Better PLCs: A Coaching Call with Alyssa Tyra, Ep. 164 Instructional Coaching with Ms. B

Better PLCs: A Coaching Call with Alyssa Tyra, Ep. 164 Buzzing with Ms. B: The Coaching Podcast

Chrissy Beltran  00:01

Hey Coach, I know you’re out there hustling to get into classrooms and provide feedback that actually improve instruction. But meeting your teachers’ needs when you’re looking at a stack of sticky notes is just about impossible. I want to share a coaching tool that I know you’ll love. Digicoach is an app you can use on your phone designed for busy coaches like you and your administrators to it’s the perfect way to record your observations and notes when you visit a classroom. Collect data about what’s going on at your school and differentiate your coaching support based on the patterns you see. Some of my favorite features include the reports, and digit coaches pre written strategies and coaching tips to provide specific feedback and help in those moments when you just don’t know what to say. Ready to check it out and make your workload so much lighter. Head to digicoach.com And tell them Ms. B sent you to try it out for free and provide actionable feedback to your teachers.

Chrissy Beltran  00:55

Are you a literacy coach trying to help your school grow their literacy practices? I have got the video series for you. This free email video course is all about the five priorities for literacy coaches in the first semester of school, it will walk you through the five areas of focus you need to have in place in order to grow your school into SLR practices. Change takes time, but we can make sure we’re on the right track by focusing on the right things. Get this free video course at buzzingwithmsb.com/literacy coach, you’re going to love it.

Chrissy Beltran  01:32

You’re listening to Buzzing with Ms. 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  01:56

Hey Coach, welcome to episode 164 thoughtful implementation of PLCs. Today this episode is a coaching call with my guest Alyssa Tyra, we are going to talk about troubleshooting their implementation of PLCs. We’ll talk about how to implement PLCs when it hasn’t gone too well in the past, what we can do to create purposeful PD PLC is that don’t run into a turn into a gripe fest. And that’s like a huge problem that many coaches have, and how to meet teachers needs with PLCs and make them really valuable. Before we get started, I just want to remind you that my course the competent literacy coach is going to be open for new coaches next week, not new coaches as in new to coaching new coaches as in new to conflict covenant literacy coaching. If you’ve loved chatting about PLCs over the last this last month, I know that you will love module six, which is all about coaching PLCs and teams of teachers, you can get on the waitlist at confident literacy coach.com. And then you’ll be notified when that course is open. So you can sign up right away. There are some really great new updates to to the reading and writing module. So I really would love for you to check it out. I’m really excited to get this episode started, because I know you’re gonna walk away with something valuable that you can try out tomorrow. So we’re going to welcome our coaching friend to the podcast. Welcome, Alyssa, I’m so glad that you’re able to join us

Alyssa Tyra  03:20

today. Hi, yes, I am an instructional coach for middle school, sixth through eighth, all three grades, all content areas. And it’s my first year, not only is it my first year, but it’s the first year the district has had instructional coaches. So it’s new for me, and it’s new for my teachers as well. So right now my main goal is to just kind of be in classrooms, given some feedback on instructional strategies and things like that. And then I’m heavily involved in the team meetings for the PLC process that we’ve also started this year. So my teachers have a lot on their plate. But I’m trying to help them through it as much as possible.

Chrissy Beltran  03:57

That’s fantastic. It’s a lot of work to get a new coaching program started. And it’s especially difficult whenever it’s a new program, because teachers are unfamiliar generally with having people in their rooms, that that alone is like a huge stressor. In my experience. People are like, What Why are you here? What’s happening? What are you doing? And so yeah, that can be a big hurdle to get over. So if you’ve already started visiting classrooms, and you’re having a good response to that, that’s a really great start.

