Search results: work plan

A Fun Initiative for Staff and Students

Teaching Tips

I’m back from fall break this week and headed into 2nd quarter. We usually go somewhere on a mountain adventure, but this year we opted for a stay-cation and it was just great. Long walks with the puppy Sombra, sunny patio sessions, and a little shopping time. Ahh….

One of the cool things about our calendar, is we have a PWL day (Professional Work and Learning) after every break. So instead of diving straight back in, we have a day to come together as a staff and do some work.

When we get together on these days, or on Wednesday PDs, we usually always kick things off with an initiative.

Initiatives are a terrific structure for building community and relational trust, while also warming everyone up for some learning.

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I thought I’d share the initiative our fourth grade team put together for this week, so you can use it too!

An initiative is a bit different from an “activity” in that there’s always a clear learning target or purpose for what you’ll be doing. It’s also followed by a debrief at the end, giving everyone the opportunity to make connections between the initiative and the bigger picture of the work you’ll be doing moving forward. (I’ve provided some example debrief questions at the end.)

So start your planning by identifying a target and post it on a chart to refer to during the opening/framing, as well as the debrief. The target can be flexible for this initiative, but here was ours:

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Since teachers/students will be rotating through three different “stations” for this initiative, you’ll want to have everyone number off and get themselves into groups. We have a pretty large staff so we had two of each station set-up, so the groups weren’t too big. Each group had 5 minutes at each station.

To set-up each station, post the station number next to the station task card. There are a few materials to prepare in advance, which you can check out using the task cards (printable and ready-to-go!) below.

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STATION 1 TASK CARD DOWNLOAD

Station-2-Task-Card

STATION 2 TASK CARD DOWNLOAD

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STATION 3 TASK CARD DOWNLOAD 

Okay! Once everyone has rotated through each station, circle everyone up for a debrief.

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Here are a few debrief questions you can throw out to the group:

  • What felt challenging?
  • How did you persevere or work through these challenges?
  • What connections can you make between this initiative and the work we’ll be doing today/this week/this quarter?

Now with this initiative complete, teachers will be ready to dig into any work planned with a refreshed mindset and a little extra oomph of energy.

I hope you’re able to use this at your next staff or classroom meeting!

If you have other great ideas for community building initiatives, please take a sec to share it in the comments below.

To fun times with initiatives,

ms-houser

 

 

P.S. If you liked this fun initiative post and want to help me spread the word by using the links below (or just shout it out on Twitter!), I would totally appreciate it!

P.P.S. Here are a few more fun initiatives!

Getting Started with Instructional Coaching

Goals and Motivation, Instructional Coaching, Organization

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I’m always super excited to hear from readers who are just getting started with their journey into instructional coaching. I send some email cheers (You rock! Go get em! You’re going to be awesome!) and good vibes, really wishing them all the best in their transition. It’s definitely an exciting time. But it can also be a little nerve-racking and overwhelming. Lots of us move from our classrooms, straight into coaching positions with little formal “training” or guidance to prepare us for our new roles. When I first moved into coaching, I can remember feeling very driven to be successful as a coach, but also wondering, “Where do I even start?!!”… “What can I do to ensure that I am successful?” Such are the feelings of one reader who recently wrote me:

Good afternoon,
I will be beginning my first year as an instructional coach at our alternative school. I have 16 years teaching experience in SPED. I am beginning to look around for instructional materials for myself, as the school year is nearing the beginning. I came across your blog near the top of my search and was wondering what you would suggest as the top things I should concentrate on, outside of establishing relationships with my fellow teachers. The great thing is that I have been in the same district for 16 years and many of my students have eventually attended our alternative school so I know quite a few of the teachers. Thank you for any guidance you can give me.
Tammy

So, let’s chat.

Here are a few beginning of the year pieces for you to consider, based on what I’ve learned these past few years.

Clarify Your Role

Instructional coaching can look very different district to district, or school to school. You may have been hired with a broad overview of what you’ll be doing, or maybe none at all. Either way, I think it would definitely be worth your time to write out a clear job description for yourself, really clarifying your roles and responsibilities. One idea is to get online and search “Instructional Coaching Jobs.” This will give you a list of different coaching job descriptions which may help you get some traction.

