Coaching Overview - The Big Picture

I do....vs....I use

• I do close reading lessons.
• I use close reading to introduce students to complex text so that they can...

“A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until, finally, it becomes what everybody knows.”
(William James)

6/3/14: Conference Call with Jenn (ideas about this year and for next year):

Why 2-​week coaching cycles?

• ​Note:  Coaching cycles don't make people change, embracing the stance of continuous improvement does.  So you have to build that culture so that coaching cycles are a strategy you can use to change practice.
• Mandates create progress.  They also create organization and systems.
• Parameters (albeit arbitrary) create levers so that you can measure impact.
• Time:  1-3 weeks.  (1 week can feel like a drive-by or might be the perfect amount of time for a small tweak that makes a big difference.  More than 3 weeks tends to become co-teaching.)
  
  • shorter is better - allows coaching to be more focused, frequent and measurable.
• Allows for more teachers to be coached more often.  Increases the support for teachers AND creates a culture of continuous improvement AND support.

Future Recommendations:

• Coaching Cycles:
  • ​Continue with this plan with an eye on Gradual Release.
  • What can be turned over to studio teachers? teacher leaders? 
    • What is systemic (studio teachers)? What is organic? (teacher leadership roles) 
  • What do teachers not need me/us to do any more?  What can they do now?
    • ​Build independence and empowerment. 
• ​PD in general:
  • Not all PD needs to flow through the coach/admin
  • Again, it's not delegation, it's about building independence and empowerment.
  • What are roles that can be shared / turned over to teachers? 
    • Ex: opening studios, planning studios, facilitate TC groups? 
  • ​Look Fors:
    • How are teachers talking about their practice? other teachers' practice?
    • How are they giving/requesting feedback?
    • Which teachers are knowledgeable about instruction and thinking about next, best steps for PLCs?
  • How differentiated do we want PD to get?  We are on the road to differentiation, but we are not there yet.  
    • What and where can teachers lead VS change or opt out of?
    • How can we balance virtual and live PD?
    • How can we begin to balance choice and mandate?

• Studio Work VS Design Work (content planning)
• Can studio work become more organic? 
• How are we studying and/or looking at instruction?
  
  • ​studio teacher as facilitator and/or model teacher?
  • modes/structures:
    
    • studio
    • walk throughs (learning, implementation)
    • video uploads and comments and remixes
• Should design work become more structured?
• ​Release time
• Scheduled throughout the year.
• Studio Notes:
• Implementation:  shared accountability and equitable expectations.
• If I do ____, then my students will ____.  Because I did ____, my students can ____.  
• What does it mean to grow?  Can teachers articulate their growth?
• Teacher Growth:
• We become introduced to an idea (build awareness by being challenged) This causes us to observe differently and notice/wonder.
• We then develop our practice by building shared language and understanding.  They requires a push, elaboration and clarification.  We begin to try things on, shift.
• We then are able to be assessed on our independent use of a shared practice.  We have a solid understanding and find confirmation in our practices through further study.  The practice is internalized and allows for invention or innovation.
• Content:
• We generated the KUDs of the standards, so next year we can identify the key skills, processes, strategies and practices.  We will then generate common rubrics and assessments.

5/23/14 RANDOM Notes found while cleaning out my office:

• When do we want teachers to get better at teaching first and then apply this to their thinking?  When do we have to shift beliefs first and then apply  that shift to their teaching?
• What is our culture?
• autonomy vs collaboration
• feedback vs no feedback
• eyes on practice vs not
• low urgency vs urgency
• How do we get to a place where practice is studied, deprivatized and depersonalized, where we are hard on ourselves for the right reasons
• Talk: specific, descriptive and analytical / practice moving away from vague
• Planning:  All texts demand something but do our students need teaching for that?
• Studio:  lesson / try a lesson against after gaining more information (FA) / studio is practice slowed down so that we can see our role and our student more clearly
• Reflect more specifically, descriptively and analytically:  step by step - what did that do for students? teachers?  (What did you notice that students did that was supported by our instruction?  What instruction supported ____?
• Train ourselves to watch students - observe for something
• Debriefs:  List all the things that students would struggle with....  List all the things students were successful doing ...  which seems replicable to you?  Would it transfer exactly? How? What are possible teaching points?  What is your evidence? 
• Understanding the complexity comes from doing the work and figuring out the nuances.  Pay attention to what you did while you were doing the work...then consider if students do that.
• By analyzing data, we get clearer about what we want to hear in talk, see in writing, observe in reading etc...  We begin to model, recognize, teach, etc all the time NOT just during lessons.
• How are we recording data?
• How are we using it to forward instruction?  Framing, protocols, etc...
• 1.  Formalize the meetings by setting a purpose:  coaching, planning
  • Narrate my coaching goals (What am I learning as a coach? Name POP and describe coaching moves)
  • Narrate the teacher's goal
  • What would the outcome be?
  • How will we own our work?  How will this work impact student learning?

