Implementing New Learning: A Coaching Call with Ryan Monceaux, Ep. 160 Instructional Coaching with Ms. B

Implementing New Learning: A Coaching Call with Ryan Monceaux, Ep. 160 Buzzing with Ms. B: The Coaching Podcast

Chrissy Beltran  00:01

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Chrissy Beltran  01:47

Hey, coach, and welcome to Episode 160, helping teachers embrace new learning. This is a coaching call and you’re gonna get to listen in as I help a coach think about how they can support their teachers implement implementing a new approach. Now I have shared some of this information over this last month, we’ve had a lot of talk about how to help teachers embrace new learning and making big shifts across your school. If you haven’t listened to episode, the episode where I actually share my entire embrace new learning with your teachers webinar, I definitely recommend that that is going to be in Episode 159. Making shifts across your school. So definitely go back and listen to that one if you haven’t. But I’m going to talk a little bit about why we’re having so much trouble with this. Right now teachers are really overwhelmed. And it’s a hard time to be in the classroom. There are things that coaches can do to support students through teachers. And so sometimes that requires change. And right now there are things that need to change in order to support students. Absolutely. And so it can feel like we want to pull back because teachers are a little overwhelmed, and they’re stressed and they’re frustrated. But then we’re not making the change happen for students. And that’s our responsibility. So whether it’s behavioral or instructional change, it’s going to be hard to do. But it’s also important. If you’re struggling to help teachers try something new in their teaching. This episode is for you. So I cannot wait to talk about this important idea with my guest. I know you’re gonna walk away with something valuable that you can try out tomorrow. So let’s welcome our coaching friend to the podcast. Welcome, Ryan. I am so glad that you’re able to join me today. Thank you for having me. Of course. Yeah. Would you like to share a little bit about yourself and your coaching work so our listeners can kind of know exactly what your job is?

Ryan Monceaux  03:36

Absolutely, I’d love to. I am a social studies specialist for middle school, and Goose Creek consolidated Independent School District and Baytown, Texas. Essentially, I service six campuses have approximately 40 teachers that I support. My job encompasses everything from writing the curriculum for sixth, seventh, and eighth social studies on level in honors, writing the assessments we have all common assessments for each unit across the district providing PD so I design and then present professional development for my teachers we have some days that are set aside throughout the school year and then of course over summer we have offerings that they can sign up for and attend so I do pretty much everything social studies related for all of my social studies teachers 678 to try to get those kids ready for for eighth grade star

Chrissy Beltran  04:33

okay great yes I’m I’m in Texas to I don’t know if you realize that I’m in El Paso Texas. Yeah, so I’m, you know, pretty far away from you. But But yeah, still the same state. So we I dealt with a star as well, when I was a campus coach, it look a little different than they’ve made a lot of changes. You know what they love to do, but yeah, it’s a big one. So, as you are working on this, you’re providing PD or you’re creating assessments, common assessments for your district. You’re looking at the data you’re sharing grant where to go? What is the main challenge that you’re having as it relates to helping teachers embrace and implement new learning?

Ryan Monceaux  05:10

There’s a couple of really big challenges that I face. One would be data. When we, when we get together and we meet, I analyze data from a district level, I bring it back to the teachers, and either on a campus or in a team, I break down the data, I help them understand what the data means. In terms of not, not just pass fail, what does it mean for their teaching? Because we’re supposed to be data driven, all the research shows that data should drive us but that doesn’t translate to the teachers, they they see the data, and one of the biggest things they instantly do is start making excuses. Well, I have a lot of vote for or I’ve got a lot of Ed. Well, that question was bad, which, you know, it’s easy to poke holes in the question because I make the test. And so then they just start dismissing things, or at the very least, if they don’t do that, they’re just like, oh, yeah, that was a bad what? Okay, let’s move on to the next unit. And there’s no reflection about what was done or how it can be done differently. The data is just another thing that the people above them, force them to look at, and then they move on.

Chrissy Beltran  06:28

Yeah, that is very difficult. I feel like especially with a subject like social studies, we’re only and it’s unfortunate because we test Social Studies at very specific grade levels. And then other grade levels may or might may not think it’s important. It is incredibly important. We can see as a country, it’s incredibly important. So we really need to be prioritizing that work and bringing it in throughout the day, as well as its own special dedicated time. And it’s hard because it tends to get the backburner. It’s the subject that people probably spend the least amount of time on in many grade levels when they don’t have a dedicated, you know, timeframe to do it. And so it’s, it is an uphill battle for sure. So I know that you’re facing some very real struggles when it comes to looking at data there. And then other coaches have faced similar issues. Just because people don’t enjoy looking at data, it feels like a failure. It’s the whole sense of, of punishment around data instead of what you’re saying, which is, what are we going to do now? What’s our next step? So my first question is, do you have a data protocol or a data routine that you’re using with teachers as you try to get them to look at data in meaningful ways?

