Share the Love 2

The second standard in ISTE Standards for Educators: Leader requires educators to seek out opportunities to support student empowerment and success and to improve teaching and learning. Standard 2a defines leader as one who engages with education stakeholders to help advance and accelerate learning with technology.

Teachers are Stakeholders in Education

I’m sure you know the expression attributed to Sir Isaac Newton, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Well, that’s exactly how I feel about my teaching journey. In my three decades of teaching, I’ve taught in four schools, on two continents, in three countries and enjoyed the privilege of being mentored and coached by many colleagues.

My very first mentor left the most indelible mark on my career. I am grateful that my first Head of Department and mentor was wise and patient. Sometime in my first year of teaching I responded to her with some off-hand statement like, “I’m  just an eighth grade teacher.” Although I can’t remember the exact circumstance of the conversation, I do very clearly remember the gist of her response. There is no such thing as ‘just‘ a teacher. During the years that I spent under her guidance, she showed me that I was a stakeholder in the education of each individual, not only in my classroom, but in the school. 

Like most teachers, when I chose teaching as a career it was because I wanted to make a difference in peoples’ lives. Linda Paxson is one of the giants who helped me understand that how I saw myself and how I spoke about myself directly correlated with my ability to effect change in the lives of students. I could not ‘just’ be a teacher, there was too much at stake.

How to be someone’s Giant

So, how do leaders create an environment where teachers view themselves intrinsically as stakeholders advancing the vision of empowering learning with technology, rather than as merely the classroom teacher? This is especially important as we consider the teacher’s role in training up students to be ready for the world of work in the 21st century. Since teaching and using technology is no longer confined to computer labs and specialist teachers but is a necessary component for all teachers in all classrooms, efficient and grace-filled means should be found to encourage teachers to include technology in their curriculum. Providing teachers with incentive to attend professional development courses and conferences is one valuable way this can be accomplished; another way is by teachers coaching teachers.

Have a Coaching Conversation

In their book, Coaching conversations: Transforming your school one conversation at a time, Linda Gross Cheliotes and Marceta Fleming Reilly show that effective coaching conversations are authentic, there is no hidden agenda, and require the coach to be a committed listener, to speak with intention, to focus on the positive, to avoid giving advice, to ask open-ended questions and to offer reflective feedback.

Focus on the Student Learning Outcomes

Diane Sweeney and Leanna Harris, in their book Student-centered Coaching: The Moves, suggests that the focus of coaching should not be to fix the teacher or make the teacher a master teacher, but rather the focus should be the student and moving the student toward mastery. The coach partners with the teacher to design learning which is based on a specific learning outcome for the student. The relationship between teacher and coach is trusting and respectful. Listen to this Podcast in which Diane Sweeney discusses coaching or partnering with teachers to improve student outcomes. Sweeney also has a You Tube channel and here is a link to her video An introduction to Student-centered Coaching.

Think Before you Speak

The Art of Coaching Teachers is a blog by Elena Aguilar. While I was reading her post, How to Structure a Coaching Conversation, my eye caught site of her recent posts: How to coach a perfectionist teacher; How to coach an overwhelmed teacher, and How to coach a cranky teacher – those titles make me smile, because I have been all of those teachers at one time or another, haven’t you? However she has some great tips for how to prepare yourself before the coaching conversation even begins. She suggests that the coach reflects on the following questions:

1. How can I make this conversation meaningful to the teacher? What do they care about that we can talk about?
2. What’s one question I can ask the teacher to help them reflect on their practice?
3. What’s one instructional practice that might be useful for this teacher to reflect on and make a change in? How can I help this teacher reflect on this behavior and make changes?

