The Power of a Coaching Cycle: What’s the Impact on Teachers and Students?

As Linn-Mar Schools work to refine our coaching skills during year three of our TLC Program, there is one looming question on everyone’s mind:  What’s the impact?

Finding a test score to give us the exact number or data to answer this question is nearly impossible.  Instead we’ve hit the pavement and gathered our information the old fashioned way:  We talked to people and asked them directly how coaching is impacting the work they do in the classroom as teachers, and how the changes they are implementing from coaching conversations are impacting students.

Here's what teachers, coaches, and students say about Coaching Cycles:

“After I looked at my data I wanted to dismiss some of my students who performed low and never exhibited effort or initiative.  After reflecting with my instructional coach, I began to think differently about the needs of those students.  Data collection and cognitive coaching questions created a shift in my thinking about my teaching practice to better meet the needs of my students."

                                                                                               ~Teacher

"When the Technology Integration Coach visits my classroom, they show my teacher new ways to learn about subjects.  They watch my teacher and show her how to use technology to make school fun."

                                                                                                               ~ Elementary Student

“Coaching conversations have helped shift my thinking to see that what I might have considered the best plan of action before, wasn’t meeting the needs of all my students.  Success for most does not mean success for all.  I’m learning to differentiate and dig deeper than I ever have before as a teacher.”

                                                                                              ~Teacher

“Recently, I went into a reflective coaching conversation after a classroom observation. I went into the situation assuming that we'd reflect on the lesson, how the co-teachers thought it went, and what to celebrate or do differently, etc.  None of that happened. They discovered that their ability to be vulnerable, do something different, and still hit content made for a rich learning environment and real connections with their students. It also opened up doors they didn't even know were closed with many students. There was engagement, thoughtful discussion, and an openness that surprised both teachers. This has become my favorite part of coaching, and to me, it's most wonderful aspect. You can plan to go down a certain path, but often it goes to places you never thought it could.”

                                                                                             ~Instructional Coach

"Coaching cycles are some of the best professional development available to teachers.  The process allows the teacher time to reflect with a purpose and enables the teacher to deeply connect to their craft.  Often the result of a coaching cycle is not only a profound understanding of students and their thinking but also the desire to set up another coaching cycle!"

~Teacher

“I can see a difference in my teacher.  She tells us what she is learning from the coaches.  I like knowing that my teacher is a life long learner who values reflection.”

~Secondary Student

As we continue to build capacity at Linn-Mar with our teacher leadership program, we celebrate the changes our teachers are making to teaching practice and instruction to impact and influence student outcomes.  By focusing on helping individuals be self-directed, we increase their capability to think differently and problem solve.  The only way to increase this capability is through coaching, not telling.  

The University of Georgia research says that when we don’t coach, but rather only offer up consulting or suggestions to our colleagues, three things can happen:

            1.  57% will do NOTHING to change practice

            2.  25% will take the suggestions

            3.  18 % will do the OPPOSITE of what was suggested

Building capacity takes time.  It's the beginning of our third year, and we attribute much of our success to Cognitive Coaching training. 

The mission of Cognitive Coaching^SM:

“…is to produce self-directed persons with the cognitive capacity for excellence both independently and as members of a community.”

Cognitive Coaching doesn't add one more thing to the plate for teachers to do. Instead CC organizes things so teachers can arrange their plate to make instruction more appetizing in order to effectively meet students' needs. Cognitive Coaching has become the base of our work.  We can utilize coaching to implement and work on all other initiatives in our district. 

Check back for more stories on how our coaching is helping teachers think differently to affect student learning.  For more information on Cognitive Coaching click here.

Taking Stock: Year 3 of Teacher Leadership

At Linn-Mar we are about to embark on our third year of implementation of Teacher Leadership.  The process of  has been never ending.  Each week, focusing on training coaches, each month reviewing what works well, or what needs tweaking.  Also, meeting quarterly with our larger stakeholder’s group and gathering input and various opinions, views, and ideas.  We’ve conducted surveys, we’ve asked the people in the roles, how to make things better.  We’ve studied the successful pieces of implementation, and learned from the bumps in the road.  We’ve increased positions such as model teachers, PLC facilitators, and PBIS, and MTSS leaders to meet the needs of our growing district and expanding programs.

Thanks to our study, reflection, and refinement we are off and running in an organized, thoughtful, and impactful direction.  It’s hard to believe we are finally standing here at the gates of year three. 

