faulker008

When we are trying something new or making important decisions, we look to an expert for guidance.  As I was making investment decisions recently, I counseled with my brother, who works in finance and has much deeper understanding than I do of stocks and the market.  I was grateful that he took the time to explain not just his recommendations, but why he was making them.  I walked away from our conversation with the ability to make more informed decisions.  Investing in the stock market always means playing the odds, so I needed to make my own decisions and assume the risk. In educational settings, we also look to experts: the student looks to her teacher; the teacher looks to a principal or coach; the coach looks to professional literature and experts in the field.  As leaders implement educational initiatives, knowing the research in the field and seeking the advice of experts can improve the odds for success. Recently, I worked with a team of researchers who ...

The Boy Scouts have a motto that also serves coaches well:  “Be prepared.”  As coaches, we may be surprised by a comment during a coaching conversation, we might be caught in the hall for an impromptu recommendation, and we often are asked to respond when we have incomplete information.  When we’re caught off-guard or feeling confused or uninformed, it’s helpful to have a tip-of-the-tongue response to give us time to settle, think, and get the bigger picture. An ever-ready response that works well for me in these situations is, “Say more about that.” Peter Johnston, author of the excellent book, Opening Minds , describes use of the “Say more about that” prompt as a formative assessment tool when conferring with children.  I’ve found it to be equally powerful in coaching conversations.  “Say more about that” is an invitation that prompts the teacher to give me a better understanding of the situation and think things through herself.  It gives me time to shif...

Our brains filter information as a matter of survival.   Think of all the data our senses are feeding our brain in one minute!   So much to see, hear, and feel!   To avoid information overload, our brains select what to pay attention to.   That is a good thing.   However, it can also make us blind to change .   If, as coaches and teachers, we want to become more aware of change (and whether or not it is happening), we need two thing:   reference points and a reason to look.*   Reference points for change are baseline data.  What did it used to be like?  A phrase my oldest son uses to talk about times past comes to mind: “Back in the day…..”  So, back in the day before I had the habit of seting a clear purpose for each activity, what was student response like?  We can count on our memories or, better yet, we can collect data on students’ responses to answer this question for ourselves or for the teacher we coach.  Past exp...

As a young adult, I was sometimes accused of being unobservant.  With my nose in a book, I could easily be lost to the world around me.  That changed, however, when I became a teacher.  Teachers develop the uncanny ability to know what is going on all around them and they are sometimes accused of having eyes in the back of their heads.  Although that would be a medical oddity, it would certainly be handy in the classroom! Lacking that extra pair of eyes, it is helpful to have a coach around!  Although teachers have well-honed observation skills, it’s not possible to attend to everything at once.  Even expert teachers benefit from another’s perspective on the teaching and learning occurring in their classroom.  Brenda Powers points out, “When someone else is poring over notes from an observation with you, or seeking clues from student work, you can’t help but see things that weren’t in your field of vision before.”  She calls these oversights “blin...