I wrote up a summary of my role this past week to be shared with staff, since we have several new teachers this year. Here it is in case you need another resource:

As our Instructional Guide, my role involves serving as a facilitator and coach, working and communicating on an ongoing basis with our school designer, the leadership team, and of course teachers! On any given day you might find me doing any of the following:

  • Collaborating with teams to develop long term and short term instructional plans and quality assessments
  • Observing teachers and providing feedback based on our school work plan and individual teacher goals
  • Modeling lessons
  • Digging for or reading through resources current with best practice research
  • Facilitating groups visiting from other schools
  • Planning and facilitating professional development meetings
  • Or even designing and decorating the school hallways

This year I’m super excited to add another role to my work, which will be teaching literacy in (another teacher’s) room. I’m looking forward to applying what I’ve learned from visiting so many great classrooms, and continuing to improve my own craft as a teacher.

Share Your Role with Teachers

Some teachers have had great experiences with a coach, others not so much. While others have never been coached at all. If coaching is new to your school, it will be important for you to plan a beginning of the year PD to communicate your role, the purpose of instructional coaching at your school, and how coaching can act as a support structure for the important work teachers do every day. Here’s the agenda we used as an example:

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Then, you can send a coaching interest survey to teachers asking if they’d be up for participating in a coaching cycle. It may be helpful to provide some areas of focus for them to consider in case they’re unfamiliar with how coaching can be a support structure.

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Set Goals for Yourself

Continuing to learn and sharpening your saw will make you better at everything you do. So as we kick off the year, ask yourself what one or two areas you can really commit to working on and improving in your practice as an instructional coach. Here are some areas for goal setting to consider:

  • strategic questioning
  • listening
  • facilitating small or large groups
  • planning purposeful and action oriented meetings
  • goal setting for coaching cycles
  • use of student evidence as data in coaching cycles
  • labeling high leverage instruction and assessment practices

Set-Up a Coaching System

Figure out how you’ll collect and file your observation notes. Also how you’ll share and record notes during debriefs. On your computer? Paper? Will you email teachers the notes? You’ll likely be working with several teachers and taking lots of notes, so staying organized and prepared is important.

I use my planner, file folders (on my computer and by my desk), and Google Docs to help me with all of the above.

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Visit Classrooms

Plan to visit classrooms the first few weeks back for about 20 minutes x classroom. You can let teachers know you’re coming, or just pop-in. But don’t cling to your clipboard! The last thing you want is to build a reputation of being “the clipboard coach.” You know the coach who sits in the back the whole time, clinging to their clipboard with a serious look on their face, furiously scribbling notes. Help teachers see you as a teaching partner right from the start. So sit down with kids if they’re in a whole group lesson, work alongside them if they’re working independently, smile and show kids and the teacher that you’re a learner too.

Build Relationships

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth saying again. Building relationships with teachers is really critical to your success. There will be no successful coaching cycles happening if teachers don’t trust you and have no interest in working with you. If you’ve already established trusting relationships with teachers, that’s awesome. But don’t let this area be something you lose focus of. Building and maintaining relationships should always be one of your primary objectives, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

Instructional coaching can be challenging.

But it’s also so great in so many ways. You’ll be pushed outside of your comfort zone, but you’re going to learn so much. Everyday you’ll have the opportunity to positively impact a teacher by what you say, do, and model. And that’s pretty cool.

I believe in you, and you’re going to be great.

Keep me in the loop, and let me know how things are going. I’d love to hear.

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:

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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,

ms-houser

Resources

I thought it would be helpful to create a handy resource page with my free printables, favorite books, resources, and tools! Use this list to help you choose a couple new titles to add to your saw sharpening list, identify tools to help you stay organized, and even a few resources to help you kickstart a blog of your own. I’ll make sure to add to this list as I read more and learn more. Enjoy!

