faulker008

One of my favorite things about coaching is the chance to collaborate. With some teachers, my primary role as a coach is that of thinking partner. Many of the teachers I work with have a lot of experience and expertise; they are just looking for a thinking partner to brainstorm with and bounce ideas off of. Even for less confident teachers, this is our goal as we near the end of a coaching cycle. We are leading toward collaboration and interdependence. Recently, I was Karen’s thinking partner as she planned a writing project for the end of the year. She wanted the project to be both fun and meaningful. She already had ideas about having students create a memoir of sorts – an opportunity to reminisce about their time in fifth grade. We brainstormed together a list of prompts to start students thinking. What was their funniest memory from the year? Their proudest moment? Their favorite book? Then we generated sentence starters to get anyone unstuck in the event of writer’s block. The co...

Random acts of kindness are good. Random acts of coaching are not. In their book, Coaching Toward the Common Core, Elish-Piper and Allier describe how coaches are often frantically busy doing things like organizing book rooms, running from meeting to meeting, and managing assessments. They call these “random acts of coaching” and suggest that having a clear purpose statement will help to alleviate this haphazardness. Even after coaches have clearly defined their purpose, however, they can increase their effectiveness by being more intentional about how they turn responsibility over to teachers. That’s what is described in the Gradual Increase of Responsibility Coaching Model. This blog explores the decreasingly-supportive scaffolds of modeling, recommending, questioning, affirming, and praising that coaches can choose and use with deliberation so that teachers’ instructional proficiency increases, reflection is internalized, and collaboration is ongoing. As an instructional coach, you ...

2016 5 13 On Your Side   24862 - 24225 = 637 Each coaching cycle is a journey. Often, it takes unexpected turns, but the hope is that each coaching excursion ends in a collaborative place. The GIR model begins with dependence – the teacher depends on the coach for ideas and advice. But over time, the relationship grows and changes to one of interdependence and collaboration. Offering praise can be an important final step in that journey. When I talked this week with a teacher about the coaching she’d received, she mentioned that praise “encouraged me to keep trying harder.” Similarly, another teacher talked about how praise made her want to improve. “When you have someone who is on your side,” she said, “You are going to want to grow as a teacher and as a professional.” When someone is “on your side” they are helping you when you are trying to achieve something. They support you. They believe in what you are doing. They ar...

Because the end of the school year is approaching, some coaching cycles may be forced to an early close. Even where additional support might be warranted, affirming and praising can be effective in providing closure to a coaching cycle. When the inclination to recommend or question is still strong but time is running short, I encourage coaches to swallow the recommendation (which would not have time to take root) and instead consider newly-emerging practices they want to reinforce. This week, I talked with Nicole’s coach, who had recommendations regarding a recent lesson she’d observed. Although the recommendations were well-founded, the fact that her upcoming coaching meeting would be the final one for the year meant that there would be little opportunity for uptake and follow-through with the recommendation. Instead, I encouraged the coach to consider areas Nicole had improved during recent lessons. “Nicole’s transitions have gotten so much better,” she exclaimed. “Why?” I asked. “We...

The GIR Model is a fluid description of how coaching changes over time. The way we apply it is contextualized and based upon the needs of the teacher we are coaching. Every teacher is different, so as we plan for support, we keep in mind what we have learned along the way about that teacher’s needs. I was reminded of the importance of keeping these needs in mind as I met with Cindy this week. Cindy is a very hard worker. She is pleasant, loves her job, and wants to do what is best for kids. She wants to be better at what she does. And, quite honestly, she needs to be better at what she does. I’ve noticed, though, that Cindy takes feedback very personally; an insensitively-delivered comment can burst her happiness bubble and set her back for weeks. She can be very hard on herself. Knowing this influences how I use every single move on the GIR model. Because she needs it, I open every conversation with praise , and I usually close it the same way. But I know praise isn’t going to inspir...

Usually, I talk with mentors and coaches about the meandering walk they take among the coaching moves. Although one move is usually dominant at any given point in the coaching cycle, often two or more coaching moves are part of the scaffolding being provided. A recommendation might be followed up with a question that helps the teacher to make a strategy her own, for example. But at times it’s important to intentionally let go – completely – of a coaching move that has held on for too long. This week I talked with Leslie, a coach who is working with an over-reliant teacher. Marie sought recommendations frequently, even though Leslie felt this teacher was more than ready to go it on her own. Leslie decided it was time to call off the recommending. When the teacher texted and said, “You haven’t given me any recommendations about.....,” Leslie replied simply, “I know.” Marie texted back, “Oh, okay.” And then Marie went about designing the lesson. When Leslie told me the story, she said, “M...

As April’s mid-point passes and the final stretch of the school year is in sight, we begin thinking about how we will wrap up the school year. I like that phrase, “wrapping up” because it can bring to mind not just finishing, but packaging, beautifying, and then giving a gift. In a coaching cycle, the “wrapping up” includes plenty of opportunities for teachers to share their own thinking as they demonstrate their growing aptitude with instructional decision-making. Because coaches are experienced folks with lots of successful ideas, it is easy to make recommendations when meeting with teachers. And often, especially with new strategies or new teachers, that is just the right thing to do. But when we over-rely on this mentoring move, we sometimes rob the teacher we are working with of the opportunity to expand her own thinking and increase the responsibility she is taking for instructional decision-making. It is easy to recommend too long. This week, I caught myself wanting to make reco...