Search results: work plan

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Welcome to the Ms. Houser community!

I’m looking forward to sending you some great new content. Meanwhile, I’ve included links to a few of my most popular posts to get you started.

Thanks again and I’ll be in touch!

And be sure to check out the Simplified Coaching Planning Kit…

6

Different Sections

5

Cover Options

21

Total Printables

Here is the full list of tools to help you get organized, plan and prepare to be an awesome coach:

Coaching Convo Plan
Coaching Log
Coaching Schedule
Debrief Tool
Coaching Workplan
Grade Level Notes
Idea Tracker

Kickoff Meeting
List It
Meeting Notes
Monthly Map
Notes
Observation Tool
Password Keeper

PD Planer
PD Goals
Project Planner
Resource Checkout
Small Group Observation Tool
Study Group Convo Log
Time Tracker

See the Coaching Planning Kit

My Top 5 Resources for Instructional Coaches. Plus a Few More Good Ones.

Goals and Motivation, Instructional Coaching

These summer months are prime time for doing some reading, learning, and psyching up for the coming school year. Since I know many of you are entering into your first year as a coach, I wanted to share a few of my favorite, go-to resources. Ones that I’ve read and used to help me figure out the role of instructional coach. And even if this isn’t your first year, don’t forget about shoshin or “beginner’s mind.” It’s a concept in Zen Buddhism that reminds us:

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.”

Pretty good little saying, huh?

OK, let’s get to it…

1. Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction by Jim Knight

I’m a big fan of Jim Knight. He’s like the guru of instructional coaching. This book is packed full of great tools and practical ideas for coaches. One of the ideas/tools he introduces is a framework called “The Big Four” which is made up of four high-leverage instructional practices that I think serve as helpful “buckets” for guiding your observations and feedback to teachers. This was the first book of his I read, and it has some great tools and practical ideas to offer.

2. Unmistakable Impact: A Partnership Approach for Dramatically Improving Instruction by Jim Knight

After reading Jim’s first book on instructional coaching, I was on the hunt for more! I read this book last 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 help facilitate with teachers. If you’re looking for some tips in this area, this would be a great book for you to check out.

3. Leverage Leadership by Paul Bambrick Santoyo

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.

4. The Art of Coaching: Effective Strategies for School Transformation by Elena Aguilar

I’ve written about Elena’s book before, but it’s just so great I have to gush about it again. What I love most about this book is it makes coaching feel really approachable…like, “Yeah! I can do this!” Sometimes I get overwhelmed just after reading the first page of a book, but not this one. I just read and read and felt better and better about what I could do.

5. Simplified Coaching Planning Kit

Last, but certainly not least, I’m really excited to share with you guys a planner I created just for us coaches. It’s a planning kit actually, made up of all the different tools I’ve used to help me plan, organize, and coach. More info to come on how I plan to organize/use mine, but in case you’d like to take a peek and get a head start, you can find it here!

The Simplified Coaching Planning Kit was designed work alongside the Time & ToDo Planner. These two put together, make a strong team!

And now for a few more good ones. While these resources aren’t specific books or sites about instructional coaching, they have still helped me improve my work in different ways.

6. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

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.

7. Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality by Scott Belsky

As a coach, your head is often swimming with ideas of “what could be”…from a personal level, to a classroom level, to a schoolwide level. The trick is deciding which ideas are worth taking action on and then making those ideas happen. And as a coach and leader, I would even say it’s your responsibility to capture those ideas and work on bringing the worthy ones to life.

8. 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam

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!

Did I leave something off the list? Have a favorite book, blog, or other resource that you’d like to add? Share it in the comments below.

Thanks for reading,

How to Wrap-Up a Coaching Cycle

Instructional Coaching, Organization

This week I’ll be wrapping up my last round of coaching cycles for the year. Our coaching cycles typically begin with goal setting, then enter into learning, observation and data collection, and finally reflection.

For this final step in the coaching cycle, I turn to the “reflection” section of my Coaching Reflection Tool. This supports me in reflecting on the work done and resulting progress made.