  2.  Create learning summaries and communicate them with teachers and principal as needed

  • Problem of Practice
  • Steps
  • Outcomes
  • Questions / Wonderings
  • Next Steps

Pam's address:

Our goal is deliberate excellence.  We want to be thoughtful about what excellence means.

We know that teachers are dedicated to students, but are we dedicated to each other's growth?

Sandy's reminder:  "Hope is a great word, but it is not a strategy!"

Link to Schmoker's 2009, Kapan article:  What Money Can't Buy...

Opening - "Let's be present.  If we've made the effort (subs, agenda, time), let's at least be present for this conversation!"

Effective coaches establish strong relationships built on confidentiality, collaboration, collective problem solving, and continuous communication.  Content is important so that coaches know what they are supporting. Critical, however, is the need to maintain a balance between the content of the coaching and the consistency, integrity, and amount of the coaching provided to colleagues. - From PA Institute for Instructional Coaches.  (Coach self-assessment and connection to The Art of Coaching)

NRC:  "...experts have acquired extensive knowledge that effects what they notice and how they organize, represent, and interpret information in their environments.  This, in turn, affects their abilities to remember, reason, and solve problems. ...expert knowledge serves to create a habit of critically analyzing evidence."

Why Deal with Culture:  One of my favorite quotes comes from John Wayne. He said, “Courage is being scared to death—but saddling up anyway.” Faced with negative and ineffective staff members, great principals saddle up. They do it for the morale of the caring and competent teachers. Even more importantly, they do it for the students. They are determined to ensure that all students and teachers have the positive experiences they deserve.

• Share both the Philosophical ---------the Practical.  
• Goal:  Manage the lag time between the two.

Cathie West provides education leaders with the "six keys" they need to engage teachers in the process of increasing student achievement.

1. Create a Culture of Engagement
2. Get Organizationally Engaged
3. Engineer Engagement
4. Zero in on Best Practice
5. Tap into Teacher Leaders
6. Confront Change Challengers

Lofty questions:

• What does it feel like to push beyond test scores?  to push for critical thinking?
• What do real, authentic, excited learners look and sound like?  What does authentic, learning and engagement look like and sound like?
• How do we move away from the "this is what we do, so it must be ideal" type thinking?
• How do we remind ourselves that everything should be in the service of learning?
• If we assume good practice, what is the potential?  How do we make all teachers curriculum proof!?
• What about what I have learned today fits with good practice and instruction?
• Remember, our work is about the practice, not the person.  Can we be hard on the practice, without being hard on the person.
• If something doesn't work, ask, "What would I have rather had her say/do?"  Then teach to that.
• What types of evidence are you willing to accept?  (student surveys, perception, what else...)

Quotes to Ponder:

• There is no there!
• We can't see alone what we can see together.
• As above, So below.
• The observer is the observed.
• If you name it, they will be able to replicate it.
• What will we use when there is no longer a quick strategy?
• If you are helping them, you are helping them.  Our goal is to help them better!
• What we can control is our practice!
• What are we protecting?  (I can't be out of the classroom OR students can't learn unless I'm there)
• Instruction leads to achievement.  
• How are we setting up the work to support shifts and create structures?
• How can I help teachers provide more successful situations in the classroom?

Instructional Coach:  

Emotional Resilience in Teachers - how to coach this? (emotions wheel and article)

Metamorphosis project - coaching teacher leaders, coaching the coaches, good information!