As we look back at how far we have come and how fast we had to rise to the challenge, I am overwhelmed with gratitude.  I’m in awe of all the school districts that shared and collaborated with us.  I’m in awe of the support staff that the state of Iowa provided us to help us work on our grant application.  Without our AEA staff, Department of Education webinars, and state sponsored meetings, we might not have survived the grant writing process.  I am in awe of the teachers who willingly applied for jobs they had no idea what they might look like yet.  I’m in awe of the staff members who said they would coach and work with us first. 

It is a credit to the coaches, classroom teacher leaders, teaching staff, and administrators for work with us and along side of us to build the structure of teacher leadership from the ground up.  We are always looking back at the grant application, ever mindful of adhering to the goals, training, learning, implementation, and assessments that we said we would do. And We. Have.

Linn-Mar’s TLC Goals:

1.  We will attract and retain new teachers by providing ongoing professional development, classroom support and a comprehensive mentoring program for first and second year teachers.

2.  We will provide increased opportunities for collaboration between teachers.

3.  We will increase professional development and leadership opportunities for staff.

4.  We will measure the impact of student achievement and the effectiveness of the TLC plan by using district and state assessment data, stakeholder surveys, PBIS data, and feedback from parents, teachers, and administrators.

      

      

       After two years, we can breath without oxygen tanks, and we can sleep a full night. The plane is built, it is fully fueled and we no longer worry about losing an engine.  Might there still be storms ahead?  Of course, but we are better equipped as a teacher leadership team to confront stormy weather. 

   

       At Linn-Mar we have taken a bold step into the coaching realm year three of TLC.  We are requiring all teachers to complete one full coaching cycle with a coach, and to visit a one of our thirty-four model teachers.  Erin Watts, one of Linn-Mar's program coordinators, has created a Model Teacher Website for staff to access information about model teacher visits. With over 200 model teacher visits last year, we are extremely pumped for the 500+ visits we'll have this year and the impact it will have on teaching practice and teacher collaboration.  

      Check back in to see our updates and progress on 500+ coaching cycles and model teacher visits.  We can’t wait to share how it is going.

Improving Dialogue in our Schools

“We should make it easy for others to tell us what they think even 

if what they think, conflicts with our views.” 

                                                                 

~Jim Knight, Better Conversations p. 82

If you have spent any time in education you learn quickly that each year our world is filled with new buzzwords, acronyms, and strategies to use with students and staff.  

One topic that has remained constant during my twenty-three years in education is RELATIONSHIPS.  Each year I read several books, and most of them include information on fostering positive relationships with students, how to make connections, and how to create classrooms with high trust and positive climate.  I’ve spent a majority of my summer pondering on how hard teachers work to build relationships with students.  Yet, I’ve spent enough time in PLC meetings and conference rooms to recognize we often do not hold the same standards for how we work with our colleagues. 

This summer, I read the book:  Better Conversations by Jim Knight.  He shares in his book, that better conversations are about finding common ground, asking better questions, fostering dialogue, redirecting toxic words and emotions, and building trust.  All things we need in our schools.

He also shares several stories from coaches around the country in this book, and several studies and research about what teachers think.  What Knight captures in his book is that sometimes as adults we focus on obvious differences rather than finding common ground with our peers. 

Dialogue is hard, but I believe that dialogue is an opportunity for each of us to learn something about our own thinking, as well as the thinking of the people sitting across the table from us, or standing next to us at the water cooler.  If I want my students to appreciate diverse opinions and beliefs in my classroom, then I have to do the same with my colleagues just a few doors down in the conference room.  I have to appreciate diverse opinions and beliefs. And that. Is. Hard. 

We want what's best for students because if we didn't, our schools would be empty.  There would be no teachers.

Our passion for students is ignited by our experiences, our beliefs, and our values—They are important to bring to the conference rooms, but sometimes they can deter us from productive conversations.  This concept of agreeing to disagree is the very thing that can make some conversations GREAT and some conversations PRICKLY. 

So how can we do this? All of this begins with that magical six-letter word: LISTEN. If we truly begin to listen to each other, we can begin to find common ground.  When we find that common ground, we can begin to build trust, improve our collegial relationships and work as productively together as we do with our students.

For more information on how to have better professional conversations and how to build relationships with your colleagues, check out these resources:

Better Conversations by Jim Knight 

Hard Conversations Unpacked by Jennifer Abrams

Ken Williams- School Culture and Relationship Resources

Celeste Headlee TED Talk

Working with Groups