Ryan Monceaux  07:45

No, I don’t have anything formal, like a worksheet or anything. I do try to approach it. I’ve been very cognizant, looking at it from a growth mindset. I’ve had teachers that have manipulated the data, they’ve done some less than honest things to increase their data. And I know they do it, but I don’t come down on him. I don’t call them out. But when you have conversations with them, the conversation is always about it being punitive. And I’m like who’s punishing you because when I come in, I talk about how can we improve? How can we increase student’s understanding of these concepts? Never is it? Well, you did this wrong, and that teacher was better than you this campus is kicking your butt like, I don’t even share across campus information, because they want to know well, what place did I come in? This is not a race. You’re bracing yourself? What place did you come in versus last year or last unit? It’s like, that’s what we need to be looking at. So getting them to stop looking at it as punitive. And that’s a whole culture change. I don’t know that I’m big enough to do that. Because it’s not just social studies. I know that but to try to get our teachers to look at it from that growth mindset.

Chrissy Beltran  09:03

Yeah, it one thing that you could consider is setting the tone at the beginning. And you know, as you start a new round, or looking at data or something like that, you can establish like, Hey, this is this is why we’re doing this, do they understand why they’re looking at data because maybe they don’t have a sense of what the intent is. And so if they say, Okay, we’re gonna look at data so that you can walk away with a plan. We’re gonna look at data so that you leave this room knowing which students are going to intervene with, you know, you’re going to make like thoughts, something that they’re tangibly going to walk away with holding their hands take back to their classroom, and that they can actually do and maybe that is one way that they can feel like, okay, this is supposed to be a productive conversation, not just talking about my failures, because you’re right, that is a whole culture thing. That is a huge systemic issue. Teachers are sometimes punished and it doesn’t sound like that’s what you’re trying to do at all and but it does happen enough that I feel like they attach it to looking at data, even if it’s not happening. They will feel like everything’s an attack. And it’s not. It’s just a question. Yes. You know, we’re not attacking, I’m trying to figure out what’s going on. So we can figure out what to do next. I used to have a teacher who would come to me and in tears after every assessment, Miss Christie, they’re just, I just, you’re just, you’re gonna get me on this one. I was like, what happens when I get you? What does that even mean? She was like, No, I just feel badly about how I did, she felt badly. And she was like, everybody’s gonna be so angry at me. You know, I said, That is not what we’re doing. We look at data to figure out what to do next. And I said it probably 100 times in the years that I work with her, we look at data to figure out what to do next. That is the purpose of data. And finally, over time, she started saying, Okay, we’re just going to figure out what to do next. Right. And it was like this huge anxiety that she was carrying. So sometimes they’re coming in the door, it has nothing to do with you. It just the anxiety they’re carrying, you know, that they walk in with and, you know, things have happened in the past that maybe have exacerbated it. So maybe setting up like, Okay, what is the purpose of data? Is that a conversation that you’ve had with teachers, like an explicit one, I have

Ryan Monceaux  11:13

an the problem with my role in with PD, is I meet with teachers every year, we have turnover. And so it’s hard to know, like, you know, I don’t have a schedule of like, every 18 months. So there are teachers that certainly haven’t been privy to that conversation. And so it’s worth mentioning when we have that to school again, just as a refresher, but if it’s something that does, because it’s basic, and you assume they know it, and you do mention it, you know, but I don’t necessarily mention it every time we talk. So it’s always worth making sure they understand.

Chrissy Beltran  11:49

That could be Yeah, because you’ve done this conversation so many times, that by now you’re like, well, obviously, this is what we’re doing. But teachers feel like this, he’s coming in, and then you’re not on campus all the time, you’re not a campus coach, right now you’re off campus, going in to have these conversations. So it’s scary, they are scary. So somebody from the district comes in, and they’re gonna tell me about my data. Oh, my gosh. So then if we can set up at the beginning of those meetings, you know, remember, this is the purpose of data. And this is what you’re going to walk away with and really have a, a purposeful, you know, artifacts that they’re going to leave with. So that it feels like okay, this is now what I’m going to go back to my classroom and do. It just gives them a sense of okay, that meeting was for this intent. And now this is how it relates to my classroom. You have, do you have any thoughts on what that could be?

Ryan Monceaux  12:37

Yeah, I mean, I like the idea of having something. So I go back and forth, because I think something structured something like you said an artifact, I get the point of them walking back, they have it with them. And that makes complete sense. And it, it’s something I haven’t tried, because it feels like another hope I’m filling out this document because you’re giving me this document and isn’t translating to what I want it. And so I border between trying to maintain the relationship and the relaxed atmosphere. We’re having a conversation, and we’re just talking things through. And here’s your accountability for our conversation. So you know that something conductive came out of it. And we actually did something. So Right. And then feeling like it’s just more just more on their, their plane.