Alyssa Tyra  04:23

Yeah, my teachers have been very welcoming. My principal did a very good job, kind of, I don’t wanna say warning, but letting them know that there was an essential coach coming and I’d be in their classrooms. And so far, I think I’ve been in almost every single classroom in my building, and I’ve got 34 teachers. So that’s great. Pretty excited about that. Yeah, that’s

Chrissy Beltran  04:40

a good start. So whenever we are thinking about your PLCs, you said that this year, you’re trying to kind of get PLCs rolling. And I know you had mentioned in your email that there had been an attempt to try them out previously, right. And now you’re like trying to really okay, this is the time it’s got to work. So can you tell me a little bit about how that going what you’ve already done, and what was tried the first time that didn’t go so well,

Alyssa Tyra  05:04

of course, so I was not here the first time that it happened. So I only have some stories from, you know, other teachers, but I think they just tried to do too much too fast the first time. And it really rubbed some teachers the wrong way that didn’t get full buy in. Some teachers even left, so just wasn’t a good fit at the time and the way that they did it. So this time, we’re going very, very slow. We sent 60% of our teachers to a training this summer on PLCs. And we came back and we hit the ground running with weeding weekly. And they’d get common planning time by subjects of science, math, things like that. We are currently breaking down and identify our essential standards. That’s kind of where we’re at right now. And each team’s a little at their own pace a little bit. But we’re really ready to start diving into CFAES and building this common formative assessment. So it’s kind of where our next step is looking to be.

Chrissy Beltran  05:58

Okay, that’s a great focus. Because that focus, once you have that in place, you can really use that to guide instruction in a meaningful way. So that everybody kind of knows what’s expected and where you’re headed. Have they had any kind of common assessments prior to this or not? Really,

Alyssa Tyra  06:14

some teams were kind of sort of doing them more like common into the unit assessments. Okay. But nobody was actually doing like real common formative assessments yet.

Chrissy Beltran  06:22

Okay. So this is going to be that’s going to be a big new step. And how are people feeling about that? Dude, have you done any kind of recon with Jonas,

Alyssa Tyra  06:31

I’ve got a couple of teams are really excited, ready to go. I’ve got about one team, that’s a little hesitant, mainly because the way their team is split up is a little bit more different. But not a lot of pushback. I think most of my teams are looking forward to

Chrissy Beltran  06:43

it. That’s terrific. Okay, so then what are some of the challenges that you’re currently having, as you are trying to, like, move PLCs into something really purposeful.

Alyssa Tyra  06:53

So my biggest first challenge would be my role in the team meetings, I go to all of them every week. And sometimes I feel like I’m wasting my time. I’m just sitting there because the team’s habit and they’re they’re identifying understands they’re going in the ELA meeting, I sometimes get too involved, because I wasn’t ELA teacher before I moved into coaching. So it’s like my sweet spot. So I just really struggle with what my role should look like in those team meetings when they’re working through these processes. I don’t want to be too overbearing, I don’t want to be not helping at all, either.

Chrissy Beltran  07:26

Sure, yeah. And do you feel like they are you said that they’ve got it? Are they really accomplishing what they’re setting out to accomplish? Are they doing this at deep levels? Or do you feel like it’s more superficial? How do you feel like the meetings are currently going?

Alyssa Tyra  07:39

And it’s a little bit of both, I’ve got a couple of teams that are really valuing this process, and some others are just doing it, because I’ve been told to do it. And so giving them the why I’ve been trying to do a little bit, I just don’t know if I’m getting it across the right way. Okay,

