Coaching cycle template
I use Teach Boost for coaching cycles to help me organize ongoing meeting notes and provide a structured framework for the formal coaching process. It serves as a guide, ensuring that we stay focused on the overarching goal. Importantly, it keeps me attuned to the teacher’s specific needs and what steps we should take next. Whether I’m conducting research, creating resources, or planning collaborations like modeling or co-teaching, Teach Boost ensures that my efforts support the teacher’s progress towards their goal.
In the Plan phase, we talk about the teacher’s needs and goals. I then create various options for teachers, allowing them to choose which strategies or tools they would like to pursue. During the Act phase, we work together to build the teacher’s skill with the new strategies or tools, using a combination of professional learning, co-teaching, modeling, and resource sharing. Teachers implement their learning while we collect relevant data. Finally, in the Reflect Phase, we analyze the effectiveness of the strategies or tools and determine next steps.
When working with a newer teacher, her goal was to improve focus and engagment during her station time. We focused on adding technology with purpose- taking her less engaging, lowest level tasks and transforming them with technology into more engaging, impactful learning activities. In addition, we used elements from the UDL guidelines to provide more options for students to have voice and choice within their station work!
The goal planner is integral to guide conversations with teachers about the change they truly want to see in their classroom. However, rarely are our paths to growth wholly straightforward. As we started looking at the teacher’s station time, one thing that became apparent to both of us was that we also needed to improve the flow of station work. On Friday, we will be meeting to discuss ideas about some solutions for this. A couple of things we will be looking at are changing the location of some stations and strategies/signals for the transition between stations. We have previously done one-on-one training for using Google Classroom and Jamf Teacher. I am looking forward to showing her how to apply some of those skills during station time. I am very fortunate to be working with a teacher who has a great attitude and is committed to learning and growing! Her growth mindset is inspiring!
What I'm Listening To
Audiobooks:
"The Advice Trap" by Michael Bungay Stanier
"Recalibrate the Culture" by Jimmy Casas
Podcasts:
Coaching for Leaders
Bright Morning Podcast
Think Fast Talk Smart
aligning with school and district goals
Find Commonalities
Professional Development VS Professional Learning
Professional Development VS Professional Learning
After we have completed the Goal Planner together to set a personal goal for the teacher, I analyze their goal and look for connections with our school and district focus. Teachers are already learning these strategies during professional development. The more they can see how they tie into their own personal goals for their classroom, the greater buy-in they have for the whole process. Bonus: they love feeling like their PD time is both useful and applicable to their "boots on the ground" planning!
Professional Development VS Professional Learning
Professional Development VS Professional Learning
Professional Development VS Professional Learning
Professional Development:
- Often associated with one-time workshops or online courses.
- One-size-fits-all approach.
- Little or no active involvement.
- May not lead to significant changes in student outcomes.
Professional Learning:
- Sustained growth and improvement.
- Active engagement, collaboration, and reflection.
- Incorporates coaching, modeling, and job-embedded learning.
- Aligns with specific content, standards, and school goals.
The Coaching Connection
Professional Development VS Professional Learning
The Coaching Connection
It is very important to connect what teachers are learning to their personal motivations and goals as a learning designer. Coaches are what moves us from professional development to professional learning. As a coach, I can connect the big picture to the small picture, the ideal to the real, and the framework to the specific. Most people become teachers because they love learning. Let's make sure we are meeting their needs the same way we expect them to meet their students' learning needs!
Reality Check: UDL
Reality Check: Depth & Complexity
The Coaching Connection
Okay, enough preaching to the choir! What does that look like in real life?
Teacher: Look we've got to get ready for testing and I don't want to drill and kill, but I have to get these kids ready! Help me make this fun!
Mc: (Navigating the teacher to the UDL Interactive Guidelines.) It sound like you would like to Design options for Sustaining Effort & Persistence.
Teacher: I remember this from my UDL PD!
Me: The interactive guidelines are a great tool for making your lessons more engaging. It takes a lot of the brainstorming off your plate!
Teacher: I think this part about optimizing challenge and support would be helpful.
Me: I think we could do both of those by using a Breakout Model for some of your review activities. Would you like me to show you what I mean?
Teacher: Ooh, I've heard of Breakout Rooms, but they seem like they take a lot of time to plan. I'm not sure I have time for something so complicated.
Me: It doesn't have to be complicated. We can take the review materials you already have and make mini-breakout activities at different levels based on the needs of your students. Rather than having the whole class go through a series of many clues and locks, you can have small groups or pairs work on one or two locks each. We would incorporate the questions from your review materials as part of how they get the code for the lock. Students could be given different levels of support as "clues" using the invisible ink and flashlights included in the kits. I could model using this strategy or we could co-plan and co-teach a lesson. Which meets your level of comfort best?
Reality Check: Depth & Complexity
Reality Check: Depth & Complexity
Reality Check: Depth & Complexity
Teacher: That sounds great! Is there a way we can use the Depth and Complexity thinking strategies with this?
Me: Of course. You've really used the DC strategies a lot this year. Which ones do you think are the most comfortable for your students to use independently?
Teacher: The ones in that part of the board.
Me: Great. Based on your review materials, we can give them hints about what thinking strategy/ies they could use to find the correct answer.
Teacher: That will help support my struggling learners.
Me: We could also use the examples from the book to help us enhance some of the review questions.
Teacher: That will be great for my students who get bored with reviewing of material they have already mastered. I can't believe I'm excited about SOL test review!
***Reference:
"Distinguishing Professional Learning from Professional Development" from Regional Educational Laboratory Pacific
Giving Choices
Reality Check: Depth & Complexity
Reality Check: Depth & Complexity
Just like we always want students to have options, we always want teachers to have options. In addition to showing her the Breakout Activity, I showed her a few other options for "gamifying" her review. She is focusing on the Breakout Activity during our coaching time, because she felt she would need more support for that. She also plans to use three other game ideas I showed her, but felt she could do these easily on her own.
Great teaching is an invasive species!
I now have several teachers who are using Breakout Activities in their classrooms.
Like this Goal Planner Template?
