faulker008

There’s a clip from an old TV police series that shows up in my Facebook feed from time to time. It says, “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.” As I prepare for a coaching session, I realize that is sometimes good advice for myself. When teachers have a broad repertoire of effective instructional strategies, asking a question often provides just the nudge needed for effective planning or reflection. But sometimes a teacher needs even less than that. All I have to do is state a fact, and the teacher is off on a reflective or planning journey. Drawing a detail to her attention gets her moving in a productive direction. For example, I began a reflective discussion with, “Students took turns sharing the floor during the discussion. Twelve of them participated.” Andi quickly reflected, “I wonder how I could get the other 12 participating?” Her self-reflective question led to effective planning for the discussion the next day. During a planning conversation, when I said, “Six students did...

Although there are lots of benefits to classroom observations, sometimes coaches’ goals are furthered by not being there. Reflective teaching is a powerful tool for teachers. Reflection helps teachers recognize not just what they did, but why they did it. Taking a look at underlying assumptions and beliefs helps teachers be more intentional in their decision-making. This is important, since teachers make hundreds of instructional decisions daily, many of them on the fly , with literally trillions of options to choose from.  Reflection has many benefits, and some teachers seem to be natural reflectors. Those are the easy ones to coach.  For some teachers, however, reflection doesn’t seem to come naturally. For these teachers, questions like, “What did you notice during the lesson,” seem to fall flat. When I am trying to build teachers’ capacity for reflection, I’ve found it is sometimes helpful for us to talk about a lesson for which I wasn’t present. My questions come across a...

Coaches are instructional experts who may find themselves pulled in many directions as part of their job description. They continually update their knowledge through professional reading, attending conferences, and participating in professional development. They lead and attend meetings with teachers and administrators. They are data analysts, instructional specialists, and resource providers. In all of these ways, instructional coaches are catalysts for change. With all the jobs on your plate, how do you, as an instructional coach, slice your coaching pie? Consider the following suggestions, which are grounded in research about effective coaching: There are no positive effects for time that coaches spend on school management or administrative tasks. In fact, these activities negatively impact coaching. 1 Not surprisingly, it is the time that coaches spend working directly with teachers that matters. Time with teachers predicts not only teachers’ perceptions about coaching but also inc...

Today I had the chance to share the GIR model with a group made up mostly of instructional coaches. Afterward, the one teacher in the crowd came forward with her story. “I came from a school where coaching was a really negative thing,” she said. “But now I’m at a school where coaching is positive.” She continued, “I feel like I could buy into it more if I understood more about coaching.” Her comment got me thinking: How transparent are we about our coaching? How transparent should we be? Honesty is the best policy, of course. That old adage holds true. I thought about how I’ve often shared my GIR conferencing form (see below) with the teachers I’m working with. I thought about how we have sometimes co-planned our work using Sweeney’s Results-Based Coaching Tool . Teachers have responded positively to being in-the-know about our goals and the process for our work together. But I couldn’t help but think of other times when I’ve been less transparent. I thought about my work facilitating ...