Chrissy Beltran  13:26

I can completely understand that. Because when I started coaching, I had to do planning PLCs with grade levels. And I remember I was like, well, we’ll just, we’ll just brainstorm some things that will do. And I had a very, like, the way that I would plan was like, Oh, well, what experiences do I want my kids to have in this unit? And how can I sequence them in a way that will support them? You know, Matt, did not translate? No, they’re like, I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what that is, what am I doing on Monday, it was, it was a very stressful situation, when because I didn’t give them enough structure, I think. And over time I gave so much structure, then I was able I had to pull some of it back. So it was kind of it’s like you trying to find the sweet spot for sure is a challenge. It could be maybe not a document where they have to record all kinds of things, but maybe something where they make a plan for what they’re going to do with the data. So maybe even if it’s just like a sticky, a sticky note, you can start small, right? And it doesn’t have to be really complicated. So my sticky note is on my sticky note, I am going to like what am I going to do with this information? As a result of this data, I realized and because of this data, I will and then what are they going to do? You know they are and they know they’re going to walk away with something that is expected to be implemented in their classrooms, so that they’re not just having conversations about explaining why they failed. I’m doing air quotes here. So you know, maybe having that dialogue and having maybe some questions that you do work through because if they are uncomfortable with talking about it, then they’re reverting back to the justifications and and of course vetting the assessment. It is Normal to say, Oh, well, this question, kids interpreted it this way. And that’s, you know, I’ve written a lot of assessments and those questions, they do come up, it happens as much as we try to be careful and thoughtful. It happens.

Ryan Monceaux  15:12

It makes me a better assessment writer. So I don’t have to take it personally. But that’s not the ultimate answer. Yeah,

Chrissy Beltran  15:18

that’s not the reason for all of the data, right? Maybe it’s a question or two, here or there, but not probably on every assessment. So if you have some questions that like, Okay, let’s get back to this, you know, setting some norms and some procedures for those meetings, might be supportive of teachers actually walking away with something that they will carry into their classrooms. Does that make?

Ryan Monceaux  15:39

It does and I think you gave me a good idea, because I’m thinking it has to be some sort of heavily structured formatted document. But like, just if I could just get them doing one sticky note, what’s one thing from this conversation you’re going to implement? I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s a process, right? So I can get them in the first nine weeks just doing a sticky note, right? Maybe by the second nine weeks, we can come up with a couple of things, you know, and over time it builds and, and then they ultimately start seeing the benefits on it. And then yeah, I can see that working.

Chrissy Beltran  16:15

Okay, great. Yes, yeah, if you start small, it’s not as threatening teachers, like, we’re used to writing one thing on a sticky note, at the end of a PD, it’s kind of like normal practice. So maybe that would be helpful. And I like like that you’re, you’re thinking about building it over time, because then we can say, Okay, now we’re good at this. We’re comfortable with this. We’ve gotten better at having dialogue, maybe focused around a few questions. And I know, you’ve you’ve probably seen those PLC questions, you know, what will we do when they when they’ve learned it? You know, those kinds of questions, though, those are, I hate to undermine all the work PLC has ever done, but I don’t, I don’t love them. To be honest. I get why they’re generic. They’re generic, because then everybody can use them. Right. But I feel like more specific questions, especially because you’re looking at data specifically for a content area, maybe could be helpful, like, you know, what does this information tell us about what students know? And what does this information tell us about what students don’t know? What does this data data is just information? All it is, is information and a numeral form? It’s a number form, right? So kids are telling us something, and we’re just trying to figure out what they’re telling us, you know, through that information through those numbers. So what do these numbers tell us about our students, so maybe some questions like that, that are more like, focused on students, and what they know and what they were able to demonstrate. You also might, because you’re seeing a lot of hurdles, which is normal at first. And whenever teachers are not used to that process, you might start out, just giving them like a quick write for a couple minutes, where they write all the excuses. And I don’t want to say give me all your excuses. But you know, where they write all their feelings, maybe about the data just for a few minutes. And they just write write write? Out? Yeah. And it’s not that it’s not valid, because it is we I mean, people are struggling with a lot of things right now. But it is kind of like, okay, then we don’t have to spend the whole time talking about it. And if you want me to read yours, I’m happy to read it, you can leave it with me. You know, if you want to communicate something with me, that’s fine. I would be happy to read it. But But yeah, let’s talk a little bit about our feelings and for the data to have a conversation about that for a couple of minutes, and then kind of move into these three big questions we’re going to answer today, using this information. So maybe reframing it that way, and structuring it is a loose structure, but it still would be a bit more of a structure, because I’m guessing that you asked a question and maybe get crickets. Yes, or complete?