FREE PRINTABLES

 

Coaching Kick-off Printable

Observation Look-Fors Printable

Scaffolding Strategies Printable

 

Coaching Cycle Schedule & Infographic

Student Engaged Assessment Printables

7 Keys to Effective Feedback Printable Infographic

 

BOOKS

Coaching

leverage-leadership

Leverage Leadership

I heard about this one through the Coaching Teachers course I took on Coursera. The chapter of the book that I’ve gravitated the most towards, is on Observation and Feedback. Reading through this chapter, in conjunction with the Coaching Teachers course, gave me a new way to frame my debrief conversations: probing questions to ask, examples of bite sized and high leverage action steps and building in time for practice/implementation.

 

art-of-coaching1The Art of Coaching

As part of my summer reading a few years back, I read “The Art of Coaching: Effective Strategies for School Transformation” by Elena Aguilar. Elena writes a great blog over at edweek that I enjoy reading so I knew her book would be a good one to spend some time with. She offers a ton of helpful information in her book, but the chapter that really caught my attention was on developing a coaching work plan. Elena provides ten steps in developing a work plan and explains that they do not have to be sequential.

 

jim-knight

Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction

I’m a big fan of Jim Knight. He knows a ton about instructional coaching and there is so much we can learn from him. This was the first book of his I read, which has some great tools and practical ideas to offer.

 

Leadership

unmistakable-impact

Unmistakable Impact

After reading Jim’s first book on instructional coaching, I was on the hunt for more! I read this book over the summer and really enjoyed it. One of my favorite chapters was on facilitating workshops for adults. I was able to apply much of what I learned from this chapter to the weekly professional development sessions I facilitate with teachers. If you’re looking for some tips in this area, this would be a great book for you to check out.

 

quiet

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking

I’m an introvert. A pretty big one actually. So this book totally hit the nail on the head for me and I enjoyed reading every single page. Being an introvert in a leadership role such as coaching, isn’t always easy. Reading this book helped me see I wasn’t the only one out there and helped me feel more resolved to build on the natural strengths I have.

 

mindset

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

The first thing you’ve got to get straight, when you’re in any kind of a leadership role is your mindset. I refer back to this book often, to help me stay focused on what it means to have a growth mindset. It’s a great book to read and discuss with your staff, as part of a beginning of year PD series.

 

Teaching

There Are No Shortcuts

Rafe Esquith has been a long time mentor of mine from afar. He taught in an inner city school for nearly 30 years (I think he still teaches too), and is one of the highest achieving teachers in the nation. Yet his writing style is totally approachable and practical. I love this book and continue to refer teachers to it often.

 

Journey Towards a Caring Classroom

This book is packed full of awesome initiatives to build community in your classroom. It’s the first book I turn to when I’m in need of a good team building activity. Each idea also includes debrief questions to cover with your class afterwards.

 

reading-strategies

The Reading Strategies Book: Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Readers

Holy visuals! It’s so rare to find an education book that not only has concrete, actionable strategies, but also awesome visuals to go along with each one! I’ve just started dipping into this book, but I already have tons of ideas for how I can improve my anchor charts to better support the strategies I teach.

 

great-habits

Great Habits, Great Readers

The authors of Teach Like a Champion put this book out, and it’s great! It’s the first, and so far only book I’ve found that speaks specifically to reading instruction as it relates to the CC standards. The section on guided reading is especially good and I’ve been referring to it frequently through my coaching with teachers.

 

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The Next Step in Guided Reading

Here’s another great book for guided reading instruction! It’s super actionable, mapping out how to work with readers at every level. I’ve found it especially helpful for working with Emergent readers.

 

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Day by Day Assessment in the Reading Workshop

I bought this book after reading how Beth Newingham uses it to support assessment in her reader’s workshop (love her!).   It has some really great resources to work with. One of my favorites is information on using a “Status of the Class” assessment to quickly check in on all of your readers at the start of reader’s workshop.

 

PRODUCTIVITY

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168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think

I really liked this book because it helped me take a close look at how I budget my time. When the school year starts, things can get crazy real fast and it’s easy for all of your time to get sucked up by school. Don’t let that happen! Interesting teachers/coaches lead interesting lives…that means they make time for side hobbies or passions, exercising, cooking…whatever it is you’re into outside of school. Right now would be a good time to start thinking about how you’d like to budget your time to make room for all the things that matter to you and see about making it happen!