2013-14 School Year Goals:

• 2 week Coaching Cycles 
• Focused on INSTRUCTION
• Peer Coaching --develops coaching capacity of all teachers

IC goals based on Charlotte Danielson:

1. Develop a plan to evaluate my effectiveness as an Instructional Coach that includes evidence and specific reflection that includes evidence and examples of what is working and what is not working and why. (1F, 3C, 4A)

2. Communicate plan/schedule with teachers that includes debreif sessions and clearly communicated purposes/goals. (1C, 2C, 2D, 3C)

3.  Create a culture of reflection at JHMS by assessing the readiness of teachers to create teacher learning that is meaningful and includes enough ambiguity to promote ownership and capacity.

4.  Use Decision-making Chart to plan the right PD and the right time (High Low chart:  4 quadrants):

• High potential impact and high degree of difficulty - plant seeds
• High potential impact and low degree of difficulty - coach
• low potential impact and low degree of difficulty - PD
• low potential impact and high degree of difficulty - change focus!!

IC Habits of Mind:

1. 4 Goals of JHMS:  
1. Collaboration, 
2. Growth Mindset (reflection - honest and open, IFW, reason for CoI), 
3. Student Achievement (If students aren't learning, they are not being afforded powerful learning opportunities! ~Bo),
1. Look for evidence of rigor
2. Look for evidence of equity 
4. the WHOLE child
2. Coaching Creates: de-privatization, shared language, coherence (loss of autonomy), alignment (difference in planning practices; planning from standards, skills, outcomes)
3. Coaching Requires: Mutual Accountability:  to each other, ourselves, our students
1. ACCOUNTABILITY means gathering EVIDENCE:  
1. Take notes
2. Class list
3. C:  eating diary allows us to make changes, so during a coaching cycle, teachers should be gathering evidence.
4. 3 Steps:
1. How do we gather evidence?  (break down learning to create look fors)
2. Gather evidence
3. Reflect on evidence and the gathering of evidence.
2. Evidence of Teacher Growth:

Categories:	Description of Teacher’s ability:
Professionalism:	·             On an obvious level:  o   Teacher communicates about attendance (RSVPs to calendar invites) o   Teacher initiates communication after missed meetings (What did I miss?) o   Teacher takes notes, asks questions, honors the work during the meeting ·             Teacher collaborates with all PCLS: content and grade level PLC, ELL/SpEd teachers, Kidtalk both in formal and informal settings ·             Teacher values the time with PLC – requests meetings, asks for ideas to be brought before the PLC ·             Teacher shares ideas and initiates new topics for problem-solving
Talk about Practice:	·             Teacher moves from general to specific language (ex: I’m working on vocabulary becomes I’m working on identification of word parts.) ·             Teacher moves from summary statements to descriptive language.  (Ex: They liked it becomes they were learning in, talking animatedly, and the volume continued to increase as they understood the concept more and more.  They were able to explain….  28/30 kids were able to ….) ·             Teacher moves from anecdotal sharing to analytical language using data.  (Ex: They loved it… to before the lesson 18/24 kids could define a commentary statement, but only 7 had quality commentary in their essays.  After the lesson, all students could define it in their own words and 18 had at least one quality commentary statement in their essay.  All 24 could tell me the question they would ask to determine if a commentary statement was addressing the thesis.   My next step is…) o   Specific o   Descriptive (looks like/sounds like) o   Analytical (data)
Plan/Research for lessons	·             On an obvious level:  o   Teacher uses planning time appropriately o   Teacher plans using the agreed upon lesson template. o   Teacher plans with grade level team.  (Not just divide and conquer) o   Teacher plans with SpEd and ELL teachers.  (Not just sharing) o   Teacher follows, adjusts, modifies plans and shares those revisions with the team. ·             Plans are focused on solving student needs based on evidence not anecdote. ·             References where instructional strategies come from. (Ex: researchers and valued authors of the field vs ….) ·             Plans using the spine or UBD.  Plans have a thread or connection to the past and future.  There is a bigger picture or end goal in mind. ·             Plans time for formative instruction – time to revise work and/or thinking is an essential part of the plan. ·             Assessment is part of the plan.  Daily (minute-by-minute) assessment is used.  Teacher plans their questions and responses in advance.  Student misconceptions are predicted to support this planning. ·             Student reflection – growing understanding of their learning – is part of the plan. ·             B-RtI is part of the planning process.
Choices about instructional and assessment practices	·             Teacher can provide a rationale for each instructional/assessment decision made. ·             Instruction serves a purpose for learning.  Instruction is in service of the content. ·             Instruction is connected to the learning target and success criteria.  There is a thread for the day. ·             Many structures and strategies can be used.  The teacher’s tool box is full. ·             Consistency is also valued.  The teacher recognizes consistency allows students to focus on and/or become engaged with the content instead of a new learning strategy/activity/task. ·             Daily (minute-by-minute) assessment is used.  Teacher plans their questions and responses in advance.  Student misconceptions are predicted to support this planning.
Assessment or Evidence Gathering	·             “Assessment of learning.  Assessment for learning.  Assessment as learning.” Each of these phrases are understood and apparent in the classroom. ·             The focus has shifted to what students learn each day as apposed to what the teacher taught.  ·             Assessment is a key component each day.  Teacher is very focused on student achievement. ·             Data/Evidence is gathered and recorded each day. o   Simply tools (ex: class lists,  spreadsheets, iPad, etc) allows for record keeping. ·             Talk is an assessment tool. ·             Students are curious about /focused on their growth.  They recognize when they understand a concept and when they aren’t.  They are empowered to ask questions and seek the answers.
Docs produced This doc is about... It was created because... The goal is to ...	o   Teacher produces high quality documents for the students use. ·             On an obvious level:  o   Documents created are error free. o   Documents created show knowledge of the trajectory of learning. o   Documents created are student-friendly o   Documents are based on student need.  The teacher can explain the intention behind each document. o   Documents are explained to students as a tool for learning not as a task.  Students understand the intention behind the document and the intention for their internalization of the support. o   Documents support and/or elevate student learning. o   Documents lead to new habits of mind.
Changes in Student behaviors.	o   The teacher takes credit for student learning at all levels.  (Can, Verge, Far From) o   The teacher uses data to implicate instruction (Continue, change, Stop)