Chrissy Beltran  07:55

so one thing that might be supportive of kind of figuring out where teachers are at this time, and like talking about giving the why is starting out with sort of a feedback survey to get information from teachers about what they’d like to accomplish during PLCs. So it’s kind of like, okay, what would you like to walk away with at the end of this PLC meeting? What are some things that would actually save you time and improve your instruction in the long run that we can? Do you drink PLC? And so you’re talking about breaking down standards and stuff, but maybe there’s something okay, we want to break down the standard, but then I don’t know how to bridge that. I don’t know what that’s gonna look like in my classroom, I don’t know how to choose resources that are going to help me actually teach those things, because, okay, now I get that, but I don’t know how to implement it. You know, like, No, I know what it means. But I don’t know what it looks like when I teach it. Sometimes having teachers like model little pieces for each other of okay, this is the standard that we talked about, we give the example of ELA, you’re talking about finding author’s purpose. Well, this is a little strategy that I’ve actually used with my kids to help them find the author’s purpose. And then they put up a little paragraph and actually model for their counterparts about what that can look like. And so that might be something like easy and fun to add in. If teachers are comfortable with each other, then they can start to kind of share those ideas around the strategy. So around that standard, so it’s not just okay, this is what it means. It’s also this is what it can look like when you’re teaching it and kind of make that a little more maybe purposeful and meaningful. As far as your role goes, I it can look different in different places. I personally believe that at least as you’re getting started and possibly forever that coaches should probably be present, but that is my own personal thing. And everybody has a different idea on what that should look like. It does pull you from classrooms. So like whenever I did PLCs I was a facilitator for PLCs and I ran every every week on Tuesdays we had a 90 minutes with I’d have 90 minutes, the three grade levels on one week and then 90 minutes with the other three grade levels the next week. So we alternated and that pulled me a whole day from classrooms. I’d have maybe 35 minutes that I could pop into a room and that would be really it and it was Also very like, oh, gotta go, gotta go gotta go, you know, I spent a lot more time preparing for PLCs at the beginning. And then over time, I was able to say, Okay, you’re going to bring this, you’re going to bring this and start relinquishing that control, because you don’t want to be the boss of everything, for sure. reasons. But I do believe that it’s helpful for coaches to be there, because you can push the thinking beyond Check, check check into Okay, but how is this helping us? What does this mean, for our teaching? What is this going to look like in our classroom? How are we going to do things differently now that we have this new learning? So you can kind of you’re the one that can take the learning from, you know, completing all the tasks into actual meaning and application, if that makes sense.

Alyssa Tyra  10:44

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. I like that idea of a feedback survey, kind of see what, what people are expecting when they come into these meetings? And what would have worked best for them? I like that idea a lot.

Chrissy Beltran  10:55

Okay, great. Yeah, you might also consider what are asking what are some current challenges they’re having with PLC, and what can be done differently, because I know some of you might not have a lot of these issues. But I mean, many grade levels do have dynamic issues. And sometimes you might have a grade level or two that there are a couple of people who are like, I’m in charge of this, and you can just listen to me talk. And, and that can be a real challenge, because the people who would like to share and to get something more out of the session are not always getting something out of it because they’re just like shushed. Yeah. So, you know, it’s good to know, what is the teacher perspective on how things are going. Sometimes it’s surprising, because from your perspective, maybe you just don’t see certain things because dynamics sometimes are like, hidden from us. Yeah. And you’re new to the school. Right? So it’s a new coaching position, and you’re new to the school. Correct. Okay, so sometimes there’s history, and we don’t know what the history is. And it’s not that you need to know all the drama, but it’s helpful to know what’s happening during PLC. So you can if you need to create norms, did you create norms as part of a PLC process?

Alyssa Tyra  11:57

Yes, we actually created norms, the very beginning and then got some feedback from our PLC consultant and kind of tweaked them a little bit because they were too generic, but we do have norms in place. So. Okay, and

Chrissy Beltran  12:06

others working for you? Yep. So far, so good. Okay, good. Do you have somebody who actually, like points them out if it’s not happening? Or is that your responsibility? Your How does it work?

Alyssa Tyra  12:16

So we have some teams have like roles, but we haven’t really gotten to a point where we’re holding each other accountable yet. I think it’s still trying to mesh together and just fill each other out. We’ve got some new people and some younger teams that are still just trying to figure out how to work together.