 

getting-things-done

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity

This books has somewhat of a cult following and I’m a member. I learned so much about effective systems and strategies for managing your time and tasks from this book. As a coach, you need to be reliable, dependable, and organized…someone who does what they say they’ll do when they say they’ll do it. This helps you build trust with teachers and can’t be overlooked. Having effective systems and structures in place helps you to be that kind of coach.

 

miracle-morning

The Miracle Morning: The Not So Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life

I love routines {yep, sure do} and I’m a total early bird, so this book was right up my alley. Although I’ve always had some kind of morning routine going on, this book presented a new framework for taking full advantage of your AM time. Since reading it, I’ve done some shaking up of my own morning ritual and am working on being more consistent with it. As teachers and coaches we’re giving so much of ourselves to others during the day, my vote is we give a little time to ourselves as well.

 

Teacherpreneur

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The $100 Startup

This is one of the first Entrepreneurial books I read, and the first one that really got me thinking…hey, I really could turn these ideas of mine into something special. We may not make a lot of money, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have the resources to get something that could make us some extra money, started. If you have any interest in monetizing your unique skills and knowledge, I would definitely say give this book a read!

 

rework

Rework

I listened to this book on Audible, and it got me thinking differently about some mindset and strategy shifts for growing my business. It’s a quick read and doesn’t waste your time with a lot of meaningless info.

 

PODCASTS

I love listening to podcasts on my commute. I’m driving and sharpening my saw at the same time! Here are a few of my favorites. You can check any of them out for free on iTunes.

  • Smart Passive Income: This is the best podcast for bloggers and teacherpreneurs just starting out. The host, Pat Flynn, is totally down to earth, and I’ve listened to almost all of the episodes.
  • Model Health Show: I’m always eager to learn more about how to keep myself healthy and feeling good. This is a terrific podcast that has helped me improve my health in lots of great ways.
  • School of Greatness: This podcast is great for whenever I’m looking for some inspiration and motivation. He has great guests on a few times a week, who always have terrific stories and strategies for success to share.

PLANNING TOOLS

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Simplified Coaching Planning Kit

I designed this planning kit to help us out with our work as coaches! It’s designed to work flexibly with where you’re at in your work throughout the year. I also have a Simplified Teaching Planning Kit available.

TTP

Time & ToDo Planner

The Time & ToDo Planner was designed for for busy, creative professionals…me and you! With lots of meetings and tons of to-dos each week, I got to thinking…wouldn’t be great if you could see everything you needed to do that week in one easy view? I thought so too, and the Time & ToDo Planner was born!

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Discbound Notebook Travel Punch

I carry this travel punch with me in my bag, so I’m always able to print, punch, and add sheets to my notebook whenever I need to!

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Frixion Erasable Pens

I only just discovered these pens this year…I have no idea what I did without them for so long! They’re the only pens I’ll use when working with Time & ToDo Planner, since they allow the ability to easily change and adjust my schedule as I go throughout the week.

Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. This means I might receive a small commission if you make a purchase. My opinions are my own and I only recommend goods and services that I believe will genuinely help you.

Professional Learning Binder

Goals and Motivation, Instructional Coaching, Teaching Tips

For the past few weeks I’ve been pondering how to support teachers in documenting, organizing, and reflecting on their work and learning done in coaching cycles, particularly the use of evidence and data in supporting student achievement.  I wanted teachers to have a lasting, tangible product to walk away with after the completion of coaching to support their future work.  After a conversation with my principal during which she suggested creating “Professional Learning Binders” with teachers, I thought this could be a great solution to my dilemma!

I envisioned teachers being able to use their Professional Learning Binders in a variety of ways.  First, as a model for how to organize other classroom assessments and data.  Well analyzed and organized data is so important in instruction, but many teachers struggle with the organization piece.  Using the Analyzing Assessments tool, the featured Monitoring Grid and a few labeled dividers can all help with this.  Additionally, teachers can use collected work in the Professional Learning Binders as part of a larger teacher portfolio.  Like other professionals, teachers need evidence of their growth and achievement over time.

Now with all that said, let’s have a look!

