Coaching Moves: Practice Makes Permanent

Today, I had the privilege of facilitating work with coaches from across our district. We focused on preparing for our next coaching lab by practicing some coaching moves. These are the intentional verbal and nonverbal cues and prompts we give as we coach in the classroom.

Today, we focused on just three moves: whisper in, freeze frame/time out, and voice over.




First, we read about the moves. Then, in groups of three, we played the roles of teacher, student, and coach. The teacher taught the student how to blow a bubble with gum or how to make a paper airplane. While the teacher taught the student, the coach practiced her coaching moves. Every coach had a chance to play all three roles.

With this exercise, we hoped to strengthen our coaching muscles so that practice makes permanent. We also had quite a bit of fun and some good laughs! Afterwards, we reflected on which coaching moves felt easy and which felt more challenging. We made intentional plans to use the moves during the next coaching lab.

As a coach, today's practice was invaluable. Not only was it a safe environment to practice, but it was also a great opportunity to refine the intentional cues and prompts that make coaching stick with teachers in the classroom. If we want our coaching to transfer, we must make our coaching visible.

Coincidentally, voice overs was the topic of today's blog post from "Two Writing Teachers." Click here to read more about what they have to say about voice overs:
https://twowritingteachers.org

Comment below if you have tips or tricks for making your coaching visible through coaching moves.

It's Like Teaching Someone to Ride a Bike

This summer, my husband and I taught our two sons how to ride their bikes without training wheels. There were times my husband and I demonstrated, or modeled, while other times we ran alongside giving prompts (watch out for the pole, slow down, use your brakes!). There were plenty of crashes, but we just said, "That's part of learning something new." There were times our boys thought they'd "never learn," and wanted to put their bikes back in the garage. My husband and I had lots of pep talks, thought about next steps, and researched best practices (thank you, Google, for the tip to take the bike pedals off). There were times we were exhausted. Imagine running full speed down hill just in time to stop your child from biking full speed into your neighbor's garage door. But, in just about a week, we reached our goal of transfer and our boys could ride on their own! The pride we all felt was tremendous!












My husband with our youngest.


Whether I'm teaching students or coaching teachers, I find it's a lot like the experience of teaching someone to ride a bike. The ultimate goal is for the student or teacher to be able to feel confident and to do the work on his/her own. But, to get there, you have to research best practices, assess current understanding, sometimes demonstrate or model, plan next steps, and always run alongside prompting and guiding for support. And, you can't forget the pep talks!

I encourage you to reflect on the questions:
- How is teaching or coaching in the classroom like teaching someone to ride a bike?
- How does that fit with what you know about the gradual release of responsibility (shown below)?










Gradual release of responsibility from "Student Centered Coaching" by Diane Sweeney.




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Reading Mats in 1st Grade

Coaching in a first grade classroom? Sign me up! First grade will always have a special place in my heart since that's where I started my teaching career. I love the excitement and curiosity of first graders as well as teaching them how to read. So, when a former intermediate teacher, now a first time first grade teacher, asked me to coach in her room, I was ecstatic!

We've been working or reading workshop including structures to build engagement and stamina of our little friends. We introduced reading mats (as seen in the Calkins Reading Unit - 1st grade, Unit 1) as a way to build fluency and stamina. The students love it! I'm amazed at how effectively they 1) make a plan to read the books in their book box, 2) read each book moving it from the "go" side to the "stop" side, and 3) read the books one more time moving them back to the other side. It really works! Even the level A-D readers are reading the whole time and are feeling more confident.

Now, if we can just get the students to keep only "just right" books in their book boxes...



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My Goal For This Year Is...

In my last post, I shared tips on gaining coaching opportunities by supporting teachers with their professional goals. Like teachers, coaches in my district are also requires to complete Professional Learning Plans (PLPs). So, I'd also like to share my professional goal to make it public and, hopefully, hold myself more accountable.

My goal is....
I've been coaching for over a decade and have often struggled with knowing whether or not my work has actually made a difference for teachers and students. I often wonder, "Am I making a difference? Does my coaching impact students? Does the work done during a coaching cycle continue after I've moved on to another classroom? Does the professional development I offer outside the classroom make its way into the classroom?" I guess I'm looking for transfer. This has become even more important to me in recent years since I often mentor new coaches and now serve as a "lead coach" for all the coaches in our district. I've always wanted to do well, but, now, more than ever, I feel a need to know my work makes a difference and that I'm doing the right thing.

Since my ultimate goal is transfer, my actions steps include:
- making my coaching more visible through in the moment coaching
- intentionally following up with teachers in the weeks and months after a coaching cycle to look for transfer
- setting expectations for transfer when designing professional development for teachers in my building and my district

By making my coaching visible through more in the moment coaching, I think I can increase the level of transfer. Wish me luck!!

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What's Your Goal This Year?

All teachers in my district are required to have a yearly Professional Learning Plan (PLP) based on a self-selected goal. The goal is a professional one and student centered. As a coach, I'm often asked by teachers to help them refine their goals and come up with action steps. This is great because not only am I supporting teachers in the moment, but it's also an opportunity to schedule future coaching. In fact, even with teachers I haven't specifically met with, I often later discover that they've included "working with the coach" as an action step in their plans. Because of this, I always send a quick survey shortly after PLPs are due asking:
1) What's your goal for this year?
2) How can I help you and your students reach your goal?

Link to survey

Once I have survey results, or have learned this information from actual conversation, I strategically plot on my calendar "check ins" or follow up planning conversations with each teacher. For example, I learned through conversation that Teacher A has a goal of meaningful integration of technology in the classroom. I immediately offered to help familiarize her with Google Classroom and set up a plan time the following week to do so. Then, I also added two more follow up dates with Teacher A to check in and to plan next steps. I have found that the coaching work that comes from supporting teachers with their PLPs is often enough to keep me busy for quite a while.


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