I’ll grab my coaching notebook at this point and flip back through past observation notes, debrief notes, and any assessment data collected. The questions shown in the results section above help guide my reflection as I look back over our work. I’ll write out some thoughts in response to these questions, first in my notebook {paper helps me think} before typing my notes into our Goal Setting Tool.

Next, I’ll schedule a final coaching session with the teacher to review our work, assessment data, and reflect on our progress along with any next steps. I’ll add our collective thoughts and insights to our Goal Setting Tool.

Lastly, I’ll email the Goal Setting Tool to the teacher as a record of our work done along with a big “Thank You!” for their willingness to dive into coaching with me.

You may have noticed from my example email above that I also send along a coaching synthesis/feedback letter. This is an amazing idea I got from a coaching friend of mine in a neighboring district. Thanks Lexi! You can go into more detail, but here is an example of what one might look like:

As with student learning, closure in adult learning is important.

Reflection solidifies learning and helps clarify important next steps and new questions.

I hope this post has provided a handy, dandy visual guide for how to wrap-up your own coaching cycles as this year comes to a close.

Thanks for reading,

How to Create a Coaching Schedule {and handle your busy-ness}

Goals and Motivation, Instructional Coaching, Organization, Time Management

You are pretty dang busy during any given day or week.

Planning sessions, observations, debriefs, resource gathering, PD, … and the list goes on. I hear ya. There’s nothing wrong with being busy though. As long as it’s not the disorganized, no plan in sight, “Ahh, I can’t do this!” kind of busy that leaves you feeling exhausted and overwhelmed at the end of the day. That’s no good.

We want the organized, productive, “Yeah, I’m awesome!” kind of busy that leaves you feeling happy and accomplished.

Which one would you rather be?… I know! Me too! Well the first step to that “I’m awesome” kind of feeling is creating a solid schedule. A weekly plan that gives you a birds eye view of the maze below.

Okay, so let’s talk through making this happen. Start by setting aside a regular time each week to look ahead at the following week. In addition to reviewing your coaching meetings and other time stamped commitments, ask yourself these three questions:

What Do I Need to Get Done?

To answer this question, take into account any planning or review you need to do for your coaching work. Also, make sure you’re clear on your job description. Lot’s of times these can vary depending on your school(s). If you don’t have one that’s thorough and clear, you’ll probably want to make one for yourself. Take a look at this link and this link for coaching job descriptions to get your wheels going. Here are the main buckets my work typically falls into:

How Long Should It Take to Get Done?

Giving a time estimate to each of your different tasks will help you figure out how much you can realistically get done during the day and throughout the week. This is important. If you just start packing things into your schedule with no time estimates attached, you’ll likely find at the end of the day that you didn’t get as much done as you had planned. Then overwhelm sets in and you’ll start looking like the crazy “No Schedule or Plan” chic above.

When am I Going to Get It Done?

To answer this question, map it all out and create your birds eye view of the maze below…your schedule! Remember to plan for lunch {eating is important} and leave a few open blocks of time to give yourself some space to tie up any loose ends.

It might look like this if you use an online calendar:

Or like this if you want to use a Word Template:

Click Here for a Blank Template

Or, best yet, just grab the Time & ToDo Planner!

Now that you’ve planned your work, work your plan!

I’d love to hear from you…

What’s the one action you can take this week in creating a solid coaching schedule and handling your busy-ness? Tell me what that action is, then get on it!

Thanks as always for reading,

How Sharp is Your Saw?

Goals and Motivation, Instructional Coaching, Teaching Tips, Time Management

What are you doing to support your own growth and professional learning? This was a question our principal recently asked us at a staff meeting. Later that week as I reflected on my Teacher Professional Learning Plan (do you guys have these?), I noted “dedicate more time to sharpen my saw” as a next step.

So what does sharpen the saw mean? Well, it’s a saying that refers to staying fresh, or renewing in all four areas of your life — physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. The saw I’m referring to in this post and the one I’m going to focus on sharpening is my mental saw; learning, reading, writing…continuously improving your skills and knowledge. As an educator, you’ve got to stay on top of your game. Period. So here’s my saw sharpening game plan:

Put It On Your Schedule…(and stick to it)

If you don’t block off time on your calendar or schedule, it’s not going to happen. I like to schedule my saw sharpening time first thing in the morning. Right now I’m planning for at least 30 minutes a day (including weekends), which would come to three and a half hours a week. I know we’re stretched for time, but that’s totally doable and you’ll be 3.5 hours smarter each week!