Categorie

1. Roles and Responsibilities are all aligned
1. School Culture...in the service of increased student learning
2. Improved Instruction...in the service of increased student learning
2. Which teachers do I work with?  "This is how we work together when we need to work in this way together."  How do I create shared awareness, shared understanding, shared language, and shared practice?
1. Tier 1:  all teachers, PD days  (5 days a year)
2. Tier 2:  PLCs and grade level teams, collaboration, co-planning, debrief/reflection meeting (1 day a week)
3. Tier 3:  1:1 work (observation, co-teaching, model, co-plan, etc) with teachers based on choice, need, Studio, etc.. (90% of time)
1. Goals:  Empower teachers, allow teachers to own improvement and own the work.
2. Use Peer Coaching Cycles to develop coaching capacity
3. Our goal is to do less "pushing" toward change (maybe some nudging) and more "pulling into change" - using inspirational stories, PLC meetings, and shared understanding.
3. What PD do I need?  Content vs Instruction
4. What are the expected results and timelines for teacher learning
1. Short and long-term goals based in a coherent and strategic plan
2. Evidence includes all three:  teacher self-reporting, noticable changes in practice (pre/post), and student achievement data (what is the control group? last year? another class?)
3. Teachers felt ______.  I observed and saw ______.  Student achievement did _____.
4. Scrutinize our intellectual process so that we can look for it, teach it, name it, and replicate it (both us and students).
5. What does communication look like?

Coaching Overview:

• "The need for improvement shouldn't be seen as an attack or criticism but as a ray of hope as teachers strive to educate all students. If we believe it is our teaching, and not 'teacher-proofed' curriculum materials or programs, that produces student learning, then improving our teaching to improve student learning is part of the act of teaching itself. The process must be embedded in our practice so that we reflect after each lesson on evidence of student learning to decide what students need next.
• "Textbooks and curricula do not teach students - teachers do. Regardless of the curriculum materials teachers use for their teaching, it is the moment-by-moment decisions teachers make as they teach that result in student learning. The role of the literacy coach is to support teachers as they become increasingly effective decision makers and, since teachers have a variety of needs and learning styles, literacy coaches should be prepared to provide support in a variety of forms (p 23)."
• "We teach the best way we know how and if we're expected to change our practice, we need to be made aware in a way that makes sense that changes need to happen (p 173)."

