Making School-Wide Shifts in Instruction, Ep. 159 Instructional Coaching with Ms. B

Making School-Wide Shifts in Instruction, Ep. 159 Buzzing with Ms. B: The Coaching Podcast

Chrissy Beltran  00:01

What’s your instructional coaching personality type? Have you ever wondered what superpowers make you a really strong coach? And what areas you could strengthen a little with a little direction? Well, now you can find out, I created the What’s your instructional coaching personality type quiz? To help you answer this very question. Just head to buzzing with mcafee.com/quiz with a capital Q to take the two minute quiz and get your coaching personality type sent right to your inbox. Even better, you’ll get a playlist of podcast episodes that are handpicked just for you to help you hone your superpowers and strengthen your areas of growth. I’m so excited to share this place with you. So don’t wait. Go to buzzing with Ms. b.com slash quiz with a capital Q and learn so much about your coaching fellow. Hey, Coach, Are you new to coaching starting out as a coach can be incredibly overwhelming, especially when you aren’t given much directions or your administration. That’s why I created the new coach’s playbook. It includes a roadmap to help you start building your coaching Foundation, and a guide to seven podcast episodes in order that will give you the steps and ideas you need to build relationships. Define your role, communicate with your admin and make a plan to start coaching. Grab it today for free at buzzing witness b.com/new coach and save yourself so much time and stress. You’re listening to buzzing with Miss B the coaching podcast where we believe that every teacher deserves a coach. And every coach does too. I’m Chrissy Beltran, an instructional coach, resource creator and coffee enthusiast, and I’m your host, stay tuned for practical tips and honest coaching talk that will help you coach with confidence.

