The Power of Efficacy

Resources our leadership program has used for PD and training at Linn-Mar.

Our teacher leaders engage in a variety of professional development.  Cognitive Coaching, the work of Pete Hall, Growth Mindset, Visible Learning—just to name a few.  The concepts often touch on the toes of each other. With all these resources at coaches’ and teachers’ fingertips, it can be overwhelming.  This week we took the opportunity to dive deeper into the connections that collective teacher efficacy has with Cognitive Coaching, Growth Mindset, Visible Learning, and the work we are doing in our schools at Linn-Mar.

To help promote discussion among our coaches we implemented a strategy known at chat stations.  This strategy is credited to the Cult of Pedagogy and an in depth explanation of how to use this strategy in your classrooms and schools can be found here.  At each of our chat stations coaches were given the opportunity to think and reflect on their own efficacy and the efficacy in our Linn-Mar Schools.  They answered such questions as:

What does efficacy look like and sound like? 

Who are the efficacious people in our lives? 

What might be the behaviors he/she exemplify that has impacted us in our work? 

What types of questions might help produce efficacious thinking in our schools?          

A final piece of the experience was to discuss this article, by Jenni Donohoo.

Some of the discussion that stemmed from this article was the belief that teachers have about how students learn and how teacher provide intervention.  We discussed the Six Enabling Conditions (Donohoo, 2017) presented in this article.

Six Enabling Conditions of Collective Efficacy

1.      Advance Teacher Influence

2.      Goal Consensus

3.      Teachers’ Knowledge about One Another Work

4.      Cohesive Staff

5.      Responsiveness of Leadership

6.      Effective Systems of Intervention

Our final question to our coaches was:  Which of these conditions do you have the

greatest influence over in your role as a teacher leader?  The responses varied from the

types of coaches and depending on the work they do in each of our ten buildings. 

This is a reflective question I plan to ask myself often, as a Program Coordinator.

If you have not read this article it is a short read and we highly recommend it.  The bottom line in all of this is:  Do you believe you have the power and willingness to make a difference in your students’ learning?  Because this article says Hattie’s research shows that CTE (Collective Teacher Efficacy) has three times more influence on student achievement.  It’s a no-brainer.  The way we believe and think about how we teach and how students can learn becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy—either positive or negative. 

Collaborative Coaches

Have you ever had a lesson go differently than you had planned?  Almost every teacher I know would answer, “YES” to that question.  Having an occasional lesson that flops isn’t a bad thing.  It can provide opportunity for reflection, feedback, and new learning.  Just ask Katie Schafer, first grade teacher at Linn-Grove Elementary. 

Katie had a successful implementation with Seesaw in the spring of last year, so in the fall she contacted both Jessica Zimmerman (Technology Integration Coach) and Tiffany Kinzenbaw (Instructional Coach) to implement iPads during reading rotations. With continued coaching interactions, Jessica and Tiffany were able to support the integration of more technology into Katie’s everyday routines.  Rather than work in isolation, the three professionals collaborated together during their coaching cycles, capitalizing on collective intelligence.  They truly were stronger together. 

Katie was eager to learn about more technology, so she attended a TQSA class for coding and robots, taught by Jessica, which is where she learned about Bee-Bot. She was able to explore Bee-Bot in the class and then proceeded to further explore Bee-Bot on her own time.  When searching for curriculum connections, she realized it would be a great tool to enhance her next writing lesson.  What she found was that Bee-Bot was a catalyst to many things:

“What started out as an experiment in programming has resulted in a springboard/explosion for the students’ enthusiasm and engagement during writing.  Every single student in my class was engaged in writing, revising, and sharing a sequential story that involved Bee-Bot. Their enthusiasm for writing has amazed me and I am more than excited for my near daily collaborating mini-sessions with my Instructional Coach about the next steps in guiding their learning.”

Another key piece to the successful coaching conversations was the impact on teacher reflection, teacher practice, and student learning.  Katie was eager to receive feedback from students, which flowed over into students accepting feedback from their peers in regards to their writing and how they could make it better.  




Giving constructive and timely feedback takes time.  Once teachers make small tweaks to direct instruction and daily practice the payoff can be tenfold.  In this case, Katie’s increased reflection impacted the learning environment for all students in her classroom.