Chrissy Beltran  12:31

Yes. Okay. So you did you knew your PLC training? Were you learning? Did you go through like the whole norming, storming, forming all this? Okay. So right now you’re doing a lot of norming. Right, you’re still learning how to work together, who’s kind of got skills in what area what everybody’s strengths are? And, and that’s, that’s a good place to be. Because, I mean, you have to start somewhere. And it’s good to say, Okay, this is what we believe is important about PLC, and we’re going to work together to accomplish these things. So if you set your goal as accomplishing something, what are we going to walk away with, I think it’s super important to have a purpose and even written down like just like a lesson, like an objective or target in the in the lesson. Teachers need to know why they’re there. And so sometimes we, we force people to sit through these things. And they they’re like, and thank you for what, like, I don’t know what I just got out of this. This was my 45 minute planning time, and I spent it in here with you, and I still don’t have anything to show for it. So if we say what people will walk away with, and it’s like a tangible thing, that can be really helpful to get buy in, that can be helpful to create purpose through the whole meeting through the whole session. So if you’re like, let’s say, you’re breaking down your standards about nonfiction texts, for example. And they go, Okay, I’m gonna break it down. But I still what am I walking away with? I added some knowledge around those standards, but I don’t know what it is. So you can say you’re actually going to walk away with two strategies you can use during this unit on nonfiction text. And so if you include that as an offer, like you either and elicit those from teachers in advance and say, Hey, I saw this really cool thing you did in your classroom with cause and effect. Would you mind sharing a little bit about that during PLC next week, and you kind of do the behind the scenes work to give teachers a leadership role, and you start, and it’s important over time to try to include everybody in that. Yeah. So that everybody has the opportunity to share something, and it’s not like, Oh, she thinks she’s amazing, but she doesn’t want to hear. But if you can kind of, you know, make sure that that’s like make sure that whatever the purpose is going to is going to be it’s actually going to happen by doing the behind the scenes work, that can help people walk away with a real sense of okay, I did get something out of that meeting, and I can try it this week.

Alyssa Tyra  14:40

So in a situation like that, where you know, sharing strategies, would it be good to also so back a little bit, so sixth, seventh, and eighth grade are all working on sixth grade standards together? Sometimes the seventh and eighth grade teachers may feel like well, this isn’t really involved me because that’s not what I teach. So I think it’d be beneficial beneficial to have a teacher share strategies and also talk about how it can be used in other classes as well and other grade levels and maybe even other standards that they’re talking about during that day. So I think that makes a lot of sense.

Chrissy Beltran  15:08

Yeah, that would be terrific. You can look at vertical alignment, and say, Okay, in this grade, they’re going to I don’t, I’m trying to, I’m trying to think of an example. But like, let’s say in sixth grade, that they have to identify something in seventh grade, they actually have to explain it, and then eighth grade, they have to apply it or something about how the verbs change. And then some of the nouns will change to some of the Okay, this one, we’re going to do figurative language, we’re just going to look at hyperbole. But then the next year, we’re going to add hyperbole. And I don’t know Athens and then the year after, you know, you’re, you’re adding something every year. So it can be really helpful to look at that vertical alignment, if you have teams of vertical teachers there with you, and say, Okay, let’s note the changes, what is an activity we can do that we can, like you’re saying accommodate, we can change it in one direction for sixth grade? We can change it in another direction for eighth grade? How can we make this more rigorous? What can we what would be the next step, because sometimes it’s not the same activity, sometimes it’s the next step. So what would be the next step that we would make it, you know, appropriate for your grade level, because we do sometimes see teachers, let’s say seventh grade, who are teaching things that might be more appropriate in sixth grade, or we see that grade teaching things may be more appropriate for eighth grade because of the level of rigor and complexity. So that could be a really helpful time to start kind of doing some vertical alignment work, and making sure that everybody understands where they fall, you know, the big thing was stay in your lane, right. And I don’t think we always stay in our lane, because obviously intervention and extension, we’re going to move out of our lanes. But whenever we’re talking about whole class initial instruction, yeah, we’re what is it that you’re trying to accomplish for your whole group of kids?