• Analogy about coaching from PIIC.org:

"Consider the difference between a neighborhood basketball game and the Philadelphia 76ers.  In one game, there is no coach, no bench, and no organized time outs to discuss strategy.  Whatever happened, happens with luck being the operative word.  In the other game, each player's ability is analyzed and everyone is assigned to the position that aligns with a specific skill set.  This discussion of the action is deliberate, structured, and well executed with time allotted before, during, and after the game for planning, studying, and reflecting.  Winning is clearly the desired outcome and everyone collaborates and cooperates to make that happen.  While a player may want the thrill of making the winning basket, the individual recognizes that several individuals together worked to make all the baskets that contributed to winning the game.  ....  Each player must understand the overall vision, know which plays to use, know how to adapt as a play unfolds on the field, and be accountable for what happens ... This fits with the description of how instructional coaches and school staff should collaborate every day and take collective responsibility for student growth.  Instructional coaches help create the environment for open communication and ensure that professional learning is high quality, ongoing, focused, and natural - like preparing a team to win the game.  They work to prepare the entire team for their collective and individual roles." ~ Ellen Eisenberg

Notes Video from Teaching Channel:

• The goal of coaching is to create higher levels of reflective teaching/practice.
• For reflective practice to be at its highest, you need evidence of practice.
• Observations of practice (scripting)
• Videos of practice (speeds up time, videos provide concrete evidence)
• student work
• New types of coaching:
• Real Time Coaching: id pop, adjust immediately, shared language tools  "narrate student"
• Online coaching:  videos of practice to increase metacognition and provide concrete evidence.
• Before teachers will engage with coaching, they have to believe that what you are working on will help students. 

Coaching Goals:

• Goal:  create cognitive dissonance and then support it so that it becomes what we do.
• Goal:  Coaching builds capacity AND collaboration and improves practice
• Goal:  Increase the flexible use of instructional strategies AND create paradigm shifts.  Ex: GBG is an instructional strategy while increased Student Talk is a paradigm shift.

Who to coach?

• Instead of individualized coaching, all coaching should serve the school.  Choose cycles that will serve the school and create leadership opportunities.  Coaching cycles should include informal opportunities to observe and learn from and with each other.  Coaching cycles should end with a defense taken to studio or their vertical team.
• by volunteer vs this is the way we work together...

Types of Coaching:

• Cognitive: Reflective in nature; focused on the teacher's "look fors"; lends itself to problem-solving and reflection so the effectiveness of this approach depends on what a teacher already knows.
• Content:  Focused on teaching within a specific discipline - the planning, instruction and assessment that resides in that discipline; Generalized teaching practices get embedded within the process of the subject matter or content coaching; focuses on supporting the teaching and learning around content/subject matter.
• Inquiry:  Focused on a problem of practice, PDSA cycle and tied to a theory of action; helps develop a learning stance; works best when a teacher has enough practice in place to expand their practice through "trying" something out; creates a problem-solving approach.
• Instructional:  Can be genrealized across disciplines - focused on sound pedagogy and the generalized aspects of an instructional framework; develops norms and consistency around instructional practice; will address most issues around general aspects of teaching.

Coaching Cycle

• Area of Focus
• 1:1 - develop with Bo
• Work
• Share - invite visitors
• Finalize - evidence, organize thinking and communication about learning
• Share / Defense of learning

Ways Literacy Coaches support teachers:

1. Observations (formal and informal) and feedback
2. Arrange visits of/from other teachers
3. Demonstration lessons (coach or lead teachers)
4. Facilitate Lesson studies
5. Co-planning
6. Facilitate Inquiry groups
7. Video taping lessons and facilitate reflection
8. Provide resources and materials
9. Arrange for professional development (conferences)
10. Other...

Coaching questions:

1. What did you notice about...
2. What surprised you?
3. Where are most students at the end of the lesson?
4. What do you predict will happen?

Coaching Information/Resources:

• Coaching Blog - with answers to questions!
• Another great coaching blog - MHouser (lots of resources)
• Coach self-assessment and connection to The Art of Coaching
• Coaching Information for Michelle.
• Site for coaching - http://www.pzpublications.com/index.html
• Great site for coaching and resources - http://piic.pacoaching.org/index.php/about-piic
• Click Here.  or Click Here - about the Art of Coaching, Coach self-assessment and connection to The Art of Coaching
• Quotes, information, form templates from:  Casey, Katherine. 2006. Literacy Coaching: The Essentials. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
• http://msbinstructionalcoach.wordpress.com/request-for-coaching/
• Making a Prairie....