Be honest with yourself and schedule your saw sharpening at a time when you really will be able to honor that commitment. A time when you know you’ll be able to focus and won’t have to battle distractions. Setting a timer during your study time can also help hold you accountable.

Track Your Progress

Tracking your progress allows you to see the results of your efforts and seeing results makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something. Accomplishment feels good, which gives you the motivation to keep it going the next week. I like to track my progress in my notebook, marking off 15 minutes minute intervals in boxes. It looks something like this:

I also added an “Evidence” section to my coaching notebook so I can track the impact of my saw sharpening on my work with teachers and students.

Create a Stimulus Queue

Creating a stimulus queue is an awesome idea I picked up from reading The Accidental Creative. It’s a place to record resources and ideas to follow up on during your saw sharpening time. What learning is really going to help you move forward in solving a problem or doing better work? When you come across an idea or resource, write it down. My stimulus queue is also in my notebook and I use it to help me plan my time.

Alright friends, sooooo…how sharp is your saw? Sharp enough to slice through your work like a hot knife through butter? Or could it stand a little sharpening?

If you have any stimulus queue ideas or resources to contribute, please share in the comments below!

Thanks for reading,

Updated Coaching Notebook

Goals and Motivation, Instructional Coaching, Organization, Time Management

If you remember, I originally had my planner set-up to also hold my coaching notes. While the system was working out okay, for a lot of reasons, I wasn’t really diggin’ it. So I took some time to rework it.

Customized Covers Available at my Etsy Shop

The first thing I needed was more space, since I can be working with up to eight coachees at a time. I also have learned that I prefer to use both my computer and paper when taking notes in an observation, as it allows for more flexibility. So my system needed a good amount of note taking paper, but I didn’t want coaching notes for different teachers all muddled together for me to later sort through. I also don’t totally like having separate notebooks or legal pads for different teachers. After assessing these needs and a few more, my decision was to use an Arc Notebook set-up for coaching notes only. I still have my planner, but it now lives in it’s own notebook.

To avoid the muddling through notes problem, I created a different tab for each teacher.

I inserted a coaching log behind each teacher tab, which I put on the left side of the notebook. I prefer this set-up, as it allows me to easily access notes from a debrief to add to the coaching log without doing too much page flipping. Also, when I go into a debrief, next steps from our last conversation are up front and center for me to see.

Click Here to Download Coaching Log

I print out my typed up notes before going into a debrief and then handwrite additional notes from there. I used to type notes during a debrief, but wondered if it would help my coaching conversations feel more personal if I did away with the computer screen barrier. So far I think I made a good decision.

Oh, and I put together this planning tool to help me think through my coaching conversations. It’s essentially a lesson plan for coaches.

Based on thinking from the EL Network

Click Here to Download

I keep a copy of this handy in the reference section of my notebook.

This Coaching Sentence Stems reference sheet (by Elena Aguilar) has been another good addition to this section. You can use it when planning for or even during coaching conversations.

Note taking systems for coaches are obviously very personal. What works for me might not work for you. When developing/tweaking your own, I think the most important components to consider include:

ease of use
flexibility
keeps you organized
tracks progress
you like using it!

Check off those pieces and you’re good to go!

Thanks for reading,

10 Great Gifts for Educators

Instructional Coaching, Organization

‘Tis the season! We’re in the midst of Secret Santa and while still hard at work coaching, my thoughts have been doing some drifting to cool gift ideas for teachers/coaches/principals/ assistants…you know, all members of the great group of folks who work in different ways to support kids.

Here are a few ideas I put together…

1. Timbuk2 Tartine Tote Bag

Every educator needs a good bag…and I’ve been drooling over this one. It has an interior laptop pocket, interior and exterior organization pockets, and an interior water bottle pocket. Love that. You can even customize the colors and material. Maybe it could be an end of the year, you’ve been good, present to yourself? {wink, wink}

2. The Write Stuff Note Cards

There’s nothing like a good old, handwritten, I appreciate you note card to give as a gift. These Write Stuff cards seem like they were designed especially for educators and…they’re free! All you have to do is download, print, and fold. Boom!