Ryan Monceaux  18:36

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, and, and getting them to a point where they can do it on their own, you know, because, you know, six campuses, and so I’m not there every day. The downside, of course, for social studies is we don’t have a common planning period. But that, you know, they’ll meet usually once a week, and I’m not every one of those meetings. So it’s me giving them skills, and like you said, building it up. So that way, when I’m not there, they’re capable of asking the same questions to themselves and going through this process, not because a district person told them to do it, but because it’s beneficial.

Chrissy Beltran  19:12

Then they find, yeah, they find value in it is what we want, right? We want them to find value. And we want them to say, Oh, this is something I would do, even if we didn’t have a meeting, I would sit here and look at my my information, I would look at what my kids told me through their assessment, and then I would figure out how to respond to it. And so I wonder if you could get it would be valuable or not, if you have some a few teachers who are you know, really good at looking at numbers and figuring out what to do about them. If you could meet with them and kind of put together some like three big questions. We want to answer at every data PLC meeting, to kind of guide the conversation, because that is something that over time teachers could walk away with teacher leaders could facilitate with other teachers, department chairs, things like that could facilitate with their with their teachers using those guiding questions.

Ryan Monceaux  20:00

Yeah, absolutely.

Chrissy Beltran  20:02

Yeah, the thought on what those questions could be

Ryan Monceaux  20:07

one that popped into my head a couple times throughout this conversation would be something along the lines of like a connection. How does this concept because I always think of in terms of particularly social studies, seventh and eighth grade, it’s it’s sequence. So well, I can’t talk about that, because we weren’t, there’s no point in reaching. We’re past that, right? I reteach Sam Houston, when we’re to, you know, the oil like that. I can’t bring him but but there’s concepts there if they can’t, how does this concept or how can this Miss item missed? Question, move forward or cross contents? Because a lot of seventh grade is going to overlap in eighth grade along these social studies concepts? They do. They’re circular they repeat. So how can we apply that going forward? Because when we say, this question, or this, this concept was missed, how are we going to reteach it? They always want to go back to rehashing what we’re going to talk about this person again, notice events, again, in a warm up

Chrissy Beltran  21:14

discrete information rather than thematic idea or concept. Yeah, that makes sense. Right?

Ryan Monceaux  21:20

So how can we approach how can we approach this going forward, not just in our grade level in other units, but also in future grade levels?

Ryan Monceaux  21:28

How is this a bigger issue?

Chrissy Beltran  21:31

I wonder if you could bridge that to your PD somehow?

Ryan Monceaux  21:37

I think someone Absolutely. That it seems

Ryan Monceaux  21:45

like a monster to attack right now just at this moment. But just thinking about like, how would I? Because you know, it is whenever you go into a PD, where you’ve got a mixture of 678, they all look at it like what if I give a seventh grade example, my concept? Oh, we’re always doing eighth grade, eighth grade star tested. And so if you know, you have a big group where you’re trying to hit this, this concept that is not content specific, but you’d have to use content to illustrate it, and they shut down. I don’t need this. It’s for US history. I don’t mean there’s it’s for world cultures. So. So that’s, that’s what I’m thinking is like, how would I do it present the items and we have the discussion, but not shut them down? Because it’s not their content. So yeah, absolutely can be done, but not in this window of time, right?

Chrissy Beltran  22:35

Sure. Oh, yeah, sure. This is maybe a long term thing, right? This is like throughout the year, how you can keep coming back to it. I do. Remember, this is a long time ago, I remember my seventh grade social studies teacher. And she, I remember her talking about themes, like big thematic ideas and how they affected different events throughout history. And she talked about that even talked about, like geography, how does geography, geography affect all these different events throughout history? And so I wonder if you could kind of isolate certain there may be something out there. I’m not as familiar with that. Certain, like, maybe six themes, or I don’t know how many themes like I mean, obviously, like, you know, conflict, you know, things like that, that you could then say, Okay, this PD is about this theme, I want you to pull out, like they have to brainstorm and figure out how does that theme relate to their their own teaching? And then kind of make plans for how that will be embedded in their teaching? How will that show up? How am I going to refer back to this theme throughout this unit that I have coming up?

Ryan Monceaux  23:41

Yeah, yeah. If you do have a group that’s mixed, and that gives them an opportunity to vertically align some stuff?

