr. Fox, just wrapped up his first coaching cycle with a fifth-grade teacher. While he was excited after this successful interaction, he was still nervous about trying a coaching cycle with a primary-grade teacher. Before attempting that, Mr. Fox decided he needed to practice observing and providing more strength-based feedback in his primary classrooms.
For two weeks, Mr. Fox visited his primary classrooms every day. He began to leave small notes, highlighting a strength he observed. Then he added a reflective question at the end of his notes. At the end of the two weeks, one of his grade-level lead teachers asked to meet with him.
The teacher came into the meeting looking nervous. Mr. Fox asked her, “What’s up?” The teacher said, “Some of the teachers are wondering why you are picking on the primary grades.”
Mr. Fox was dumbfounded. “Picking on them? What do you mean?”
The teacher went on to explain that the staff had been comparing notes, and they realized that he had spent a week and a half working with one fifth-grade teacher then at least ten days observing all of the primary teachers every day, while he hadn’t been to some of the other upper-grade teachers at all. She said that the staff was feeling like he was out to get the primary teachers and that his notes were beginning to sound like they had done something wrong.
Mr. Fox tried to explain what he was doing and that he was learning how to be an instructional leader. But at the end of the conversation, both he and the teacher felt uncomfortable. He didn’t think anything had been resolved, and he was now nervous to visit any classroom.
To learn about Mr. Fox’s next steps to address his teachers’ concerns, go to Chapter Twelve: How Do Coaches Address Challenges and Roadblocks along the Way?
To learn about those to whom Mr. Fox turns for advice, go to Chapter Nine: Who Is in Your PLN?
Principal Martinez
Our high school leader, Ms. Martinez, had recently had a few teachers question her coaching. They wondered how it was going to affect their evaluations. After visiting classrooms with her coach (in this case, me, in the above math example) and discussing the issue, Ms. Martinez decides it’s time for a frank conversation with her staff. Rather than speak to over one hundred teachers in a faculty meeting, Ms. Martinez decides she will visit each department. In order to continue to build the capacity of her AP’s, Ms. Martinez will take with her the AP who oversees each department for each meeting.
In each meeting, Ms. Martinez explains the same basic concept. First, she reminds her staff that she is a lifelong learner and that she is constantly striving to be a better leader for them and their students. She explains that she has been working with a coach to enhance her skills and shares what an amazing learning experience it has been for her. Next she shares that since one of her passions is instructional leadership and one of her primary responsibilities is to ensure that students are learning and achieving, she and the AP’s have been working on a variety of ways to visit classrooms more frequently and to provide relevant feedback to teachers. She asks a few teachers if they would be willing to share their experience with her coaching conversations with them. Because Ms. Martinez made a point to focus on one teacher in each department for her coaching, she has at least one volunteer in every meeting. When the staff hears one of their colleagues express that they valued the one-to-one time with the boss and the specific feedback and ensuing conversation, some of them become much less tense about the new observation schedules.
After meeting with each department, Ms. Martinez schedules a follow-up meeting with her site union representatives. She wants a chance to debrief with them and to see if they have any feedback to share with her. During that meeting, Ms. Martinez hears that while many teachers understand and support the additional coaching attempts, there are some who are concerned about retaliation and evaluation ramifications. When Ms. Martinez presses the reps to be explicit about whom and what situations to which they are referring, she is not given specifics. Ms. Martinez reiterates that their administrative team’s coaching philosophy is grounded in a strength-based approach and that they are all working to help all teachers continue to improve their practice in order to better serve all students. If she, or any AP, had concerns about an individual teacher’s performance, that would be made clear in a conversation. If anything was leading towards a negative evaluation, the teacher would know and understand that ahead of time, and they would be welcome to invite a union rep to attend any evaluation meetings.
After her meeting with the union reps, Ms. Martinez debriefs with her AP’s. As a group, they feel the coaching message was well-received by most of their staff. They plan to continue to build relationships with key teacher leaders and to start asking other teachers how they prefer to receive feedback.
To learn about Ms. Martinez’s next steps to build teacher leadership, go to Chapter Four: What Is the Role of a Teacher Leader as an Instructional Coach?
Chapter Three
What Is the Role of an Administrator as Instructional Leader and Coach?
Leadership is not about building