Slice of Life #24: Through a Coach's Eyes: Teachers' Learnership

Slice of Life #24:  Through  the  Eyes  of  a  Coach :  Teachers’ Learnership

My current read is Cathy Toll’s book, LEARNERSHIP:  INVEST IN TEACHERS, FOCUS ON LEARNING, AND PUT TEST SCORES IN PERSPECTIVE.

As a coach, I am constantly questioning how I can help teachers build their identities as learners.  How do they see themselves?  How can they move into or sustain the teaching identities that they most desire?  What is my role?

In my post, Slice of Life #22, I discussed a variety of actions that teachers can take to continuously redefine how they see themselves and their work.  Many of these can be done with/without a coach. 

However, when teachers opt to work with the coach, how can their opportunities be maximized?  In other words,  my goal is to foster teachers’ learnership so that their teaching identities are positively impacted:  forever changing who they are as teachers and learners, adding to their sense of agency.  How can I best influence what they know, believe, and do in such a way that it supports them in fulfilling their potential, their wants, and their needs?

I recently read this amazing quote from Deb Cale: 

"Research shows that if a [teacher] doesn't have feedback or a coaching component, only about 10 percent of what they've learned in professional development will stick with them.  But if the coaches are there to support a teacher in implementing a new practice or instructional method, the learning opportunity goes up to 90 percent."   

While this is a broad statement (and I think should be worded “…can go up to 90 percent”), I wondered, “Do teachers sustain that much of their learning when they work with me?  Is it really 50, 60, or 70 percent?  How can I know?  How can I improve?  Granted, working with a coach is clearly better for the brain than not—but, again, how can coaching help the most?

At times, I have felt like this is a matter of accountability.  I have asked myself, “What do I need to do to encourage this teacher to take increased responsibility for his/her learning?  How do I build  his/her confidence/independence with this task?”

However, I wasn’t sure if those were the “correct” questions to ask myself to produce the desired outcome.  Why?  Because every time I hypothesized and experimented with a possible answer, I still felt like the outcome was less than what I was hoping for.

Cathy Toll describes this type of thinking (“What can I do as the instructor?) to be instruction-centered.  This is different from (and not as desirable as) as focus on what she calls “learnership.”  Toll contends that when we focus on instruction, we focus on just the “best practice” aspects, which can tend to lead into a “one-size-fits-all” mode of thinking about instruction.  In other words, the idea that “if we just ‘do’ best practices, our problems will be solved.”   While I don’t think I believe this about teaching, I need to find ways to question and sustain teachers as learners.

The truth is that best practices tend to work, but as professionals we must consider to what degree and with which students one might be more effective than another… and then we must consider our implementation, the learning environment, the needs of the student(s).  This is where the idea of “learnership” enters.

Learnership focuses on learning—the teacher’s and the students’—and the tools that make the difference.  Learnership requires the coach/teacher to notice when learning occurs and inquire when it does not.  Learnership requires a solid foundation about HOW we learn and how learning is influenced by others.  Learnership recognizes that each individual has a story (as a learner) and that linking new learning to what is known is essential—and that looks different for each person.  This aligns to my coaching beliefs. 

So now, I’m going back to the form that I use to hold our thinking when we plan coaching cycles.  Part of it is a checklist of expectations—defining what the teacher can expect from the coach and what the coach can expect from the teacher.  We set a SMART goal and generate ideas for how we might know if the goal has been reached—by looking at student work/achievement and through the instructional process.  We work together in a variety of ways over the allotted time.  This might include collecting and analyzing data, my conducting demonstration lessons, co-planning, co-teaching, and classroom observations.  It always includes coaching conversations and timely feedback. 

On paper and in practice, it feels almost complete, almost satisfactory… but not quite. 

I think this plan causes ME to be intentional about my work with the teacher but I’m theorizing now that it needs to be changed (along with our conversations) to cause the teacher to be intentional, as well.  I think our conversations assist with that, but perhaps they haven’t been enough—often because of lack of time in a given teacher’s schedule.  How to compensate?  As I know through my own life, written reflections (such as this piece that you’re currently reading) make a big difference in clarifying learning and in finding direction. 

We generally do a good job of redefining our instruction to meet students’ daily needs; but we might be missing something when it comes to completely articulating our teacher-coach learning and thinking.  Even though I am present for the process, I think I have been outcome-driven.  I’m thinking we need a greater focus on the teacher’s thinking and learning each and every day.  As a teacher, I know that my thinking shifts moment-by-moment.  We are continuously learning; learning is constantly in motion and changing shape—it’s dynamic.  While classroom time allows for a quick debrief (most days), perhaps this has not been sufficient to think deeply enough about the complexities of our work; when this lacks, perhaps learnership suffers… which means that the practices we are trying might not be sustainable once I depart from the teacher’s daily life.

I have been hesitant to consistently ask for written feedback because I don’t want to put “one more thing” on the teachers’ plates.  I know they are constantly pressed for time, and I want to be sure that all work that I ask of them is meaningful…  YET that’s just it.  Asking for feedback DURING and immediately after the class (perhaps in writing or even recorded and emailed digitally) is meaningful.  It causes teachers to bring agency to the work.  Even if they are observing, they should be thoughtful observers.  They can use that time to record their daily thinking so that, over time, they can see how they have evolved and more deeply understand the process we’ve gone through—and recall why.  Honestly, I think I have been hesitant to consistently ask for this, as well, because I was worried that the teachers might not work with me if it required “too much” effort.  But now I am realizing that they need to work at least as hard as I do—and that if they don’t, they will never really have agency for the work that is done via coaching.  That is not acceptable.

I have forms that I have used for teachers to complete during observations and co-teaching.  I am thinking of redesigning them to garner more specific feedback, which might prompt teachers to provide more thoughtful insights to help us in moving forward, clarifying thinking, and understanding the processes we are going through. 

I wonder, too, if I should consider how I plan to reach teachers as learners by completing a separate organizer for my thoughts.  This could help me to gauge how teachers are progressing as learners in a coaching cycle.  I am thinking that I could list the tasks that we will do together, how they will be done, what the desired outcomes will be (for each task during the learning process).  I might also include ways to assess progress and to note the teacher’s demonstrations of application of the learning.  This would build confidence/competence for independently carrying on with this work when the coaching cycle ends. 

I have also recently been thinking that I need to schedule follow-ups with teachers in a different way (after coaching cycles have ended).  Right now, I email and/or schedule meetings for  coaching conversations.  We discuss the teacher’s perceptions of his/her progress implementing the practices on which s/he has been coached. 

Oftentimes, they are telling me that “everything is fine” and even citing examples… but then months later, I hear some of them say, “Yeah, that WAS going okay but then I dropped it because…”  My heart sinks.  While I know that they have changed as learners and came away with new teaching identities that have improved their instruction across the day, I feel like I failed to sustain them at some point. 

My solution is that I think I need to expand my follow-ups—I think we need to agree to follow-up meetings in addition to some classroom observations.  Maybe we even need to consider how to link new learning to what has been tried during and practiced since a coaching cycle.  I am still thinking about ways to sustain teachers as learners.

These things seem to be part of the answer to my questions, “How am I doing as a coach?” and, “How can I improve?”

I’m still reading, thinking, and growing.  My agency for my work is changing as I consider these hard questions, hypothesize the varied outcomes, and then TRY and reflect on new strategies. 

I’ll keep you posted.