Chrissy Beltran  23:47

Yes. Yeah, exactly. So if you vertically align those themes throughout your grade levels, then that’s language that we’re coming back to with kid, right, we have six big things we’re focusing on in grades this through that, and these are the things that we’re going to have the you know, every unit, we’re going to connect it to one of our themes. And we’re going to make sure that are like concepts, like you said, and we’re going to make sure that our students understand what that concept looks like, throughout all of these, whether I’m teaching geography, whether I’m teaching, you know, world history, no matter what I’m teaching, I can connect it back to one of those themes. And then my kids will understand how this idea this event is bigger than this one event, how it connects to other historical events, because we see patterns in throughout history, and we see humans do certain things when certain circumstances are at play. So, you know, maybe we can make those connections with the teachers so that they can start making those connections with the kids.

Ryan Monceaux  24:44

Absolutely, and, and soul size is all about making the connections. And I think that’s, you know, we often spend time talking about the kids not making the connections and they’ll complain about that, particularly in eighth grade. But then I want to say, Well, you’re not even making the connections like we’ve we’ve got to Get all of our teachers thinking about those, the way things intersect. And like you said, history is cyclical. And there’s patterns. And we’ve got to find those patterns, because then it makes it easier whenever they go to higher grades. And I’m looking at that more complicated stuff. Like, I’ve seen this pattern where they’re not going to remember, you know, what, what Andrew Jackson did, or you know, even Boston, but they can remember the concept of, you know, conflict or whatever.

Chrissy Beltran  25:29

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we can. And I liked that, you’re saying that cuz you’re right, teachers are so focused sometimes on discrete information, because that’s the way the test looks. And so the test unfortunately, shapes the way that we see our content, the way we decide what is important, and what is not important that it has an effect on teachers, because the stress level of kids being successful on this assessment is so very high. So teachers are like, okay, like, kind of in our brain, the way whenever we sleep, we our brains sorts out, that’s important, that’s not important. I’m tossing that teachers are subconsciously doing that through this constant, like looking at the test. And it’s, I mean, it’s just like, it kind of dominates that it creates a framework in your brain. So you filter your content through it, unfortunately, right, instead of writing at the world and saying what’s important, we have to look at this document that somebody arbitrarily created. And so that makes it a real challenge, I think, especially in those like science, social studies, those content areas that are about information, but also about big ideas, you know, and concepts. So we sometimes focus more on the information, because we’re like, Okay, this is what they have to know by this day. So maybe if we can pull teachers out of that a little bit, that will focus and give them something that they can look at, okay, like maybe in your PD, you’ve got a lesson plan, and they’re going to talk about what is a really engaging way you can introduce this lesson that relates to the concept, and they’re going to create a plan that they can then implement in their classroom, something that they created, so hopefully, they’re likely to do it. It’s not something we gave them. Cuz sometimes when we say, Oh, you could do this, you could do that. They’re like, Oh, that’s nice. Thank you, and then they leave and do what they were already going to do. You know,

Ryan Monceaux  27:11

you know, that actually brings me to the second major obstacle, which is, when we do PD, and we give them something, a lead forward strategy, or an avid strategy or something from John Hattie, that, you know, I read, and, and like you said, I don’t just give it to them. It’s like, okay, well, how is this applicable for your content? They create something. And I have no doubt that most of my teachers hear what I say. And they’re like, that sounds great. Like, you’re right, that’s logical, that would help our kids. But I feel like most teachers nowadays are really just in survival mode. And they’re just, it sounds nice.

Ryan Monceaux  27:54

I don’t have time for that. Even I mean, even if we try

Ryan Monceaux  27:59

to present it, like, in the long run, this will save you time, and this will be better this day, still always fall back to what I’ve done. And that kind of goes back to the data thing, even if what I’ve done hasn’t been successful. I’m more willing to do what I know, based on its moderate level of success, then take a chance on something new, even if it sounds like it could be better. And so trying to get our teachers to walk away from the information that we give or from the coaching or from the PD

Ryan Monceaux  28:32

and and then be able to put it into practice.