Alyssa Tyra  16:44

Exactly. So one thing that I I took from that, that I really like is if I could, if I go into classrooms, and I’m looking for, you know, specific strategies for a standard that they’re about to break down, I could, you know, take like, Hey, I love this, you know, let’s talk about it. So I really like my brain spin, and I’ve got some good ideas.

Chrissy Beltran  17:06

Oh, terrific. Yeah. What could that look like? What are you thinking?

Alyssa Tyra  17:09

So I’ve got some newer teachers that are pretty young, paired up with some teachers that are more experienced. So I think it’d be really nice to go in. And say like, okay, next week, they’re breaking down these 3/7 grade standards. So let’s see what’s happening now that can be used for this for that standard when I get to it. So for instance, I have one teacher on top, my head that is super strong in social studies, I could go in there, watch her for a little bit, not only just give her ideas that I now have ideas to share with other teachers, and she can share them and they like, kind of give her a leadership role a little bit.

Chrissy Beltran  17:42

I love that. Yeah, that’s so important to start building those connections amongst colleagues. And we are really in a great position to do that. Because we’re on the outside, we can say, hey, so and so’s really great at this, why don’t you take a look at this and you start building a little web, but then that is their, their, their collegial web like that is their support, and they can move beyond their own classroom and see how things are done in other places. And we can honor the experience and honor the ingenuity. And you know that I mean that we find it on all different levels. So I just I love that, that you’re thinking about how you can make that work with the teachers that you actually have.

Alyssa Tyra  18:14

Yeah, that’s perfect. I’m excited. Because one thing I’ve noticed is our our teams themselves, mostly mesh together, but across curricula, they don’t really spend much time together. So I think I’m even thinking about how I can create that web with other teachers in different curriculums. sharing strategies that way as well. So

Chrissy Beltran  18:33

that would be awesome. I love that. Yeah. Like writing across the curriculum, we should be writing all day in every class, we should be reading all day in every class. But teachers and other subject areas are like, Yeah, but what does writing look like in math? What does writing look like? And we know through research, that it can be incredibly beneficial, and I thought with my own students, but getting teachers to do that in other subject areas can be really overwhelming. So if a writing teacher says, Hey, I have this really easy paragraph format that you can use when you’re learning about a procedure of how to do something, and this can apply to your scientific method. This can apply to your, when you’re learning about general complex algorithms, it can apply to everything and other subject areas. And that’s something that they can share. And then that that math teacher goes, Oh, maybe I can ask her for help sometime.

Alyssa Tyra  19:18

Yep, exactly. That’s exactly what I was thinking too. So something else I want to talk about is the data portion of PLC. So we, like I said, we’re breaking out central standards, but I kind of feel like we’re looking at as a checklist. So they identified all their standards first and check that box, and now they’re breaking them down, so that they can create CFAES that I feel like if we keep continuing this pattern of just a checkbox, we’re gonna get to the end of the year. And nothing’s been done with those CFAES or those breakdown of the central standards. So we’ve just been just doing the act. So I’m really struggling with how to transition into where we’re still doing the work of breaking down the standards because that does need to happen. But we’re not spending our full 15 minutes every week just doing that. So would it be beneficial to have an agenda where we’re only going to break these standards for the first 20 minutes? And then we’re going to transition into something else? Is it worth the work to just break them down this year, and then maybe pick up next year and add a sec next step as obviously a base next year, add the data discussions next year? I see both sides. But I’m ready to do the data stuff now. And I think my teachers are too I think they’re ready to see the benefit of the work they’ve been doing. So just transitioning out into that type of PLC meeting I struggle with.

