Coaching cycle template

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!

 Here is a summary of, "Distinguishing Professional Learning from Professional Development" from Regional Educational Laboratory Pacific:

• Professional Development:
  
  • Often associated with one-time workshops, seminars, or lectures.
  • Typically follows a one-size-fits-all approach.
  • Happens to teachers without their active involvement.
  • May not lead to significant system-wide changes in student outcomes.

• Professional Learning:
  
  • Intended for sustained growth and improvement.
  • Values active engagement, collaboration, and reflection.
  • Incorporates coaching, modeling, and job-embedded learning.
  • Aligns with specific content, standards, and school goals.

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!

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! 

Cue me, the coach, whipping out my cool UDL Guidelines Webpage 

Mc: It sound like you would like to Provide options for Sustaining Effort & Persistence. How do you feel about varying demands and resources to optimize challenge? Fostering collaboration and community? 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 that seems like a lot of work!

Me: It doesn't have to be! 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. What do you think? Would you like me to help you creat the first few?

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: All of the ones in that part of the board we use the most.

Me: Great. As we are making the clues for students, we can give them hints about what thinking strategy/ies they could use to help them find the correct answer. We could also use the question examples from the book to enhance some of the questions in your review materials. 

Teacher: Oh, we could also create additional or different questions for my advanced learners who may get bored with so much review of material they have already mastered. I can't believe I'm excited about SOL test review!

(Applause and Curtain)

*I have taken a few liberties with this conversation for conciseness and effectiveness.

The teacher and I planned our next steps using the Coaching Cycle Template. She is working on developing deeper and more complex questions to complement the review materials she already has. We are both looking at which of her classes strongest thinking strategies will be most helpful  as clues. I am creating one example Breakout Activity. At our next meeting, we will look at the thinking strategies and use them to create clues. I will show her how I created the first Breakout Activity. Then we will create one together. Then we will each create one independently so that I am there if she needs help. Once she feels comfortable, she can continue to create as many of this type activity as needed.

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 lined up who want to learn about using Breakout Activities, big and small in their classrooms. Also, I didn't get the idea for using Breakout kits in isolation. I didn't even know we had the kits- they were stuffed at the back of the library closet! I had a different teacher come to me asking about "...some kind of breakout something or other for review they are using at other schools- do we have anything like that?" So I reached out to my STEM teacher and she said we HAD some and listed a few places they may be. I found them and after researching them for him, I realized that these would be a great tool for my teacher who wanted to make test review fun, with a few modifications! Next up- go through all the closets, who knows what I might find!