 "The students are willing to let their classmates make mistakes without pointing them out. I can then guide them to give and receive appropriate and helpful feedback." 

 

The above quote is a great connection to the work Linn-Grove has also been doing with Growth Mindset.  Getting feedback and using it in a positive way is a healthy way for students to continue learning even with mistakes, or bumps in the road.

Throughout this entire process, Katie has been open to the coaching cycles while being reflective on her own learning. “After teaming with my Instruction Coach and Technology Integration Coach for an extended amount of time I find myself trying to coach myself through my lesson planning. They both have a direct but helpful way of questioning what the purpose of each aspect of the lesson or plan is."

The bottom line for educators here is that Coaching really can impact everything we do with and for students.  We often hold the answers we need to be more successful in our classrooms.  Coaching helped Katie be a self-directed learner, build her efficacy, and be more mindful of what work makes the greatest impact on students. 

Making Reflection Part of What We Do

“The more reflective we are, the more effective we are.”

                                                                                      

                                                                                                   ~Pete Hall

Linn-Mar Teacher Leaders had the opportunity to ZOOM with Pete Hall at a recent teacher leadership meeting.  The focus of the learning was centered on his work in the book:  Teach Reflect Learn. 

The ideas discussed were as coaches, our job is to influence or mediate the thinking of teachers.  This change in thinking will increase reflection, and then influence teacher practice to impact students. This work pairs nicely with Cognitive Coaching and has been the topic of discussion over the past couple of years.

This year with Linn-Mar teachers completing coaching cycles with our Mentor Coaches, Technology Integration Coaches, and Instructional Coaches we see movement toward a more reflective practice.  Pete Hall has found that teachers really fall into various stages of reflection.  He has broken them down to the Unaware Stage, Conscious Stage, Action Stage, and Refinement Stage.  The idea is for coaches and teachers to work collaboratively on a goal to build the reflective capacity he or she is working toward.  The question we need to be exploring is:  "How do teachers think?" And the next question after that is:  "What can we do to support teacher's thinking?"

For so long in education, teachers have been isolated from collaborative opportunities, and time to reflect, discuss, and think.  There just has not been adequate time in the day.  Pete Hall was quick to share how reflection is a skill that should be part of what we are already doing.  Weaving reflection time into our professional conversations, PLC meetings, and other district initiatives will help us embed this skill into our relevant work.  It’s not one more thing; it’s a vehicle to drive our work.  Just like coaching.  Coaching is another professional conversation that helps teachers think, reflect, and improve instructional practice.  While some teachers may think a coaching cycle has to be a one and done event, it doesn’t have to be, nor should it be.  Coaching cycles should move fluidly from one goal to the next.  The more coaching cycles teachers are entering into, the more opportunity for new thinking.

Art meets Technology

A kindergarten student learns to paint by driving a Sphero with an iPad.

Picasso once said, “Every child is an artist.”  I wonder what Picasso would think if he stepped into Tiffany Boyle’s art room at Linn-Grove Elementary.  He might find every child using something different than a paintbrush.

Students watch a short video about painting and coding on the left.
On the right Tiffany Boyle gets a students ready to paint with an iPad and a Sphero ball.

This week art teacher, Tiffany Boyle, found a fresh way to help her students create art.  She met with her Technology Integration Coach, Jessica Zimmerman and discussed ways to integrate technology into her art room.  Jessica had recently seen the use of Spheros in Art from Twitter posts and hoped to find a teacher willing to jump on board.

Technology Integration Coach, Jessica Zimmerman, gets ready for second graders and painting with Spheros.

Jessica and Tiffany met, collaborated, and planned to test this concept with a first grade classroom, but quickly found that all students craved the opportunity to learn about coding and Spheros.  They decided to punt and try it with all classes in all grade levels.  Tiffany teaches nearly 578 students PK-5^th grade.  This goal was ambitious, but the two agreed to tackle it together.

A Sphero moves around the tray painting a student drives the ball with an iPad.