3. Dot Grid Journal

Planning and reflecting is a big part of what we do, and this journal is a great place to make that happen. This journal is an absolute fave of mine…perfect size, geometric dot matrix, and paper as smooth as butter.

4. Bottle of Wine

Just sayin’…my Secret Santa gave me a bottle of wine one year and I was psyched! A simple, yet thoughtful gift, sure to be put to good use.

5. YAY! Teacher Magnets

What’s your YAY!? Whatever it is, YAY! has got your back. These magnets are super fun to give as gifts.

6. Thermos Vacuum Insulated Travel Tumbler

Did you know that us educators are among the top 15 heaviest coffee drinkers? {and the most likely to add flavor to our coffee} Well then, we certainly need a good travel mug…one that’s well designed, doesn’t leak, and keeps our coffee pipin’ hot throughout the morning. I searched many, long years for a travel mug that meets all three of these qualifications until I finally found this beauty. Pass it along.

7. Uno Insulated Lunch Tote for One

I think cool lunch boxes are really neat. They make you feel happier when you pack your lunch at night and add some extra excitement to your lunch break. I haven’t tried this one out personally, but if I were to ask Santa for a new lunch box, I think this is the one I would ask for. It has a built in silverware holder! It doesn’t really get better than that.

8. Fun Pens

Writing with fun pens is much more interesting than using a standard #2 or the boring pens school provides. The Flair Pens by Paper Mate are definitely fun and if you pair a set of these with a pad of colorful sticky notes, you’ve got yourself a great gift!

9. Heavy Duty Three Hole Punch

Huh? A three hole punch? Yes! A three hole punch! My dad got this for me one year for Christmas, and while at first I kind of thought it was an odd gift, after taking it to school I thought it was pretty much the best gift ever.

10. Klean Kanteen Water Bottle

Hydration is important. But it can be annoying when you have to deal with unscrewing and rescrewing the lid to some water bottles every time you want to get a drink. None of that with this water bottle! Hydration to go in a stainless steel, toxin free water bottle that comes in all kinds of fun colors.

Well there you have it. My gift giving {or getting} guide for educators. Am I missing any really good ideas?

If so, please share!

Thanks for reading,

Close Reading Anchor Chart

Instructional Coaching, Teaching Tips

For the past few months, I’ve been working with our third grade team on implementing one of the curriculum modules produced by Expeditionary Learning. By the way, if you’re looking for high quality, common core aligned curriculum for grades 3-8, these modules are awesome! We just finished up The Power of Reading and had a ton of success with it.

Given that this curriculum is Common Core aligned, close reading played a big role in our work. Throughout the module, we created and used anchor charts for learning and thinking that we wanted to refer back to frequently…and close reading is definitely anchor chart worthy! Because so many of us coaches or teachers are working with close reading in one way or another, I thought it might be helpful to create a downloadable anchor chart to support your work. These are strategies identified in the module that I’ve added visuals to.

All of these strategies are tried and true and for sure will support close reading. I made a standard 8 x 10 size if you’d like to print it out and add it to your planning binder as a reference tool. I also made an 11 x 14 and 16 x 20 version to print off as a poster. I think you can print a 16 x 20 for around six bucks. Not bad!

Thanks for reading,

A Groovy Google Site

Instructional Coaching, Teaching Tips

I’ve had a pretty fun project going on this past month that’s taken a bit of time, but has totally been worth it. What is it you wonder? Well, I’ve designed and built a Google Site! Yep, a professional learning Google Site.

For awhile now, I’ve been churning ideas around for how to better provide and organize professional learning resources for teachers at our school…whole staff learning in PD, coaching take-aways, literacy instruction, assessment, etc. And while I have a teacher resource book area in my office, I wanted to share more than that…think videos, example lesson plans, scanned in articles/readings…oh my!