Chrissy Beltran  28:40

Yeah, you reminded me of something that I read once about, it’s actually about raising children. But I mean, it has. It affects everything, that we look for patterns that we’re comfortable in, just and we’re comfortable in, because we know them, even if they are not good for us, or even if they are not, like even if we don’t feel good in the moment, we at least know what to expect. So we revert to those things. Even if we don’t think it’s really working that well. We’re just like, well, we don’t this is what we do. This is where my body is feels comfortable. And, and that’s what we see with teachers sometimes too. Like you’re saying they’re so overwhelmed. They’re they’re at, I mean, they’re just trying to stay afloat. And so then sometimes they’re just stuck. And even though they know something might be great, they go back to what they already know how to do. It’s ready. They’ve done it before they know what to expect. And it just feels safe. It feels safer than trying something new. I wonder if there are some ways that you could encourage people because really, it’s about taking a risk, right, which we’re in stress mode, we don’t want to take risks, right? Whenever we’re worried about the economy and our you know, we call our financial advisor we’re like, no, no, I don’t want any with anything risky, right? I just want to keep it low risk, you know, because we’re so worried we don’t know what’s going to happen. And so maybe like I wonder what the ways that you could encourage teachers to take risks. The first one that I thought of too, but I’m sure you’ll have better ideas. The first one that I thought of was featuring teachers who do try something new. And taking a little video of the of that strategy, or even just a picture of what it looked the student work look like, and then featuring it somehow, to other teachers, whether you put it at the beginning of your presentation during your next VD. Or, you know, if you send it out to them, somehow, you could do that as well. But I mean, the next PD is probably the easiest method, because they’re going to be there. You can share it. Yeah. And you can even have that teacher talk about it. So even if one teacher tried something, that’s one person who can say, oh, yeah, I did that activity where we sorted this and that characteristics. And you know that, and it was No, it really worked. Well, the kids were really engaged. And then later, they were able to recall that whenever we wrote, whatever, you know, if they can share about that, then that can sound like oh, that’s not so risky, somebody did it. Maybe I can try it that it worked. At least I know, it worked for real students. Another thing is like a share fair. And I’ve we’ve done this in different ways. But one of them is you just have teachers bring artifacts of something they would like to share that they did. So it can be something from a PDE, you’ve given like you maybe you have five different strategies, you present it on that day. And then you say, okay, between now and the next time, you’re going to choose one to implement whichever one you want, and some can be very low risk. And then some can be higher risk, right. So maybe you have like, some people are just going to do some kind of, I don’t know, sticky note strategy with the kids. And some people are going to do an anticipation guide. And some people are going to choose to do a whole project. It’s just whatever you out of what you offer, they can choose one of those things, and then bring artifacts next time to share about it and then you set aside a special amount of time. There’s, there’s different strategies you can do that is like Kagan one, one stays the other stray where one person stays at their table. And so each person of all the other people walk around each table, and they look at what that person shares. You could do it that way. And then they take turns doing, you know, the turns walking and sharing, you can do just gallery walk where they stick it up on the wall, and everybody gets to walk around and see what it is. Or they set it up on an iPad. If it’s like something they did a video, you know, there are different ways for them to share about it. But getting them you can also do that by turning this school is going to have the share fair next time. And we’re gonna sit set 20 minutes aside for this school to share, or sixth grade is going to share and we’re going to set 20 minutes aside for sixth grade to share and other teachers will you know, observe. So you can do it that way, where you just dedicate a little chunk of time that people are going to say this is something I tried, and it doesn’t have to be. I completely uprooted my curriculum and started over from scratch. It can be even a small thing. I did a vocabulary sword before we read the chapter. You know, it’s something right?

Ryan Monceaux  32:52

Yeah. Any celebration?

Chrissy Beltran  32:54

Yes. Yeah, we just did you try something fantastic. You took something learned and you implemented it. And that’s what we want. And then they can be thoughtful about? Well, I didn’t really like that. Okay, well, what would you do differently? You know, how could you do it differently next time to make it work better?

Ryan Monceaux  33:08

Yeah, and I actually that

Ryan Monceaux  33:10

plays in something that I’m working on for next year, because I’ve been thinking a lot about student artifacts. And you know, as teachers, if I ask them to bring in artifacts for a lot of them, particularly in social studies, I think they are artifacts, or they did they wouldn’t have anything, it’s it’s a worksheet, or it’s done in Google. And it’s like, okay, so So you have nothing that your students have produced that you can show learning, and you want to be like, Okay, that’s not good, right? That’s not good. Right? Teaching. But I’m working on having at least one lesson per unit next year, that, you know, I’m basically saying here is you can, you can do it anytime in the unit. But here is a rubric for an artifact that you can create your students create. That way, when we meet PLLC, whether I go to this campus or that campus, we’re looking at artifacts, and we can start to have those discussions. And so by adding that, in that brings back the idea of bringing students artifacts. And and I don’t care if it’s the same artifact that you know, we talked about a PLC, that’s fine. Bring it to the whole group, and we’ll talk about it again. Yeah, but just incorporating student work into the conversation.