Jessica and Tiffany had some hunches about how the project might go.  After the first day they found they needed to make some adjustments.  The discovered which paint and materials worked best, how to incorporate the right painting project into the curriculum at each grade level, the number of Spheros they could manage during class, and how best to keep the equipment clean. After reflecting and more planning, Jessica and Tiffany found day two to be more manageable, and successful.  Students thrived with the technology.  Tiffany has quickly caught on with Jessica’s coaching and support and the students have had several opportunities to be self-directed learners.  

Second grade students paint with Spheros with the help of older students and Tiffany Boyle- Linn Grove art teacher.

Coding and art truly is for everyone.  Tiffany and Jessica have big ideas for future work and they will share their project and learning with the Linn-Mar School Board at an upcoming visit.

Coding: More than a Game

Coding, computer science, and STEM learning have become hot topics in education.  These learning opportunities provide more than fun and frolic for our students.  They provide necessary, meaningful, 21 century skills centered around the 4 C's: Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, and Critical Thinking.

In an effort to promote instruction that focuses on the 4C's Technology Integration Coaches have been using Spheros with 3rd-5th grade LEO students at Linn-Mar.  Working in pairs the students learn to program the Sphero ball.  One of them programs the Sphero with the iPad and the other is the "passenger" and gives suggestions and feedback like a back seat driver helping the "driver" make decisions.  Students utilize math and creative thinking skills, but also communication, collaboration, and perseverance.

Now the TICS are beginning to work with other classes.  They have found that having the students work in coding partners has been extremely beneficial.  Even if students do not have a strong coding background they can be successful with coding if they work well and collaborate with others and have good communication skills.  The students have even programmed the Spheros to move through mazes created by the Technology Integration Coaches, or some students create their own mazes. 

At a recent meeting, the Technology Integration Coaches shared the Spheros with other teacher leaders.  In pairs the teacher leaders also had opportunities to program the Sphero with the iPad and work on the 4 C's: Communication, Collaboration, Creativity, and Crititcal thinking.

 

Better Together

Teachers know there is strength in numbers.  Collectively, we bring more to the table than we do independently.  Today I had the spectacular opportunity to witness a team of first grade teachers, reading teachers, an instructional coach, building administrator, AEA staff, and an MTSS program leader collaborate unlike any team I've seen before.  

MTSS program leader, Lisa Drinkall(center) works with teachers at a recent meeting.

The room was filled with intention, expertise, and sincerity as these educators worked on reviewing screeners and diagnostic assessments.  The second layer of their work was to organize the data from the diagnostics to make instructional decisions for intervention groups at Wilkins Elementary. 

Teachers in this meeting now have specific phonemic awareness skills instruction planned to meet the needs of students during Pride Time.

A New Twist to Model Teaching

Linn-Mar has 35 model teachers for staff to visit, observe, and discuss teaching, instructional strategies, and classroom management.  Most teachers go into a model teacher’s room for an observation.  This year we’ve had some model teachers offer a new twist to the term “model.”

Jen Canby, 5^th grade teacher at Westfield Elementary, has had the opportunity to go out into other classrooms in the district and model writing and the use of on-line spelling.

Jen has welcomed several folks into her classroom this fall.  When the question came, “Can you come to my room and model so I can see how it works with my students?”  Jen didn’t hesitate.  She found some classroom coverage, packed her teacher suitcase, and traveled to other Linn-Mar buildings.

“Sometimes beginning a new task needs extra hands,” said Jen.   “For example, not only have I helped teachers set up an online spelling program, but I have attended the launch to ensure that the kinks have been worked out with students.  I’m willing to travel.”

Jen is also trained on the Mixtures Science Kit.  Some teachers have already visited Jen to see her teach the new curriculum.  As other fifth grade teachers get those kits in, they may consider having Jen come model a lesson from the curriculum with their students.  

As teachers make plans to complete their model teacher visits this year, it’s nice to have several options for them to consider.  Don’t feel like traveling buildings?  Consider visiting a model teacher within your own building, or have a model teacher within your own school come to your classroom and model a teaching strategy or something specific to your needs.  The possibilities for us to learn from our colleagues are endless.

In addition to these ideas and other resources on the Model Teacher Website, we will be adding videos of our model teachers in the upcoming weeks and months.