Chrissy Beltran  20:34

Yeah, I think that’s a great question. And some schools do stay for a really long time and very preliminary things. I can remember as a teacher spending almost a year just reading about PLCs. I was like, when are we going to actually do the L part? Yeah. We’re not community learning anything right now. So it was yeah, I personally think you move I think you keep moving to add benefit to teachers, so they walk away with something useful. And the main point is, how does this affect our teaching? So if we’re not using that knowledge to create assessments to create, to gather data to plan lessons, I feel like there’s no like, that’s the whole cycle, right? And if we’re not doing that, then we feel like well, what is the point of what we’re doing here? So I personally think that you feeling ready, and your teachers feeling ready means you go for it. And so you like and if you felt like you needed permission, because sometimes we do. So I think that you could create an agenda that would have different components of it. Like, for example, I can share a little bit about what our PLCs ended up looking like this took lots of time to get there. But what we would do is we had a separate data meeting once a week with each grade level. Well, it was a standing meeting. So if we needed it that week, we had it, if we didn’t have an assessment to look at, we didn’t have a meeting. And so but you could also do it this as a component of your planning. So whenever we would do our PLC time, it was largely focused on planning. And we would look at standards at that time, we would identify appropriate activities we would sequence then we would actually write lessons together sometimes. And that’s just what our teachers needed, they didn’t have a handle on the lesson planning, they didn’t have a handle on how to use the standards to plan of lesson with the resources that they had, and how to bridge all that to assessment. So that was like a whole whole process, we actually built assessments, what we ended up doing is we would build assessments, and then over the summer, we’d have all the copies made and the and this was backup paper pencil, you know, we’d have all the copies made. And that way, whenever the year happened, we could pull that assessment at the beginning of the unit, take a look at it, because the assessments were very tightly aligned to our state test and to the units that we had. And so we would pull those assessments out at the beginning of the unit and really, like, examine it, okay, what do we see happening here, let’s look at our our unit plan, or let’s look at our assessment and make sure that we are teaching kids the things that they need to be successful in these areas. And so we started out with the assessment planner, with the assessment as part of our planning, and then we would dig into actual planning of lessons based on the standards. So you can absolutely have a PLC meeting that includes multiple pieces, and they should kind of inform each other, you know. So you’re talking about building assessments during PLC? That’s the thinking that you’re having now, and about how often do people give assessments or what is the plan for that?

Alyssa Tyra  23:32

So that varies by team that’s kind of a theme with my school is it varies by team. Some have more, more sustained essential standards than others. And so our first focus is just to give those assessments when they feel necessary, depending on how many standards they have, I think most teams have between 10 and 15. So that’s about every two weeks probably is what we’re looking at. But right now, on a consistent basis, there’s I don’t think assessments are being given consistently, even formidably substantively the way that we probably need to.

Chrissy Beltran  24:06

Okay, so maybe coming up with a calendar and looking at your Okay, so we have this next, you know, six weeks, we’re teaching this, this and this, let’s build an assessment calendar around this, based on what we have to teach let’s look planet assessment calendar. And then we’re going to build those three assessments if there’s three or two or whatever. We’re going to build those assessments prior to starting this unit. So I would probably do it by unit if there’s a way to do that, you know, based on your curriculum, and then build out your calendar, you have some sort of scope and sequence. Okay, so yeah, I would probably use that as a guide, build out your calendar of assessments based on that scope and sequence and then and then use those to frame your PLC so Okay, we’re gonna give this assessment let’s take a look. What standards are we teaching this is the assessment let’s let’s break down the standard Let’s look at the assessment and examine it. And then let’s from there, we can go into strategies. And then at the top of the meeting, after you have data from an assessment, for the first half, or whatever piece you think necessary, you can go into digging into the data to see how it went. And then that can inform your next unit. Do we have anything we need to spiral? Do we need intervention? Do we, you know, what is it that we need to come back to? That kids didn’t do as well? What growth are we seeing that we can continue to forward in the next unit? So I think if you kind of have that cycle, if you get that cycle going, that might work for you.