Chrissy Beltran  01:47

A coach and welcome to Episode 159, making big shifts across your school, I am really excited to share this episode with you as a part of this series where we’re talking about a school wide coaching program and really providing support to teachers across your campus. We want to make sure that the support that we provide is relevant, it’s actually useful. It’s meeting teachers needs. But sometimes stuff happens that just has to change, right. And and we don’t always get to decide the timeline for that change. That’s just the reality of coaching in many schools. So this episode is for you. This episode actually came from a webinar that I did back in, it was April, and I did two sessions on helping your teachers make shifts and implement new learning. And so that’s what I’m going to share with you today is the information that I shared in that webinar. It’s not the webinar recording, because I find that that can be a little confusing, but it is the information I shared in that webinar. So to get started, before we even talk about making shifts, I want to tell you what I have that can help you do this work. First thing, it’s back to school, there’s a lot going on. And right now is the time to define your role and make sure teachers know what you’re there to do so you can provide support effectively. To do that, I want you to grab my first 20 days checklist. It’s totally free, you can go to buzzy with Miss b.com, slash 159. I’m sorry, buzzing with Miss b.com slash episode 159. And grab that first 20 days checklist. Okay, and you can also get my course that is designed to support you through starting up your coaching work whether you started two weeks ago, and you’re just hearing this now and you want to join, that’s okay. You can go to buds and goodness be.com/startup. And we’re going to get you the resources you need with a little video every day. For the next 20 days, it’s going to tell you what to do that day to make sure that your coaching work is well established, and you have a foundation that will serve you all year long. So that’s buzzing with Miss b.com slash startup. Let’s get started talking about making these shifts. Now whether you are thinking about making a shift, but you’re concerned that your teachers won’t embrace it, whether you’re working on maybe new methods or strategies, but most teachers are really resistant to trying anything in their classrooms, which we see happen a lot around this time of year, we’re rolling out new stuff and teachers are pushing back. Or you’re implementing a new method or program and many teachers are supportive, but there are some holdouts there’s going to be something good for you in this episode. What we’re all we’re all asking teachers to try so many different things, right? We’re looking at behavior and saying we need to move into more fvl practices, and we need to align our behavior strategies. We’re looking at reading ability and writing ability and saying we need to embrace more evidence based research and practices and strategies and say, okay, so how are we going to take some of this so our knowledge that we know that comes from this bank of research and apply it to our school, and there’s so many other things we’re asking teachers to do all the time, looking at data, meeting with PLCs all of these things are a real challenge because they are a change for our teachers. So why do we see so much resistance? Why is it so hard for teachers to embrace something new? Well, I don’t think it’s a surprise to anybody when I Say that teachers are really overwhelmed. They are, they’re struggling, this is a really hard time to be a teacher. Everything seems like the walls are closing in decisions are being made that have other people’s interests at heart and not teachers and kids, or even families. In many cases, they don’t have the resources that they need. They don’t have the time that they need to do all the things that are being asked of them. And they really just want to teach kids and it can feel like everything that’s being asked on top of that is impossible. Some teachers have also been left to do their own thing for a really long time. So then if you’re the person going in and saying, Hey, we’re going to try to do this new thing. They’re like, Excuse me, who are you? Now? What are you doing here? I don’t think so I know what’s best for my kids, I’m going to close my door and do my own thing, right? That thing bothers me if you’ve been listening for any length of time, you know, I cannot stand the whole, close your door and do what’s best for kids. Because that implies that you know what’s best for kids. And nobody else can tell you anything that maybe you can learn from right kind of extreme. They also might feel safe and comfortable doing what they know. And change is threatening to many different personality types. So let’s say that you are a personality type that has to do things the right way. Because if you do them the wrong way, then you’re bad. A little bit of my personality type, the Enneagram one, I was afraid of being wrong. So whenever a change comes up at me, I have to look at it and go, Okay, looking at this change means now I have new information, right? So I’m conflicted. And I say, okay, so I have this information. And I thought it was good. And I made these choices based on this information. And I thought I was doing the right thing. But now I have new information. And I have to evaluate. That means that I was not doing the right thing, even if that’s not the way we’re presenting it. That’s the way it feels. And so teachers might say that they think something is wrong or bad or not gonna work because they are so comfortable and, and content and feeling safe and doing what they’re doing. They feel like they’re doing it right already. They also might not have a vision for the change. They don’t understand the why why are we doing this? Why are we moving into this? Why is it that we have to do something different whenever it’s been working? Right? What regardless of what that definition is, they also may not be able to envision the practices in the classroom. So why what does this even look like? How does that work? How do you manage the students? What do they do with their manipulatives, all those things can be very overwhelming, if you can’t picture it. And many times, we cannot picture what we haven’t seen. We also need to make sure that we are in the right mindset whenever we’re thinking about supporting teachers through big changes. Because if we’re coming at it from a place of I’m going to tell you what you need to do. And I don’t understand why you’re not just doing it, if we’re coming at it from that place, we’re going to put that message out in the world, and teachers are going to feel it and they’re gonna, they’re gonna reject that and push back against it. So we need to get our head in the right place. And some things that we need to do in order to be in the right mindset are, we need to recognize and empathize with what teachers are going through. We need to ensure that we’re doing things to make ourselves trustworthy, because teachers have to trust us in order to take a leap and try something different. We have to start with a positive intention mindset. And by that I mean, we need to stop looking at classrooms and saying you don’t care you’re not doing here, you’re not here for the kids, you’re just trying to collect a paycheck. When we think those things, it impacts the support we’re able to provide with our team to our teachers, regardless of what is happening in that room, we have to look at it and say they are trying their best. Now, you might look at some classrooms and go there is no way this person is trying their best. And I’m not saying you’re wrong. You’re you could be right. But if we come at it with that mindset, it interferes with our ability to do the work. So in the interest of supporting teachers, so we can support kids, let’s come at it with the intention, the mindset of the teachers have positive intentions for their work. And for kids. We also need to really watch our language. And so sometimes we’re showing teachers that we want them to stop doing one thing and start doing another thing. And that one thing we’re telling them to stop is like their whole teaching identity. And I’m not saying they’re not bad practices, they’re absolutely bad practices that have got to go. But whenever we come out of attacking those practices, without supporting them in through the learning process, so they can make meaning out of it. We’re adding to the problem because we’re just like everything they hold dear. We’re just there to destroy it. So we have to be really thoughtful of our language and criticizing practices that have been in place because teachers have been doing their best when they’ve been doing those practices. And many of them, we told them to do. So we have to be careful because learning changes over time and our understanding of things changes over time. And if we are criticizing what teachers are currently doing, we’re criticizing their best efforts, doing the things that they could do with the knowledge that they had. So, in order to support teachers through these big shifts, we have to be really thoughtful about the approach that we’re providing our teachers. And one of the things that we can do is expect resistance to new things and make a plan for it. How are we going to respond to the resistance? What are we going to do to support teachers through acquiring this new thinking and implementing it in their classrooms, we can’t just go, Okay, I’m gonna do a PD, they’re going to do it in the classroom, it’s going to be amazing. It’s not the reality, it’s not going to happen. We need to start with the why a rationale for why we need to move into something, and really focus on what is working for students. And we’ll talk in a minute about how we can do that and really talk about with hard numbers. This is working for kids, this is not, we want to help teachers reflect throughout the process, instead of just expecting that they embrace new things, we have to help them understand that it’s okay to say they’re having a hard time with something or they’re struggling with something. And we need to give them opportunities to talk and write about that. We also need to be open and upfront about ourselves. And how change is hard for us, too. We can talk about changes that were hard. But that turned out well so that we can understand that we can share it with teachers, we know change is not easy, but they can have a positive outcome. Another really great thing to do is to identify what is saying the same, you can even have them write out their schedule, or you know what their their lesson plans look like, and highlight what is going to stay the same on this.