Binder Cover

***If you would like a personalized binder cover in the design featured here, send me an email and I will make one for you free of charge!

Front of Binder

Binder Spine

The first two tabs are labeled “Planning” and “Assessment.”  The Planning section includes documents that helped guide our identified coaching goal such as our school Work Plan and Expedition planning documents.   I also included a copy of our “Goals and Planning” page which outlines our student learning goal and if applicable, teacher learning goal.

The Assessment section features collected assessments for each student divided by name labels.  There is also a Monitoring Grid included for each student.  You can use mailing labels to collect information on each student tied to identified learning targets.  Then at the end of the week, just peel and stick!

Click to Download a PDF of the Monitoring Grid

At the front of the assessment section is the Analyzing Assessments tool we used to organize assessment information into a data set to support us with planning.

Click to Download Analyzing Assessments Tool

The last three tabs are labeled “Instruction,” “Results,” and “Reference.”  In the Instruction section I plan to collect a few example lessons that I observe and give feedback on during the coaching cycle.  After a post-assessment is given at the completion of the coaching cycle and we have data to show what progress was made, this will be included in the Results section.  Additionally, I plan to ask teachers to write a short reflection on their work done in coaching and their learning as a result which will also be included.  In the Reference section, I have included a few professional articles tied to our coaching goal as an additional resource.

This is a GREAT article by the way if you’ve been learning about Close Reading!  You can download it here.

I hope this post sparked your thinking for how you can support teachers in organizing and reflecting on important information tied to your coaching work.  If you are a teacher, hopefully this post gave you some ideas for how to begin a professional learning binder/portfolio 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.

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 …

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Talk to you soon!

 

 

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PD Pad Set-Up

Instructional Coaching, Teaching Tips

Last year I had my first go at setting up a professional development room for teachers.  It turned out to be an enjoyable space for teachers to work and learn in and has since been lovingly named the PD Pad.  Given a new fire code put in place by the district (only 20% of walls are allowed to be covered with paper), I had to get creative with how to set-up the space this year.  I used sheet metal, clipboards, chalkboards, and creatively arranged fabric to bring color and style into the room while still keeping the fire marshal happy.   Check it out!

View from the back of the room

View from the front of the room

I used a piece of sheet metal from Home Depot ($15 and fireproof!) and chalkboard paint to create the background for this documentation panel and the one below.

Our Work Plan targets for the year

I used small chalks boards and bistro chalk from Hobby Lobby to display our school’s Habits of Work and Learning.

I covered plain clipboards with decorative paper, attached our design principles, and spread them out a bit when hanging to create the illusion of a larger display space without having to use paper.

It’s amazing what a few fabric scraps and fabric glue can do for casement windows. Then if you need casement windows fitted then you need to ensure that you get a top installer who will do an amazing job and that company are the best that we have ever used.

I added a few colored flowers (turned into pens) to the pencil holders on the center of each table for a pop of functional color.

I laminated our five “Habits” and adhered them to the front of each table’s pencil bin.

Books for guided reading are available for teachers to check-out.

I asked our principal for subscriptions to a few different educational magazines. These as well as professional books (to the left) are available for teachers to look through or check-out.

A comfy space for teachers to sit and peruse through the latest read-alouds.

A few parts of the room which haven’t changed include our “Cafe” area, “All About Me” teacher cards, and teacher magnets to check-in with at the start of PD.

Creating a Professional Development Space

Teaching Tips

Wouldn’t it be nice if all schools had a designated space for teachers to gather together on a regular basis to learn and share ideas?  Where they could relax a bit, enjoy a cup of coffee, and consider how to improve their instruction?  I thought so too.  That’s why I really wanted to create a professional development space for teachers this year.

When I was in the classroom, creating an engaging and beautiful learning space was one of my favorite things to do.  I wanted it to be a place where students looked forward to coming to everyday and felt inspired to learn.  I used this same thinking when I set out to create our school’s professional development space. I know the current school year is coming to a close, but if you are able to create a professional development space for the next school year, here are some ideas to consider.