PD Ideas and Ideals:  

These NORMS were established to help us get the most from our time together:

• Come prepared
• Stay Engaged
• Speak Your Truth (thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and experiences)
• Experience Discomfort AND Don't Take it Personally
• Expect and Accept Non-Closure
• Respect the Decisions Made
• Other:

Seven Keys for Implementing ... ANYTHING.... in Your School (from KIPP school website)

1. Believe It and Model It: Breathe life into the James Baldwin quote: “The children are ours. Every single one of them… children have never been very good at listening to their elders but have never failed to imitate them.”

2. Name It: Give the intangible and often-unnamed a name. Only by labelling and talking about the character strengths that Martin Seligman and Chris Peterson identified can we embark on the journey to develop them.

3. Find It: Introduce kids to real-world and fictional examples that display the various character strengths.

4. Feel It: Help kids and adults feel the positive effects of focusing on, and developing, their own character strengths.

5. Integrate It: Create dual-purpose experiences and lessons that involve the character strengths. Learn more about how character is integrated into the KIPP Framework for Excellent Teaching.

6. Encourage It: Provide people with growth mindset praise (i.e. precise, descriptive praise) around character.

7. Track It: Record and discuss progress toward character goals regularly.

Julia Quinn's (professor of Curric and Instruction at Cal State Univeristy, LA, 1991-92) Questions:

1. What am I teaching and to whom? / What are we doing? / What are we meeting about?
2. Why am I teaching it? / Why are we doing it? / Why are we meeting about it?
3. How am I teaching it? / How are we doing it? / How are we running/conducting our meeting?
4. Why am I teaching it that way? / Why are we doing it this way? / Why are we running/conducting our meeting this way?
5. How do I know the kids are getting it? What evidence will I collect? / How will we know how well we're doing it? / How will we know the meeting was a success?
6. How do the kids know they are getting it? / How will other people know how well we're doing it? /How will others  know the meeting was a success?

4 lenses of learning:  meaning, social, human, and language (R, W, S, L)

• See PDF - many connections:
• 5 Critical areas of learning:  transacting with text, composing text, extending reading and writing, investigating the conventions of language, learning to learn
• 4 critical literacy experiences:  transacting with text, choosing and sharing texts, composing text, investigating sentences and words
• 4 lenses of learning:  Language-based, meaning-centered, social, human  (social and human side - keep learning stress-free...learning cannot happen if students are stressed, worried, or uncomfortable in their learning environment.)
• 6 key aspects of co-constructionists teaching and learning:
• Students are empowered to co-construct meaning
• Students are empowered to be both successful and challenged.
• Students are empowered by having extensive experience with both language activities and with intuitive and explicit analysis of these experiences.
• Students are empowered to use R, W, S, L as interrelated and interactive  processes for learning and thinking about ideas and relationships (both on their own and with others).
• Students are empowered to make many important choices in how and what they learn.
• Students are empowered to reflect on and develop control over how they learn. 

The high-impact leader's responsibility is to enable teachers to be successful in accomplishing that. In order to help teachers succeed through supervision practices and reflective dialogue, high-impact leaders should ask themselves:

Do supervision practices support teacher growth and development? Are teachers challenged to examine assumptions about their work and rethink how it can be performed? Do teachers use instruction that engages and motivates students? Have we created a climate of experimentation — an environment where teachers are willing to task risks, to try new things? Do we have supports in place for new and struggling teachers?

High-impact leaders continually look at the way they structure, observe, and improve individual teaching. They develop processes to provide what every student deserves: teachers in every classroom who are the greatest learners of their own practice and who offer and intellectual challenging, relevant education. ~ Todd Whitaker

From Connecticut Center for School Change - Professional Learning Debrief Protocol -
Professionals Learn Best When:

• the learning task is experiential and professionals are the ones "doing the work"
• learners are supported in solving new challenges by making thoughtful connections to past related experiences (analogical reasoning)
• the content addresses the concerns and issues professionals face on a daily basis (POP)
• the context, pedagogy, and conditions promote shared meaning-making and collective problem solving (social nature of learning; communities of practice)
• the content, pedagogy, and conditions produce high engagement by all learners
• the learning context creates (and demands) opportunities for processing knowledge, constructing meaning, and considering implications ("learning is a byproduct of reasoning")
• the experience helps professionals surface, scrutinize, and test their mental models
• learners are provided frameworks to help construct new meaning from old and similar experiences
• metacognition (thinking about one's thinking) and self-refulation (discipline) are promoted
• learning taps into multiple sources of motivation, primarily those that are intrinsic
• learners receive specific and timely feedback about both their practice and how they make meaning
• adults have agency in both what and how they are learning (self-efficacy & choice)
• learning situations balance working through discomfort and risk with safe reflection and meaning making

Get the forms you need here.

