Tag Archives: Coaching Tools

Are You Giving Effective Feedback?

These past few weeks I’ve been working on a homework assignment.

As part of my district role as a coach/mentor, I was asked to assess the effectiveness of my feedback.

No prob! I thought. I’m totally going to ace this assignment!

So off I went, ready to evaluate and document the feedback I provided in coaching convos.

What did I quickly discover? That I needed to slow. my. roll.

When I really tuned in, and payed close attention to what I was saying to teachers, I wasn’t always certain I would have given my feedback an A+.

Effective feedback = specific information you’re offering a teacher in their efforts to reach an identified goal.

And as I learned through my reading of this Grant Wiggins article, there are seven key factors to keep in mind to ensure your feedback is in fact effective. Scroll on!

7-Keys-to-Effective-Feedback1

Get your free printable of the Effective Feedback Infographic

So now with this new or reinforced learning in place…pop quiz time! Ready?!

OK. Which of the following statements would you consider to be effective feedback?

  1. Nice job on that mini-lesson Sarah!
  2. Next time Tom, I think you’ll want to spend a bit more time on the debrief.
  3. Your lesson would definitely be more effective Melissa, if you used more visuals.
  4. I thought the book you used to kick-off your Ant Expedition was a little unengaging.

And the answer is…none of the above! Tricked ya.

None of these statements would really be considered effective feedback. Here’s why:

  • The first and the fourth statements just name a personal liking or disliking for something, and neither are connected to a goal.
  • The second and the third statements are offered more as advice, vs feedback.

Both advice and praise can be great tools when supporting teachers, and they both have their time and place. However, they’re very different from feedback. Because as we just learned, effective feedback is information that supports a teacher in reaching their goal. Got it?!

Alright-ty. Now, how about we take a look at a few examples of what effective feedback could sound like:

  • One of our goals during this coaching cycle has been to improve lesson pacing. Last week I noted your mini-lesson was 20 minutes long. In today’s lesson I recorded your mini-lesson started at 9:00 and ended promptly at 9:15, which was 5 minutes shorter. What would you say you thought about or did differently in your planning and instruction that supported this improved pacing?
  • I noticed that after you sent students out to work independently, 10 out of the 20 students were struggling with getting started. When I spoke to student x, y, z, they were unclear on the directions. Where do you think the confusion may have been?

Hopefully these few examples give you an idea of how feedback can sound like when it is in line with the 7 Keys outlined above. Oh, and one side note…when giving a teacher more critical/next step feedback, I try to keep it to one-two points.

For some ideas on what areas you might offer feedback on, check out this post.

If you’re still with me, great job! Now if you want to take it one step further, try taking note of the feedback you offer teachers this week. Is it really effective feedback? Or maybe it’s advice or praise. Hmmm…Give it a try! You might be surprised at what you learn.

Oh, and here’s a handy PDF of the infographic above to pop in your planner or post near your desk.

Talk to you soon!

ms-houser

Instructional Coaching Tools

Last week I shared the instructional coaching data tracker I use to help organize and reflect on my work in coaching cycles throughout the year.  In the post I mentioned that I use a variety of other coaching tools to document and organize work with individual teachers.  Here are a two of my most important.

Coaching Kick-Off Meeting

At the start of instructional coaching cycles, two of the most important things we can do as coaches is to establish a respectful and trusting rapport with our coachee and also show that we honor them as an adult learner. You can work to implement these two practices in part by setting up a Kick Off coaching meeting.  The first purpose of this time is to get to know your coachee as a teacher and learner.  The second purpose is to work together to identify a goal for your coaching cycle. In having this kick off coaching conversation, you are establishing yourself as a “thinking partner” who is there to learn along with them. Additionally, you are setting routines and norms for your work together and clarifying logistics, which I have found helps in preventing potential misunderstandings down the road. Creating an agenda for this meeting helps to ensure that your time is purposeful and action-oriented.

Instructional Coaching Tools

Download your FREE Coaching Kick-Off Printable Here

Coaching Work Plan Tool

This is a great tool to help you craft a plan for your coaching goals, how you plan to arrive at these goals, and the results of your work.  After the Kick-Off meeting, I set-up a Goal Setting meeting with teachers and use this tool to guide our conversation.  I’ll revisit it throughout the coaching cycle to ensure that our work is staying on track.  In the final coaching wrap-up meeting I have with teachers, we review and document the results of our work using this tool.

Instructional Coaching Tools

Instructional Coaching Tools

Instructional Coaching Observation and Debrief Tool

This instructional coaching observation form is my go-to tool for all of my coaching observations and debrief conversations.  I record our coaching cycle goal at the top to ensure alignment between learning targets and look-fors in the lesson.  The listed debrief questions always serve as anchors for post observation conversations.  As far as instructional next steps, one thing I have learned is fewer is better!  Ensure that the teacher you are working with has identified and committed to 1-2 instructional next steps they feel will support student progress, but also feel manageable.

Instructional Coaching Tools

Instructional Coaching Tools

Download your FREE Coaching Kick-Off Printable Here

And for the complete
Simplified Coaching Planning Kit …

Simplified-Coaching-Planning-Kit-cover-image

Talk to you soon!

 

 

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