Don’t Go Crazy With Colors

Although it’s tempting to think the more colorful the better, it’s really not.  Too many loud colors can be distracting.  Keep it simple with one muted color on the walls and add a pop of color with borders or accent boards.

Plants and Lighting

I have one big plant in a bright green pot that sits by my desk and helps freshen the air.    I’ve also added different lighting around the room to create a more inviting space.

Work and Teaching Spaces

I chose round tables for workspace so teachers could easily collaborate and share ideas.  I added baskets on top with pens, highlighters, and sticky notes for teachers to use.

For teaching space, I have a small round table that I dressed up a bit with some fun fabric that holds my projector.  Having chart paper and markers on hand for recording agenda’s or impromptu notes from discussions is also important.

Materials Organization

It’s important to have a space to store any handouts and/or other materials you may need to support your professional development meetings.  For me, a few plastic bins from Target and a labeler make quick work of this organizational task!

 Teacher Ownership

Just as you would want students to feel ownership of their classroom, I wanted teachers to feel connected to our professional development space.  I made sure that teacher faces were seen in the room in different ways.

I made magnet name cards for each of the teachers that they use for the “check-in” questions we have in place at the start of each PD session

My colleague and I also thought it would be a great idea for teachers to make “A Bit About Me” cards. We used these for an opening activity for one of our PD sessions and then displayed them throughout the year. These gave teachers a way to learn something about others they may not have known before

Here are the question we used:

  • What is one of your passions?
  • What is a quirk of yours no one knows about?
  • What is your favorite book?

What Have We Been Working On?

It’s important that the work and learning of teachers is celebrated and displayed throughout the room.

A documentation panel I made to tell the story of our work connected to guided reading

Our work plan goal for the year

Supporting targets for the work plan goal

Continuum of reading proficiency levels

Displayed read-alouds to support student engagement. These along with the professional learning books to the left are all available for check-out

Our staff habits connected to the text, "Mindset" (seen below)

Café!

One of the best parts of our PD room is the mini coffee bar I set up.  We have professional development at the end of the day and teachers are often pretty drained.  It really helps to have a pot of fresh coffee and a few snacks waiting for them.  I also have a mini-fridge for storing small cans of soda and Emergen-C packs for those teachers who need a bit of a pick-up, but would rather not have caffeine.  Teachers have nicknamed this space “Houser’s Cafe.”

Add Some Humor!

Our science teacher made this for me and I just love it.  It is a good reminder of why we all come together every week!

And Don’t Forget…

A space for yourself.  Some instructional coaches have offices outside of their professional development space or they may not have an office at all!  If you are able to create an organized and comfortable workspace for yourself, definitely do!  I chose to put mine by the window for a little natural light and I only furnish it with what is really essential.  The last thing you want to do when you have a chance to sit down and think, is deal with a bunch of clutter!

A little extra inspiration from Coach John Wooden

There aren’t a ton of ideas out there for how to create a professional development space for teachers, so if you have any additional thinking to contribute, please let us know!

How to Engage in a Coaching Kick-Off Meeting

Instructional Coaching

The kick-off meeting is a key piece in setting up a successful coaching cycle. Let’s talk through a few “key look-fors” for engaging in a successful kick-off meeting.

The primary purpose of a coaching kick-off meeting is to identify a focus for your upcoming coaching cycle with a teacher, familiarize your coachee with the logistics of the cycle and give them the opportunity to ask clarifying questions or express any concerns.

Engaging in a successful coaching kick-off meeting with a teacher lays the foundation for a successful coaching cycle.

In this video, I give you a peek inside a coaching kick-off meeting I conducted with a Kindergarten teacher, Tyler, as well as the coaching tools I used.

How to Engage in a Coaching Kick-Off Meeting

A coaching kick-off meeting is a little bit like a dance, and no two meetings are exactly the same. However, there are a few key coaching moves you can plan for.

1. Ask Clarifying Questions

Asking clarifying questions will help you guide the teacher in identifying a focus. It is helpful to plan questions you might ask in advance, especially if there is a more specific focus you would like to steer the teacher towards.

2. Identify a Target Standard

Identifying a standard and unit of instruction to anchor your coaching cycle to is very helpful. This will also help you in identifying what data or evidence you will use to monitor your progress towards the goal.