Alyssa Tyra  25:37

I’m thinking, so I keep referring to my social studies team, they’ve been together the longest, I think three of them have been together 10 years, and the other two have been there for five years. So five years total, they’ve all taught together. And I can already like imagine going in and saying, Hey, let’s try something different. This time, let’s talk about what we’re about to teach. Alright, so when we teach those things, let’s, let’s break it down. And let’s, you know, build a assessment. And let’s create that common assessment so that we can look at the data the next time we get together. So I like the idea of the calendar for sure.

Chrissy Beltran  26:06

I love that you’re talking about piloting it with a group of friendly, who were like, go for it, that’s a great way to try it out, get out the kinks. And then you can be like, Okay, now that I’ve had a little comfort, a little familiarity with this process, we’re going to try it out in another grade level and kind of rolling it out without jumping in on everybody and be like, this is going to be the most stressful PLC day of my life. I think baby steps is a great way to go. Especially if they so they have been doing standards, like in order standards, but not an order of teaching. Is that what they’ve been doing? Correct? Yes. Okay, so yeah, maybe looking at how they’re bundled in the unit, that would be a great way to kind of structure your calendar throughout the year for PLCs. I think that would work out really well.

Alyssa Tyra  26:51

Okay, so another thing that I was kind of thinking about is, so like I said, I’m every team meeting unless something comes up and I can’t be there. How can what are some steps I can take to ensure that my teachers feel comfortable going through this process without me there? Even though sometimes I just kind of in the, you know, in the back, just kind of watching? I’m afraid that when I’m not there, they’re not as comfortable to step up and get that process started? Like there’s not really a natural leader in some of my teams. Okay, so I mean, I’ve thought about like, picking a team leader, but I don’t I want everyone to feel equal in the in the meeting as well. So I struggle with that.

Chrissy Beltran  27:30

Yeah, I would say even in strong teams, that where everybody feels equal, somebody has to say, Okay, let’s get started. Right. And it does, it can make it tricky. So maybe having, you know, a consistent approach that you do things a consistent set of questions that you use, so that everybody knows what’s coming next. And then there are roles, or you’re using roles within your PLCs you said we

Alyssa Tyra  27:54

are well not sometimes kind of have like, okay, an official roles, I did find some way sources for official roles that I think I want to put into place, I just haven’t gotten to it yet.

Chrissy Beltran  28:04

Okay. And you can always, if you assign roles, and you don’t necessarily have to do the assigning, you can have them talk about it as a team and decide, that can change. So it’s not like, Okay, I’m the leader of, you know, facilitating, you know, keeping us on track with our agenda. But that doesn’t mean they always will have to do that. That can change every six weeks, or whatever it is that you feel needs to happen. But I do think it is helpful to have somebody who is going to say, Okay, let’s get the ball rolling, guys come on, because it’s not, it’s just like, well, we’ll kind of chat for like 20 minutes, and then we’ll look at whatever is on our agenda and kind of like rush through it and get it out of the way, even if they’re finding value from it even because there’s always going to be somebody who just had a terrible parent conference, or who just had a fight, you know, outside at lunch, and they’re gonna come in wanting to vent about that. And that’s not the worst thing in the world. But if you have an agenda, and somebody’s responsible to say, hey, you know, I know this is really stressful. And if you need a minute, go ahead and take a minute, that’s okay. You can take a minute by yourself in the restroom, whatever you need to do, I just want to make sure that we honor everybody’s time. And we kind of get through our agenda items today, because people are on the agenda, it says people are going to walk away with two strategies. And I feel like if we don’t get them, Matt, they’re gonna feel like they didn’t accomplish much today. So I want to make sure we get to that part. That’s the beneficial part to teachers. So let’s go ahead and get moving on this. And that’s, that is I think you do need to have somebody in the group who is prepared to be brave. And yeah, like, let’s get going. And you can I mean, it depends on how you feel comfortable doing it. You can go behind the scenes, but then I think it’s important that everybody knows that that’s going to happen, because if not, some people are like, what Yeah, who made you What are you who made you a facilitator, you know, and so it’s I think it’s helpful to make sure everybody knows who is going to kind of guide the left that meeting. You can even just do it whenever you know you’re going to be out. Yeah, because I was thinking okay, Yeah, you can you step in as facilitator for me who would step in as facilitator for me when I have to be out and make sure that all the agenda items are accomplished, and that all the everything is done purposefully Is there anybody who’d be comfortable doing that you can ask in a group setting. But if you have a grade level where somebody is like dominant, but maybe not always great for the group, you might have a conversation beforehand and say, You know what I’ve asked so and sort of step in and handle the agenda for me while I’m out next week. Yep,