Chrissy Beltran  34:24

That is so important. And I think you’re right, because we I had seen that a lot as well. I’d say, Well, what is your strategy going to be? Well, I’m going to read and we’re going to discuss, so what are students going to produce? And crickets, right? And that’s like, but kids have to demonstrate they have to apply the learning somehow. How are they applying the learning? It’s not even just about getting a grade are you knowing what they know it’s about them processing it and using it to do something. And that that is a problem when we don’t have students creating artifacts and because that means they’re not they’re not doing anything. And like you said worksheets, fill them up. blank or multiple choice or you know, where they can copy directly from the book that’s not engaging them at very high levels. So I mean, worksheets can be great. It depends on what it’s doing. But you know, it. I mean, if they’re just grabbing whatever’s in their workbook, it’s probably not great. So, so yeah, I like that idea of making sure that you’re embedding a student product, and you can share different strategies, like, you know, one pagers are great, or like different things like that, that kids can produce Social Studies is, oh, my gosh, it’s the time that you have so much freedom to do cool stuff. I mean, you really do. And that’s what I used to love about, you know, in fourth grade, towards the end of the year, I felt like I had after our tests was over, and obviously, I taught social studies, I believe it’s very important. But after our assessment was over, I was like, now we can do the really cool projects. And everybody else was tearing down their room, and I was like, Look, what we’re making a comic book, you know? Yeah. So excited. And you know, six, and

Ryan Monceaux  35:53

seven aren’t tested. So it would be wonderful if a sixth or seventh grade teacher was doing something, just off the wall, and you’re not tested? I mean, who’s gonna come in and be like, don’t you do that? Like?

Chrissy Beltran  36:08

Yeah, I think I think if you share, if you get a couple people, and you start with the friendly, if you start with the people who are excited, you start with somebody who tries things out, and you get them to share about it, then over time, you can kind of build that, and it does take time for sure. But you can kind of build some excitement around it and some faith that it’s going to be okay, if you try new things, it will be okay. And steering, sharing student artifacts is great to people. I mean, I love looking at kids work, it’s so neat. You know, it’s just so cool to see what kids are produced in other classrooms and how it’s different than what my kids have produced. So you know, doing that kind of sharing could be a good way to do it. I like the bridge it to your curriculum, and increasing your focus on student work is a really good way to make sure teachers implement things because, yeah, how to how to it’s any, how do we know if it’s happening if they’re, if their students are not creating any creating anything? So that’s really great. I love that. I’m

Ryan Monceaux  37:02

really looking. Go ahead. Yeah, really, really looking at you know, we actually just did the work this week, we started on that those assignments and making the rubrics, looking back, use the back of the Cricut. And back at the TEKS. There were things that teachers would write in this rubric. And it’s like, okay, can you show me in the TEKS, where they look at legibility, handwriting, what you

Ryan Monceaux  37:27

seek is that,

Ryan Monceaux  37:29

because I because that’s not, I understand that you want it to be something you can read. But at the end of the day, we are assessing whether or not they got X, Y and Z, or you know, a teachers who would have this idea, this assignment, and it’s, it’s in the area of the content, but it’s not based on the standard. And it’s like, okay, well show me show me how this relates to the teacher. And then they start looking at it like, oh, it’s not in the TEKS. And it’s like, okay, well, maybe it doesn’t warrant an entire class period. Yeah, it’s a pet project, you can hit it like briefly, but we’re How can we alter it and put it you know, with some other stuff does hit fatigue. So that way we make sure because they, they’re doing a great job of teaching, and they’re, they’re pouring their hearts out. But sometimes it’s like, on the wrong, like, you’re treading water when you don’t need to be, you know, there’s not enough time to teach all this stuff. But half of the stuff isn’t the stuff that we said you need to teach you, I guess just do you need to teach or you remember about the content. So just getting them to stay to come always come back to what are the students doing? And how does it relate to the data and to the fatigue?

Chrissy Beltran  38:41

Yeah, just so we can be effective? Yeah, that makes sense. It’s, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s standards based planning, right. And then backwards planning as well, we connect it to the assessment and come backwards as well. If we, if you look at are you rubrics going to include like, is it gonna be like sixth grade rubric for this project? Like, where it actually includes standards in it? Or is it going to just be okay,

Ryan Monceaux  39:05

so that, yeah, they pick that, you know, we’re working on it by grade level by unit. So eighth grade unit one, it can be, you know, any part of that pick an activity? And and what are the kids going to produce? What’s fatigue? And then how, you know, how are we assessing that

Chrissy Beltran  39:22

meet? Do you have? Are you going to have some PD where teachers actually get to do those projects themselves?

Ryan Monceaux  39:28

I had not thought about doing that. But I think that would be wonderful, not only for them, but also for me to see if the rubric

Chrissy Beltran  39:36

works. That’s a good point. Yeah, if it is it actually matches as they’re actually going through the process of creating. And you could even share it that way too, because then they know there’s value, there’s value in them actually doing that work. It’s good for them to try it out. And then they also have a model, which I mean, setting up a model isn’t always the best way to do something, but I know that sometimes they’re going to want to do that. So if they like let’s say it is a one pager. or a newspaper, and they’re actually creating their little, you know, artifact their, their teacher one, you can tell them okay, as you’re going through this process, I’m going to be observing what it’s like so that I can make adjustments to the rubric. So when you use that rubric, when you’re with your students, we know that it actually is going to match the kind of work that they’re going to be, we want them to create, and it’s going to cover everything we wanted to cover. And that might be a good way to make it seem like important because it is important. And you want the rubrics to be usable. And then you could actually, another thing you could do is in data meetings, if those artifacts are important, maybe sometimes you’re coming together to look at the artifacts and score them together.