ARTICLES:

In order to create a cohesive community and a consensus on how to proceed, school people must have the opportunity to engage in democractic discourse about the real stuff of teaching and learning. ~ Darling-Hammond (1997)


New Article:  From DailyOM.com

November 14, 2012 Embracing New Information Be Open by Madisyn Taylor As we live we will go through the processes of opening to new information, integrating it, and stabilizing our worldview. Living in an information age, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the constant influx of scientific studies, breaking news, and even spiritual revelations that fill our bookshelves, radio waves, and in-boxes. No sooner have we decided what to eat or (how to teach or ) how to think about the universe than a new study or book comes out (or Jenn/Brandon shows up!) confounding our well-researched opinion. After a while, we may be tempted to dismiss or ignore new information in the interest of stabilizing our point of view, and this is understandable. Rather than closing down, we might try instead to remain open by allowing our intuition to guide us. For example, contradictory studies concerning foods that are good for you and foods that are bad for you are plentiful. At a certain point, though, we can feel for ourselves whether coffee or tomatoes are good for us or not. The answer is different for each individual, and this is something that a scientific study can’t quite account for. All we can do is take in the information and process it through our own systems of understanding. In the end, only we can decide what information, ideas, and concepts we will integrate. Remaining open allows us to continually change and shift by checking in with ourselves as we learn new information. It keeps us flexible and alert, and while it can feel a bit like being thrown off balance all the time, this openness is essential to the process of growth and expansion.(continuous improvement!) Perhaps the key is realizing that we are not going to finally get to some stable place of having it all figured out. (There is no there!) Throughout our lives we will go through the processes of opening to new information, integrating it, and stabilizing our worldview. No sooner will we have reached some kind of stability than it will be time to open again to new information, which is inherently destabilizing. If we see ourselves as surfers riding the incoming waves of information and inspiration, always open and willing to attune ourselves to the next shift, we will see how blessed we are to have this opportunity to play on the waves and, most of all, to enjoy the ride.

Article from ASCD about going from good to great:
What Makes Good Teachers Great

Laura Varlas

“In medicine, lives are lost in the slim margins between good and great,” surgeon and Harvard medical professor Atul Gawande told conference attendees at the second general session of ASCD’s Annual Conference. 

Gawande, who has written several articles and best-selling books, including The Checklist Manifesto, has spent his career mining the nuances that separate competence from excellence. 

During his talk, he investigated a core dilemma common to helping professionals in fields like teaching and medicine: despite expertise, “we all get different results.” 

To illustrate this point, among the clinics specializing in caring for patients with cystic fibrosis, there is a 13-year difference in life expectancy rates between patients at the very best clinics and those at good clinics.

On the surface, Gawande saw no difference between these clinics. But by observing the practitioners at work—in particular, a doctor in consultation with an especially reticent teenage patient—Gawande uncovered the roots of tenacity, bedside ingenuity, humility, and teamwork that drove all members of the clinic’s medical community.

“Genius doesn’t make you great; how you work in a system does,” he observed. 

One doctor or teacher might make a difference, but not for long; going it alone is a recipe for burnout or reaching a plateau. Not only do the best in their field get better by working as a team and continually planning for improvement, but they also employ a set of “external ears.” 

He related that even renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman acknowledges that “the great challenge in performing is hearing yourself,” and so he uses a coach. Paradoxically, seeking this kind of help is perceived as weakness in many professional circles. 

“We’ve adopted a training ethic of self-perfection,” he explained. “It’s not only how we teach kids [to go to school, graduate, and then improve on your own], but how we teach ourselves.” 

That’s a narrow road to success, Gawande argues. In the world of athletics, they too believe that this model of teaching is a naïve approach to the human capacity for self-perfection. 

Consider that six months after a workshop, less than 20 percent of educators actually use the skills learned there. In contrast, if you pair your professional learning with a colleague who observes and reflects with you on your practice, studies show that 85 percent of educators are still using those skills six months later. 

