faulker008

"Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope." F. Scott Fitzgerald, in The Great Gatsby Following classroom observations, it’s easy to judge and recommend. And there are times when a recommendation is the “just right” coaching move. But frequently, asking a question is a more cognitively engaging approach. I love the Fitzgerald quote, above, because it demonstrates positive assumptions. Rather than judging, I can ask a question that helps me understand a teacher’s thinking. And that thinking might be brilliant! The chart below lists some things I saw during a recent observation. I noted these in all caps in my notes so that I would be sure to address them during our debrief. (I’ve found that hitting the “caps lock” key is the quickest way to emphasize something while I script a lesson.) When planning for our conference, I crafted the questions to the right. When I saw this….. I asked this…. On lesson plans, an objective was to use the associative property, but...

Coaching begins with understanding and being understood. One of the subtle ways we feel understood is when our thinking partner mirrors our body language. For example, this week, a frustrated teacher came to me with a problem. She was agitated, speaking quick and high, leaning forward. I responded in like – an urgency in my voice and a posture that matched her own. Even though she likely couldn’t have said why, this teacher felt understood. But I realized that her agitated state didn’t lend itself to thoughtful consideration. So after initially mirroring her body language, I recognized the need for a shift, and I sat back in my chair. I rested my arms on the arm rests and slowed the cadence of my speech. My body language became a model for the teacher to mirror, and her agitation ebbed. Soon, we were ready for dialogue that led to potential solutions. This situation demonstrates two examples of mirroring. When I mirrored the teacher’s emotions, she felt she had a partner in her problem...

A few years ago, I did coaching work in a district that had coaches in every building and a strict policy for their coaches: No coaching on classroom management. Although this seemed harsh, I suspect it helped coaches and teachers look beneath the mask and find out what may have been causing those concerns about behavior. A coaching situation this week reminded me of this policy. I observed a lesson where the teacher, Amanda, was frequently asking for students’ attention and repeating herself when students couldn’t answer her questions. Just before our debrief conversation, I silently repeated this mantra: “This conversation will not be about classroom management; this conversation will not be about classroom management; this conversation will not be about classroom management!” I was afraid that the most obvious features of the lesson would distract our discussion from what was really going on. I’d worked with Amanda before, and after chatting briefly about what she felt was successfu...

Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.                                                                                                     Sophia Loren, actress In the classroom, there’s an interesting relationship between control and intellectual challenge. Tasks that are easy to control often have a low cognitive load. For example, twenty-five students sitting in rows working independently to complete a worksheet might be orderly and compliant, but the intellectual work they are doing could be quite minimal. On the other hand, groups of students gathered in pockets around the room reenacting the rotation of the earth around the sun might look a bit messy, but there’s probably a lot of learning going on. Researchers have fo...

Today’s post-holiday message is short and simple: We show we care by checking back. If a teacher has opened up and shared a frustration, we show we care about her well-being by checking back to see if the situation has changed. If we have planned a lesson together with a teacher, we show we care by checking back about how the lesson worked for students. If we have come up with an intervention plan for a hard-to-reach student, we show we care by checking back on how the plan is going. If we had a painful debrief session that revealed that few students achieved a lesson’s goal, we check back to praise potential solutions. And lest it appear that checking back only applies to negative situations: If we have recently discussed instructional improvements, interventions that are closing the gap, or higher student achievement, we check back for additional celebration! Checking back can be peeking your head in the door during passing period, tucking a note of encouragement in a teacher’s box, ...

Writing teacher Donald Graves suggests that teachers of writing “teach the writer, not the writing.” He is cautioning us that our focus in what we teach should be on something students will be able to transfer to the rest of their work. I’ve been thinking about how this tenet applies to coaching. In writing, it’s ineffective to talk about writer’s craft absent of student writing. For example, talking about sensory details without having students look at the details they’ve included in their own writing would be unlikely to improve their future prose. But it’s also ineffective to be so focused on the student’s current writing work that the learning doesn’t transcend beyond this particular piece. There’s a tension here between the specific and the generalizable, and it’s important to find the right balance. This same principle plays out in coaching. I initially cringed when I thought about coaching the teacher rather than the teaching . When coaching, we often deflect attention from the...

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less.” ~C.S. Lewis What does humility have to do with coaching? To move forward in a coaching cycle, I have to shift the focus from me and what I know to the teacher and what she knows. It’s not hard to make a recommendation when a teacher asks for support. It’s much harder to hold my tongue and instead of sharing my wisdom, ask a question that allows a teacher to share hers. She doesn’t need to know how smart I am; she needs to know how smart she is. My questions can help her realize that she really does have the answers. If I ask, “What else have you been considering?” my question affirms the teacher as one who thoughtfully deliberates her decisions. If I ask, “What did you notice about students’ thinking?” my question recognizes her thoughtful observations. Questions like these that hold positive assumptions of teachers’ actions and abilities build teachers’ confidence and encourage ongoing use of the attributes ...