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As coaches, we build partnerships with our words, so we have to attend to the bricks and mortar of our conversations.   The words we choose have power, one by one.   We Could One of the most powerful, partnership-creating words is “ we .”   As someone who used to value independence, I had to be coached into loving this word.   My husband and a former teaching partner convinced me that the language of “we” sends an important message about the collaborative nature of our work.   Instead of saying, “You should….,” say, “We could….”   You can feel the different dynamic created by those two very similar phrases.   If our focus has been on classroom discussion, for example, instead of saying, “You should have students seated in a circle,” try, “We could think about how the way students are seated affects the conversation.”   You’ll likely get to the same end point, but with more collaborative thinking and buy-in.   In addition to the joint pronoun,...

For more than a month, our team had been working on student discussion, and Bethani was frustrated.   Despite her carefully-planned questions, discussion had fallen flat during the lesson on character traits in her third-grade classroom.   As I settled in for our coaching conversation, I reminded myself of past experiences working with frustrated teachers.   I knew we’d be more successful if I listened to and affirmed Bethani’s frustrations, focus on one aspect of instruction, brainstorm causes and solutions, and choose a next step. Step One: Listen As Bethani reflected on the lesson, she described how the partner talk she had used as a lesson opener had fallen flat.   Bethani had felt sure her students would be interested in talking about themselves, but she ruminated about how, when she asked them to turn to a partner and share two “inside traits” about themselves, there was a lot of silence followed by a little bit of talk about what was for lunch.   Later i...

Do you sprinkle praise throughout coaching conversations?  Many coaches tell me that they find opportunities to praise throughout the coaching cycle, and they wonder how that kind of ongoing praise fits in the GIR coaching model.  I remind coaches that praise can be helpful anytime – it’s just that it becomes the dominant coaching move near the end of a coaching cycle, as the need for other types of support drops away. In the midst of a coaching cycle, I often use the sandwich technique in coaching conversations, with praise at the beginning and end and something more meaty in the middle.  The praise at the beginning might come from something positive I noticed during an observation or an effective practice included in a lesson plan.  The meat of the conversation comes next.  It might include a recommendation or a question; I think about how much support the teacher will need to get to her next step.  This “bless then press” approach is suggested for confer...

Modeling is a powerful coaching tool, and we can get even more bang for our buck when we are intentional about it.   If possible, take the opportunity to observe a bit as you begin a coaching cycle.   Watching the teaching and learning in a classroom usually reveals aspects of instruction that can be improved, even if the teacher is an experienced expert.   There is just so much going on that it’s handy to have an extra pair of eyes and ears on the job! As you launch a coaching cycle, you’ll probably sit down with the teacher and select a learning target for your work together. That will be the main focus, and your initial modeling will center around that goal.   However, you may also be able to incorporate other instructional features as sidebars. I talked this week with Sherri, an experienced coach who is working with first-grade-teacher Sarah on pacing. Sarah’s internal teaching clock is not yet well-developed, so she often ends up with too much or not enough tim...