Chrissy Beltran  11:22

What are we changing what is not going to be the same, we’re not going to highlight. But if we’re going to keep something, we’re going to highlight it and the majority of things are going to be highlighted. But we’re gonna make adjustments to some of those other things. And we need to provide opportunities for teachers to see things in action. We often spend PD, you know, doing a matching activity, talking about something giving them a slideshow. And those things can be great components in a good PDE. However, if teachers can’t see something in action, they’re not mostly going to do it, most of them are not going to be ready to accept it. Most teachers cannot envision what something looks like when they have never seen it. It’s not something that most people can even do. So we need to make sure that we have opportunities that teachers can see it working in action, before we expect them to just try it out. They don’t want to try it and fail because even though that’s not a bad thing, they may feel like it’s a bad thing. It’s going to damage the way that they work with their kids. So we have to show them that it can work in order for them to say, Okay, I believe in this and I’m going to try it myself. We’re going to talk about four things that you can do with teachers to help them embrace the learning and try it out in their classrooms. Okay. Now the first one is, we need to start with data. And what I want you to think about is how can we look at data differently because I have sat in many data meetings, and teachers are looking at overall percentage of something they’re looking at pass fail, they’re totally comfortable with a bell curve of students where a ton of kids are not doing too well. And they think that there are justifications for this well, that child is, you know, special ed, Oh, this one is, this one has dyslexia, Oh, this one has that is ell. And whenever we write off those kids, as they’re not going to do well, because they have this label or this qualifier, we are hurting our kids because we’re not giving them the opportunity to grow. So what we need to do is look at data with a different lens, and try to really understand what is happening. We need to understand that what has been done in the past isn’t meeting students needs. Now you have to really think about what kinds of data can you use to show the need that you’re working on. If you’re moving to SLR, you can use decoding assessments, fluency checks, common assessments, you may have even looking at reading levels, but really looking at like, how did we arrive at that level. And let’s look at the errors that the kids made. What’s holding them back. So maybe you did use Fountas and Pinnell in the past, maybe you have used different kits to assess for comprehension and stuff. Look at the errors that the kids made the exact errors, teachers should be coding those errors, they should not get the mark in our work, we should be coding the air so we can see what is holding our kids back. What is keeping them from being successful. And if we can see that there are lots of decoding errors, for example, on words that they should be able to decode. Well, then that tells us we’ve got a gap there, even if that’s the only data you have, you can use it to demonstrate a cap, right? If you are moving towards behavior, one thing you can consider is collecting data on referrals on when those behaviors happen on who they’re happening to most of all, and instead of looking at them and saying, Oh, well that’s so and so he had he’s had issues since Kinder Oh well, that’s this group of kids. They always struggle you know, you know, during PE okay, what can we do? We can be proactive and design school to be supportive of our kids. Nobody else can do it, we can. So what can we do to make sure that we are meeting students needs proactively, and address the areas that maybe we have been complacent about before. From there, we want to work together to solve some problems, okay. And so we’re looking at the data, and then we move together to implement some solutions, you can identify possible solutions with your PLCs, I highly recommend communicating all of this through your PLCs. And really learn about how the solutions could work. So let’s talk about like some brainstorming. We’ve identified some areas of need. And now we’re gonna identify what something we could try. Let’s brainstorm. And then let’s learn about it and figure out what’s going to work for our kids. So if we, you know, going back to my Sri example, if we are seeing kids struggle in certain decoding skills, but what tools do we have already that we could use differently to meet their needs? What is something that we can go learn about? Can we investigate some resources and see which ones might work best? Where’s the gap, we have to really understand the problem, so that we can make good decisions around it. And then we have to understand what possibilities there are, for us to answer it together. My second recommendation is to try a less more strategy. This is a really simple way to make change. And it’s really good when you really work with maybe grade levels, or PLCs, or individual teachers, because you can really differentiate this by their need. Basically, you’re going to focus on what is going to stay the same that we already know. And then you’re going to look at your goals for what you want your students to do. And find something you’d like to do more of that could help you reach that goal, then you’re going to look at your current schedule, and your current current components of whatever you’re working on. And your current approach, if it’s behavior, for example, and find something you’d like to do less of. So let’s talk about behavior as an example, maybe what we want to do is have more morning meeting or more morning meetings, we want to have morning meetings, because we know that whenever we do that we set kids up for the day, we give them a calm space, we address their feelings, we prepare them for functioning throughout the school day, in the best way, because they’re part of this community. And we have addressed some of the things that we’re seeing as a class. If we want to do that, we need to find something that we’re going to do less of. So maybe what we’re going to do less of is morning work, maybe we don’t have time to do a handout everyday in the morning, that doesn’t seem to make any impact anyway, maybe we don’t have time to do you know, 20 minutes of handwriting practice every day, we’ve got to pull back from that. And that’s just an example. I know, many schools do not do that. But we have to identify the place for it to go because whenever teachers add something, we have to take something away. We don’t have to take it away from them. But we have to take it away from their workload, or else where’s the thing going to go that we’re adding, it’s just too much. So then we need to build a realistic schedule to make sure that that less more strategy is really going to pan out whenever teachers try it in the classroom. A third thing that you can do, and it was one of my favorites, and one of the favorites for the people that participated in the live webinars is you can provide choice within limitations. Okay, we can’t give them you know, all the choices in the world. If our goal is to work towards fixing this issue that we’re seeing on our campus and growing our students in specific ways, we just can’t, but we can give them choice and how they go about learning the new stuff. So basically, you’re going to create a choice board for adults. And you’re going to create a choice board or a bingo board with different learning options on it and have teachers choose which options they’d like to try. First, you can create a fun incentive and opportunities to share. And you can also do it as like a PLC challenge. So maybe your teams, your PLC teams are working together to complete one bingo board. So fourth grade, they’re going to divvy up all the different items that are on that bingo board, and then they are going to whenever they’re done with that, they’re going to complete it, turn it in, and the first team to do all the items, they win a prize, give them a Pio for 50 bucks from the office for office supplies, and they will love it. This is actually part of the resources that I’ve added a couple months ago into my in my store is PLC toolkit for instructional coaches. And so if you buy the whole toolkit, it includes all of the PLC tools for different kinds of work that PLCs do and how to set them up. It includes tools for looking at data together, planning together, learning together, creating assessments together all sorts of things. If you just want this little piece, you can get the PLC forums for learning together. And the learning choice choice board is one of the tools within that little resource or you can get the bundle and get it all at once. It’s really good resource. And it includes the editable learning choice board so you can change that to make it to say whatever you want, or you can use the options that I already created and just go with a low prep, low prep option.

