faulker008

In the movie, The Wizard of Oz , Dorothy seeks help from the all-powerful Oz, hoping he can solve her problems and those of her friends. After she lifts the veil to reveal a bumbling man pulling levers, her hopes are dashed. However, Oz provides all they need: heart, brain, courage, and power to go home. Revealing the mechanisms behind the scene did nothing to reduce the assistance that Oz could provide, even though he felt exposed when the veil was lifted. Like the Wizard, for years I kept the veil drawn on the help I was providing as a coach. I’m not sure why. Perhaps I was afraid that being transparent about my coaching moves would make the process feel less authentic. And maybe there’s some truth to that. But I’ve found that when I have lifted the veil and shared the GIR Coaching Model, it has been well received by the teachers I’m working with. The Gradual Increase of Responsibility Model for Coaching and Mentoring (below), turns the familiar GRR teaching model on its head by putt...

As a coach, it’s handy to have some open-ended prompts on the tip of your tongue – ones that can be used in most situations and that give you time to get your feet under you while you figure out the situation. My favorite new phrase for this is, “Tell me more.” Asking a teacher to simply tell me more gives her permission to let her ideas tumble from her brain. Keeping the prompt simple and straightforward allows the teacher to focus more on her own thinking and less on what I am asking her to do. A complicated prompt can overwhelm; a simple prompt opens room for reflection and helps the teacher articulate that nagging something about the lesson that just didn’t feel quite right. That’s what happened in my recent debrief conversation with Alison. She said that overall she felt good about the lesson, but she felt there was room for improvement. “Tell me more,” I said. “I want my students to share their experiences, but I think I may have let them share too much during the lesson,” Alison...

The Gradual Increase of Responsibility Model for Coaching and Mentoring is a guide to support learning: specifically, the learning of teachers. But as learners, teachers aren’t so different from the students they work with. Everyone benefits from a good model. I observed the importance of modeling in a first grade classroom recently. After explaining the task, which involved creating arrays on a grid using Unifix cubes, the teacher did something that made all the difference in students’ understanding of the task. He sat down in the middle of the carpet, gathered students all around him, and did a “fishbowl” model of the process. Then he sent students on their way to do it on their own. Afterwards, the teacher talked about the lesson. “Even though I say it, they don’t really hear it,” he said, talking about his oral instructions. “They’ve got to see me doing the process. That’s when they understand.” Like their students, teachers sometimes need a good model. If you’ve made a recommenda...

In coaching, when it comes to recommendations, it’s all about how your frame it. If a meeting starts with a teacher airing frustrations about a lesson or the kids, you may be headed in the wrong direction. When that happens, I like to back up the conversation by asking, “What went really well in the lesson?” When we couch recommendations within a broader framework of success, they are more likely to be received and employed. Another way to frame a recommendation is by stating it as a “noticing.” I like to memorize sentence starters so that I can prompt myself during a coaching conversation. My sentence starter for noticings is, “I’ve noticed that when the teacher ____, students ____.” I’ve found this handy sentence stem is flexible and effective.  The noticing can be specific to the teacher’s class: “I’ve noticed that when you use the doc cam to model, your kids follow directions better” or a more general observation: “I’ve noticed when teachers use the last two minutes of a lesso...

Opportunities for growth come by choice, by chance, and by invitation. As a coach, you can help teachers take advantage of opportunities, no matter their source. When a teacher actively chooses to make a change, she is likely to not only be open to support, but to look for it. When a teacher identifies an area where she’d like to grow, you can support her by providing professional resources, like short articles or book recommendation. She might also appreciate specific lesson ideas or materials that would support the change. Offering to model or observe and then report back on your noticings can also be a help when a teacher has chosen her own area of focus. When an opportunity for growth comes by chance, the teacher may be dog-paddling to keep her head above water, and offers of assistance might turn the unplanned-for experience into a springboard for lasting change. For example, when a new student with significant challenges becomes part of the class, the teacher might first apprecia...