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Last week’s post focused on the benefits of focusing on tangible feedback from students during a debrief conversation. Looking at student work and students at work provides data about whether the lesson’s objectives were achieved. Kid-watching is an important part of a coach’s job! Ultimately, the teacher should automatically focus her attention on this tangible feedback, but initially the coach might support such reflection through her recommendations. What  bridges the gap between the coach making recommendations about feedback and the teacher independently taking this action? As with other teaching moves we are trying to develop, asking questions helps build that independence. This week, as I met with a teacher to reflect on a lesson I’d observed. I started by asking, “What do you think went really well during that lesson?” She said she thought the students really “got it” – she felt they had achieved the lesson objective - understanding about numbers between zero and one on a ...

When a tennis player lofts the ball, she gets immediate feedback: it either stays in bounds or it is out. Similarly, teachers get immediate feedback on their instruction: whether or not their students are learning is an indication of their success. Some teachers are very tuned in to this feedback, but others need a nudge to shift their attention from what they are doing to what their students are doing. Whether it’s the little things (like a blank stare after new content has been explained) or bigger things (like a masterfully-completed project), helping teachers tune in to the tangible feedback given directly by students is more important in the long run than the indirect feedback they might occasionally get from us. When I’m observing a teacher, I’ve noticed that I have to remind myself, too, to shift my focus regularly to what the students are doing. It’s easy to get comfortable in the chair at the back table and take notes on what the teacher is doing. But I don’t really know how...

As a coach or mentor, it feels good to make a recommendation that is just right for the teacher and comes at just the right time. Even better is seeing that the suggestion is actually implemented and moves the teacher’s learning forward! In previous posts we’ve talked about ways for increasing the likeliness of this outcome; for example, being specific and offering choice can increase the uptake on your recommendations. Another way to increase implementation is to make the recommendations part of a conversation. When conferring with a teacher who might benefit from your suggestions, it helps to frame the recommendation within a comfortable context. For example, I’ve been talking with Kate about writing conferences, but writing isn’t Kate’s strong suit. She has a math brain and is a natural problem-solver. So it helped when I began our conversation about writing conferences by thinking with her about how she provides feedback in math. “I love trying to figure out what they’re doing,” sh...