11 Things Coaches Should Look For in Classroom Observations

Instructional Coaching

I received a handout at a workshop I recently attended on different factors coaches can look for in classroom observations. Collecting quality evidence during observations and presenting it in a clear manner to teachers is such an important piece of improving teacher practice and student achievement…so this handout really got me thinking about what I look for during observations and what areas of feedback teachers tend to find most helpful during our follow-up discussions. I went ahead and whipped up an infographic based on my thinking. Take a peek and let me know what you think. Is there anything you would add?

Download the Free Observation Look-Fors Infographic

Thanks for reading,

Have You Asked For Feedback Lately?

Instructional Coaching

As coaches and facilitators of professional learning, our work revolves around providing teachers with constructive feedback that will help them improve their instruction. This process makes good sense to us and we likely feel pretty comfortable with it. I wonder though, how comfortable we feel with asking for and receiving feedback on our own practice? Hmm…

My school designer and I wrapped up our last session of professional development this week (we’re on a construction calendar and finish the school year next month!) and included 20 minutes in the agenda to collect feedback from teachers. Comfortable or not, we both feel that this feedback is a critical piece in providing high quality professional development that supports our Work Plan targets and teacher needs. To collect teacher thoughts, we designed a survey using Survey Monkey (you can also use Google Docs to create a survey). In building the survey, we asked ourselves what information would be most useful to know to improve PD next year. We then started brainstorming different questions and revised from there. Here’s our final product:

We haven’t yet reviewed the results, but I look forward to doing so. Hopefully there will be several “Woo Hoo’s!” and some “Ah Ha’s!” While there may also be a few “ouches,” no big deal…we’ll grow to be better as a result.

Another idea is to design a similar survey to collect feedback from your coachees on the structure of coaching in your school. I did this last year and received some great feedback to grow on.

I hope this post will give you some ideas and motivation for collecting feedback of your own.

Thanks for reading,

Instructional Coaching Tools

Goals and Motivation, Instructional Coaching

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.

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 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.