3. Identify and Create a Pre-Assessment

In this kick-off meeting video, you’ll notice Tyler and I discuss what pre-assessment data we could collect to help us understand where students currently are in relation to our target standard. We also discuss how we can work together to create this pre-assessment.

4. Discuss the Trajectory of Using Student Evidence Throughout the Cycle

Connected to identifying and creating a pre-assessment, I also helped Tyler understand the purpose of the pre-assessment and how we would continue to look at student work during and at the end of the coaching cycle to track and reflect on our progress.

5. Share Strategies for Coaching and Collaboration

During the kick-off meeting, review logistics of the coaching cycle with your coachee such as coaching tools you’ll use together and scheduling. This is also your opportunity to ask teachers about any concerns they have, any questions on their mind, or anything else they would like you to know as their coach before moving forward.

The Coaching Kick-Off tool I share in The Simplified Coaching Planning Kit, will help you plan for successful kick-off meetings of your own.

And on to the video!




I hope this video helped you get a better idea of how to engage in a successful coaching kick-off meeting.

Good luck, and talk to you soon!

 

How to Set-Up Your Coaching Cycle Calendar for the Year

Instructional Coaching, Organization

Do you have a plan for how you’ll work with teachers in coaching cycles throughout the year? Let’s talk through how to get these mapped out for the year.

In the last few years, I’ve started to map out my coaching cycles for the year, and I’ll tell you…I would never want to go back!

Only having to “launch and market” your coaching support once at the beginning of the year, sure takes a load off your shoulders, and also gives you so much clarity in your weekly and monthly planning.

I’m currently working with my co-coach and principal in preparing to map out coaching cycles for the year, and thought it would be helpful to walk you through our process.

How to Map Out Your Coaching Cycles for the Year

1. Determine How Long Your Coaching Cycles Will Be

The length of a coaching cycle often varies depending on your coaching model or approach.

You may also want to add in “intensives” or short cycles in between longer cycles to meet certain building needs.

For us, we structure our coaching cycles in four, 6-week rounds with the goal of engaging every teacher in at least one full coaching cycle during the year.

2. Create a Professional Development Calendar

As coaching cycles are a form of professional development, it’s helpful to have a calendar set-up that shows all of the professional development structures for your school. On this calendar, also add in holidays and any other “no-school” days.

You can then use this to map out where your coaching cycles would best be placed.

3. Add Your Coaching Cycle Rounds to the Professional Development Calendar

Now just ‘color in’ your coaching cycle dates for the year! You can see above how we used the color purple to indicate these days.

And as I mentioned earlier, this will depend on about how long you typically run your cycles.

4. Launch an Invitation for All Teachers to Enroll in One of the Coaching Cycle Rounds

Once you’ve done the pre-work of mapping out your coaching cycles or ’rounds’ for the year, you’re ready to launch to the staff!

We plan on doing this in a whole staff meeting this year, though I have also “launched” via email and a snazzy Google Form.

In our upcoming launch meeting, our principal will be leading the messaging, and my co-coach and I will be sharing our goals in working with teachers and how we believe teachers will benefit from participating in a coaching cycle.

5. Iron Out Logistics with your Leadership Team

Who will be coaching? Focus of cycle? Dates?

As a leadership team, you’ll want to figure out and agree on certain logistics of your coaching cycles for the year. This could include:

  • How many teachers each coach will work with during each round?
  • Who is coaching who and when? This helps ensure teachers won’t be “double dipped” and their time is respected.
  • When will you meet to debrief coaching cycles and plan for the next round?

I’ve include two helpful tools in the Simplified Coaching Kit digital to support you in structuring this work. As well as many other helpful forms!

6. Share Finalized Coaching Calendar with Teachers

The last step is to share your team’s finalized coaching calendar for the year with teachers so they know when they are slotted to participate in a coaching cycle.

This calendar is also supportive to use with your leadership team, as a home-base for adding notes throughout the year and tracking progress as you go.

In the next post, we’ll chat more about how to kick-off or launch your coaching cycles with individual teachers.

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Talk Soon!