Well, it just so happened that a coaching buddy of mine provided the perfect inspiration. She shared the Google Site she created for her school last year and said she was really pleased with how it worked out. I thought it was pretty much the best idea ever, so of course I proceeded to copy! While the design and layout of my site is built differently than hers, the concept is the same…use a friendly technology resource as a tool to create an online, easily accessible, professional learning space for your teachers.

Here’s how it turned out:

If you’d like to take a closer look, click here for the link.

As I thought through planning for the site, I first considered what resources/information I wanted to provide for teachers and how I would organize it. You can see from my navigation bar that I went with four main “buckets” including:

One of my favorite pieces of the site is the Exit Ticket.

Teachers complete the exit ticket at the end of PD each week. All of the data feeds into a Google form which allows us to clearly see what teacher take-aways and next steps are.

I keep basic communication tied to coaching in the coaching section. This includes an overview of the coaching cycle, a coaching log, and any resources or information used to support coachees along the way. In doing this, if other teachers in the building are also interested in learning about an effective Reader’s Workshop for example, they can check this page for resources or even check in with Mary Ellen or Kati to see what they’ve been working on.

Make sure you’re super transparent with coachees and your principal about what information is shared. The majority of information/conversations exchanged within a coaching cycle should be kept between just you and the coachee. For example, the link to the coaching sysnthesis letter above is locked as private through Google Sites. So only the teacher and I can access it. You can ask your coachee if they’re willing to share their instructional take-aways from a coaching cycle with the principal, and if the answer is yes then you can share the link. Otherwise, what happens in a coaching cycle, stays in a coaching cycle.

If you feel like this is a concept that would support teachers at your school, you should definitely go for it! Google Sites is very user friendly, I promise. And I bet you’ll even have some fun while you’re at it.

If you do decide to give this idea a go and questions pop up along the way or you’d just like some feedback, shoot me an email. I’d love to help out.

Thanks for reading,

Meeting Tips and Tools

Instructional Coaching, Organization, Teaching Tips

Phew! I feel like I blinked and it was suddenly September. It has been one busy start to the school year. If I gave you a copy of my calendar for this past month and asked you to look for trends, I’d bet you would quickly find one word popping up all over the place…meeting. PD planning meetings, coaching meetings, team meetings…meetings, meetings, meetings. No doubt about it, the beginning of the year is prime meeting time. But as coaches, the reality is that beginning of the school year or not, meetings are just a part of what we do. So if that’s the deal, then let’s make sure we do those meetings well. To start, I’ll share three of my top tips for effectively facilitating a meeting then a few tools to support you as a facilitator or meeting participant.

Clarify Norms

Setting or clarifying norms for collaborative work is an important first step in supporting teams who will work together for a period of time. If you’re supporting grade level team meetings or just starting off a new coaching cycle, this would be a great place to start. When setting norms a few things to think about include logistics, timeliness, equal participation, and the decision making process. Create your meeting norms together and come back to them frequently.

Create an Agenda

Agenda, agenda, agenda! This is your lesson plan for the meeting. Just like you wouldn’t want a teacher to head into a lesson without a plan, you don’t want to head into a meeting without an agenda. Include clear outcomes, any materials needed, topics of discussion, and times attached to topics. Post the agenda for others to see and review it at the start of the meeting so everyone knows where they’re headed. Provide the opportunity for meeting members to ask questions or add in topics they would like to be addressed. Even if I’m only meeting with one other teacher, I always have an agenda.

Identify Next Steps

Never let the meeting come to a close before identifying next steps. Who will be responsible for what and by when? You can email these next steps and meeting notes to team members to support accountability.

Here is a note taking template created in Word so you can type directly into it if your prefer taking notes on your computer:

Click Here to Download

If you prefer taking notes by hand, here is a PDF printable you can print in color or black and white and pop into your notebook:

Click Here to Download

Here is a Word doc template you can use to create your agenda:

Click Here to Download

Lastly, a little candy and/or coffee never hurts the spirit of any meeting! Wink, wink.

I hope you find these tips and tools helpful. Thanks to blog reader Anna for sharing her thoughts on putting together a meeting note-taking sheet. If you ever have thoughts on coaching resources/tools that would be helpful for you, please don’t hesitate to let me know! I’ll try to work it into a future post.

Thanks for reading,