Ryan Monceaux  40:39

In calibrating Yes,

Chrissy Beltran  40:41

exactly. And, you know, what do we see? What do we see in our kids? What knowledge do they have the same questions, but applying them to the student work pieces instead of you know, hard data, because it’s just a different kind of information. So that might be interesting, too. And maybe teachers will feel more comfortable with that than looking at the numbers, they might open up a little bit more. That’s the point. Anything else before we wrap up? Wish me luck. Good luck, it’s it’s for sure. It’s, it’s a challenge. I know you have a heart, I know you have your workout out for you. Because when you’re not on a campus, it’s hard to build those relationships, it’s hard to get people to trust you. And it’s because people are inherently intimidated. Just automatically by any sense of authority coming from a central office, it’s that’s been my experience. I remember, I would work with these two coaches from central office when I was a new coach and couple of the teachers were like, Oh, they’re so scary. I was like, really? In what way? Are they scary, and they’re like, they’re just very frightening. They come into your room, and they just stay, you know. And they were not scary people. They’re very sweet. They’re very helpful. They knew what they were doing. But they were also very, you know, very kind. And so they just were automatically intimidated, because these people had an ID that said, central office. So it’s just stressful in that in that role. And so building those bridges with teachers, having those authentic conversations where you reach out and you communicate with them as much as you can is, is really important. Because you’re I’m sure you’re like What is there to be, I’m not a frightening person, but they just aren’t going to perceive it that way. So the more that you can bridge yourself to those teachers and to what’s actually happening in their classrooms, if you can ever like visit with them, you know, spend some time just getting to know them on some level. I know, it’s a lot of teachers and a lot of schools. But if you can do any of that work, it probably will go a long way to helping teachers feel more comfortable.

Ryan Monceaux  42:42

Yeah, you know, and I mean,

Ryan Monceaux  42:44

one of the things I really did well, when I was in the classroom, I feel was relationships. You know, I worked in a school that was completely unlike my demographic and a lot low income and a lot of discipline issues. And I did well there. And the reason I did was because I built relationships. And so I tried to do that with my teachers. But I feel like even that, I tried to get social events together, just so we can spend some time like not talking about data not talking about lessons. And zero out of 40 teachers, zero interest. Yeah. And so I’m trying, like, I want to be part of your world

Chrissy Beltran  43:29

right there. Like our world is very stressful right now.

Ryan Monceaux  43:34

I will break out in song.

Chrissy Beltran  43:36

Whatever it takes. That was my whenever I was a new teacher, that was my principals model chair that plastered on the gym, wall, whatever it takes. And she meant. Yeah, it is tough. But I think that if you if you start celebrating if you you know, start, you know, pointing things out that are going really well. And just and having those little celebrations where other teachers can see that and like caring, sharing the wealth when it comes to the celebrations as well. I think that over time, people will become more comfortable. And it just takes time for people to get to know you because you just don’t have as much time to spend with them. And then they are at their wit’s end. So it’s hard to move into that position for sure. Yeah, absolutely.

Chrissy Beltran  44:15

Good luck. Good luck. And I hope everything goes well.

Ryan Monceaux  44:20

Thank you. I mean, you know, I’m still here and I’m putting up the good pie and trying to find ways to help them out. If they will, I mean,

Chrissy Beltran  44:29

yeah. I’m so glad that Ryan came on today to have this conversation because this is an area that a lot of coaches struggle in. We do the learning, we do the work, we look at the data, we go back to the classroom, nothing happens. And that is a real challenge for coaches, especially when teachers are ultimately stressed probably at higher levels than they ever have been before. So it actually kind of led us into the new theories we’re starting next week, which is better PLC. We’re starting a new series about how to make your PLCs more purposeful, more productive, more meaningful to teachers, we want them to walk away with value and that way they are ready to do something different in their classrooms. So, next week I am chatting with Casey watts, about how to get PLC started if you’ve had a faculty who has never really worked together before, which is kind of what I walked into it as a new coach. And it is a bear it takes time but we’ve got some really good tips on how to help your team get started working together. And until then, happy coaching

Chrissy Beltran  45:41

Thank you for listening to buzzing with Miss B the coaching podcast. Want more coaching ideas? Check me out at buzzing with Ms. b.com. and on Instagram at buzzing with Miss B. If you love the show, share it with a coach who would love it too. Or leave me a review on iTunes. It’s free and it helps others find this show. Happy coaching!