That’s the difference a coach makes. They identify the small stuff that make good teachers great, Gawande related. 

Autonomy is highly valued in both the medical and education professions, Gawande said, but “self-sufficiency in a world of complexity will only get you so far.” When children’s success depends on a multitude of people involved in their lives, it will fall apart if each of us is doing our own thing, he added.

We’ve made sure we are our best, now, for the whole child, and we must help one another do our best, he said. 

“We are cowboys,” he concluded, “but we need to be pit crews.”


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Cognitive capacity means high performance in two domains:  independently and in community

• Holonomy - the study of wholeness
• Central to the mission is the focus on the duality of human existence - each of us lives an autonomous life with our own thoughts and emotions, unique talents and skills, and a personality unlike anyone else's.  Simultaneously, we live as members of systems, be those family systems or organizational systems.  the self and system are interconnected, interdependent, and inseparable.  ...creates tentions
  • Ambiguity and certainty; knowledge and action; egocentricity and allocentricity; self-assertion and integration; inner feelings and outer behavior; solitude and interconnectedness

5 States of Mind:

1. Efficacy
2. Consciousness - listen to their own listening, attention to self and others
3. Craftsmanship - CI
4. Flexibility - "Listen for what surprises you" not what validates you
5. Interdependence - see self as part of something bigger

Cognitive Coaching assumes that we are naturally self-directed, striving for a sense of freedom as a learner.  We are equally dependent on our environment to support our need to go beyond our current capacity...and to provide support for managing the tensions that creates.

Defense of learning:

•  invites a person to move from a signiticant expereince to making meaning of the experience in a manner that leads to transferring learning into the future.  Without reflection, teachers are doomed to repeat patterns of behavior. (Goal - give opportunities to reflect so that they internalize the process.)
• We remember and store generalizations and guiding principals - not specifics.
• Ask the reflector to link impressions with data that support those impressions.  What achievement occurred?  How link to instruction?  Cause - Effect
• always end by reflecting on the process.

Academic Talk:

• Behaviors:  pause, paraphrase, and probe for specificity
• the pause provides time to think for both the coach and the teacher.  It allow for space to engage in the behaviors of complex thinking and reflection.  Pausing has been shown to create an increased level of cognitive functioning in students.
• Paraphrase - when people hear their own words reflected back in a rephrased manner, it is often the first time they attend to the meaning of their own thinking.  It is the social construction of placing one's thinking in the middle between the coach and teacher and examining it with one's own words and then examining it a second time through the coach's paraphrases that causes a reshaping and deeper examination of the internal thought processes that may habe been previously unexpressed.  Without language being put to the inner thoughts, they remain inaccessible and cannot be modified.
• Probing for specificity is on one coach increases the teacher's precision and craftsmanship.  Words are simply an externalization of thinking.  When words lack specificity, it is often a reflection of lack of clarity in thinking.  Probes bring focus and clarity to words that allow us to move them to action.
• Inquiry - intention to broaden thinking to more divergence.  It is an invitation to explore.

Given the percentage of time that teachers wills pend with coaches, versus the amount of time they will spend on their own, the coaches who enter conversations as consultants are not doing all that they can to build the self-directedness of the coaches.


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Dylan Wiliam - 6 Secrets to a Happy Classroom

Multiple ways to respond:

Something we can all learn from: how to improve teaching techniques

* Stop students putting their hands up to ask questions – it's the same ones doing it all the time. Instead introduce a random method of choosing which pupil answers the question, such as lollipop sticks, and thus engage the whole class.

* Use traffic-light cups in order to assess quickly and easily how much your students understand your lesson. If several desks are displaying a red cup, gather all those students around to help them at the same time.

* Mini-whiteboards, on which the whole class simultaneously writes down the answer to a question, are a quick way of gauging whether the class as a whole is getting your lesson. This method also satisfies the high-achievers who would normally stick their hands up.

* A short burst of physical exercise at the start of the school day will do wonders for students' alertness and motivation. As any gym addict or jogger will tell you, it's all about the chemicals released into the brain.

* Ditch the obsession with grades, so that pupils can concentrate instead on the comments that the teacher has written on written classwork.

* Allow students to assess the teachers' teaching – they are the ones at the sharp end, after all. Letting pupils have a say is empowering and, if handled constructively, is highly enlightening.