Chrissy Beltran  20:02

You can also this is my fourth suggestion, run a small pilot program. The idea is here that you will start with a quote friendly. And I have said this before, if you’re going to try something new and scary, start with a friendly, just start with a friendly, it’s better for everybody. And then you can build it out to include others, you basically want to identify one thing that that classroom can do that could create change. And you can do this alongside of your friendly teacher, you’ve looked at your data. And then you’re going to talk about well, what can we do, you can take pre assessment data, co plan and co teach using a new strategy or method that could I could solve that problem. And then take post assessment data. Once you have your data, you can have the teacher lead a PLC or a PD session, and share the results with their colleagues and ask Who else would like to try it. And then you can turn that into more training for teachers in that specific area, and roll that out into your whole team instead of just one individual teacher. What’s fantastic about this, and I have actually done something like this before, is because the teacher is the one who is providing the PD who is sharing the results from their classroom, other teachers are so much more likely to buy in. And I did this with mentor sentences. Once I had a fourth grade teacher to fourth grade teachers who were excited to try it. I worked with them, they tried it. And then one of them stepped up as a teacher leader, and actually trained other teachers in it during a kind of a teacher led conference that we had. And I cannot recommend doing this enough because coming from that teacher is so meaningful because they know that it worked in their classroom. One last thing I’m going to share that was one of the other things we talked about in the webinar. During my live webinars, I put a lot of information in there. So if you ever have the opportunity to join, when I recommend that you do, but one thing that we can do during our live or during your your PLC time is you can leverage your PLC to support troubleshooting. So basically, you’ve got a problem that you’re struggling with, you put that problem up. And teachers are going to work together to talk about how they solved it, how they have struggled with it, what it looked like in their classroom, you can talk to them about the challenges and how they’ve been overcome. So leveraging your PLCs to support that work is a really great way to get your teams to work together, as well as to ensure that your teachers are actually walking away with ideas that are going to benefit them in a real classroom, because it came from teachers who are talking about their own real classrooms. So that is those that’s what I have for you today. You’re going to help your teachers implement new learning by trying those four ideas plus leveraging your PLCs I think it’s a great method to make sure that teachers have everything that they need to do the new stuff successfully and to get them in the right headspace. I want you remember we have our first our startup instructional coaching course you can grab that at buzzing with MS b.com slash startup. And next week, I am actually talking to a coach we’re going to do a coaching call about how they are working on getting teachers to implement new learning as well. So they’re going to talk about some of the things that we’ve been looking at over this last month, which is our school wide support approach to support and helping teachers actually implement the new learning so that it is meaningful and impacting students every single day. That’s going to be episode 160 And until then, happy coaching

Chrissy Beltran  23:30

Thank you for listening to buzzing with Miss B the coaching podcast. Want more coaching ideas? Check me out at buzzingwithmsb.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!