Listen Well

Honor the Teacher’s input

Acknowledge the teacher you are partnering with as a skilled professional who is looking for ways to strengthen their craft. Be willing to learn as much from them as they want to learn from you. I like the way Jason Culbertson expresses this idea in a post titled Five Practices to do Today for More Effective Instructional Coaching. He suggests that unless coaching is a true conversation between professionals which is ‘fluid, natural, action oriented, and collegial, ” it is merely “one-way feedback disguised as two-way dialogue.“

Mike Speer, in his paper Facilitative Coaching to Increase Technology Integration, agrees. He states that, “mutual integrity and respect mean that the coach and the teacher learn from each other. Mutual learning occurs when a coach suspends judgment and uses genuine curiosity and inquiry to share all relevant information about the situation.”

Make time for reflection and feedback

Both the coach and the teacher should spend some time reflecting on their practice. Feedback sessions are part of the coaching conversation. Feedback can be informal: an encouraging word as you pop into the classroom, a quick text or voicemail, or a ‘like’ or ‘thumbs up’ emoji in a conversation. Feedback should also be formal, tracking progress and leading to ‘Aha’ moments.

Maintain Relationships

This post started with a memory of a teacher who walked with me through my first nine years of teaching, Linda Paxson. And, believe it or not we are still friends, and thanks to Facebook, we can still connect. Her words of inspiration and anecdotes about teaching are still informing my teaching today. The following quote by Brene Brown defines the relationship I have with Linda and exemplifies the type of relationship I hope to nurture with the teachers I might be privileged to coach.

“I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”

Brene Brown

Keep a record of the coaching adventure

Full disclosure time: I am not great at keeping records of coaching conversations I have had with teachers or that teachers have had with me. I do not have dated entries kept in one easy location. I have scraps of paper in binders. I have well-intentioned notebooks. I have yellow pads piled on a bookcase. Well, that might be a slight exaggeration – but I know I could be better at keeping records to use for follow-up conversations. In a previous post I highlighted OneNote as a great digital tool for curating notes and resources for professional development, and OneNote would also make a great place to maintain coaching resources and records.

However, coaches could also create a coaching wiki which they could share with teachers. They could populate their wiki with targeted information for certain teachers, however all the information would be available for all teachers to peruse. A wiki is a live collaborative space, so teachers with permission to edit are able to add resources as well as offer helpful hints and tips for teaching.

Microsoft Teams has a wiki app which is easy to use and easy to access if your teachers are all using Office 365 Teams. If you do not have a Microsoft account, I think PBworks is a great alternative.

PBworks provides an online collaboration platform that can meet the needs of visibility, whether working with text or files, team members can edit content, add comments, and share as needed using computer or smartphone; asychronicity, each edit or revision is tracked, timestamped, and attributed to an authorized user; accountability, you can you to attach action items to specific pieces of content and collaborate on files.

PBworks has a free basic account which gives you 1 workspace and 2GB of storage. Their Classroom account is $109.00 per year 40 GB of storage and full customization ability.

Whether you use the wiki app in Teams of PBworks, wikis do come at a price. However they also come with peace of mind; they are safe collaborative spaces for teachers and coaches.

References

Aguilar, E. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/coaching_teachers/2018/01/how_to_structure_a_coaching_co.html

Cheliotes, L. G., Reilly, M. F., & Bailey, S. T. (2018). Coaching conversations: transforming your school one conversation at a time. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, a SAGE Company.

Culbertson, J. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.insighteducationgroup.com/blog/five-practices-to-do-today-for-more-effective-instructional-coaching

ISTE Standards for Educators. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/standards/for-educators

PBworks – Online Team Collaboration Software. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.pbworks.com/

Schilling, D. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2012/11/09/10-steps-to-effective-listening/#7a45a4f83891

Speer, M. (2019). FACILITATIVE COACHING TO INCREASE TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION. Access Points. Retrieved from https://www.theatlis.org/assets/AccessPointsVol3.pdf

Sweeney, D. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-jpx8k-a3f191?utm_campaign=w_share_ep&utm_medium=dlink&utm_source=w_share

Sweeney, D., & Harris, L. (2017). Student-centered coaching: the moves. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.