Alyssa Tyra  30:27

I like that. I think there’s something I can do. And once again, I’m thinking about each of my teams after, you know, big piece of information and how it can work for each team. And I think that I definitely have some strong personalities that can definitely step up when I’m gone. Okay, great.

Chrissy Beltran  30:43

Yeah. And that’s, I think you’re right about is a team by team thing. Every single PLC doesn’t have to look the exact same way. Because not everybody needs the same thing. So that’s where that survey is going to be really helpful. What’s working in PLC? What would you like to see change? Is there anything that’s making this process challenging for you? What can I do as facilitator? You know, to make sure you walk away with something valuable? What would you like to accomplish? I mean, those are some basic questions you can ask to make sure that your, your teams are getting something really good out of PLC. So we’ll want to start coming. At first, when we started PLCs, I can remember my teachers being like, oh, and I was the same way. I was like, Oh, don’t worry. And then over time, I really enjoyed it. Because I love I love planning, but learning to plan with a team as a whole other animals. And especially a team that is totally new people, like I didn’t know anybody. And so that was a real challenge. But then over time, they’d say, Oh, no PLC is canceled next week, because we have whatever, well, maybe we can meet on another day for like a half one or something. So magical. Yeah, it took a couple of years to get there. But over time, as they are getting value from it, they will eventually feel like okay, this is something I can’t do without, because this is gonna help me figure out what I’m doing next week is gonna be like, immediately relevant. It’s not just information knowledge, which is important. But it’s also application, what am I doing? What is this going to look like in my classroom?

Alyssa Tyra  32:08

Okay, so I’ve got one more question. That’s more of a general coaching question, if that’s okay, sure. All right. So, in my slow times, so like, beginning of semester, in a semester, I find myself just naturally doing more admin based tasks. Because I don’t like sitting in my office doing the management stuff that I want to be out. Is that something I should continue doing? Because I’m helping I like to help? Or is it something that should continue to like, like, try to lay off a little bit just because I don’t want that line blurred at all with my teachers and, and I try to stay away from like, the teacher side of admin more like, just help them with kids and things like that. Like, I don’t do any kind of valuations or anything like that. But I get nervous that that line is gonna get blurred with my teachers. But I also want to help my school be successful when you know, a principals hooked up, or we’re short a secretary or something like that. So I really struggle with that line.

Chrissy Beltran  33:03

I think that’s a great question. I think that it’s easy to veer into the admin realm, for sure. Because you are a person with hands who doesn’t have a class. So they’re like, Great, let’s have you do this. But then over time, they can come to rely on you really heavily. And then you find yourself with less than less than less coaching time. So something to ask yourself in those times, is well how you said you want like your goal is to help better your school and do what needs to be done. You can ask yourself, how does a coach better their school in these times? What is something that a coach can do to change it to be ready, like support teachers to make change happen in classrooms? And I mean, there, I’m sure you’ll come up with some different ideas. I mean, things could be like, okay, thinking about some sort of school wide initiative that might support kids in whatever, you know, vocabulary or whatever areas, you’re seeing an area of need for finding resources for teachers that would help them do their jobs better, maybe do the things that they’re having trouble with. If you think about what challenges teachers have, and this is another great opportunity for a survey asking teachers about whatever challenges are having in the classroom, when you have that time looking at those, those surveys and that feedback and those challenges and saying, Okay, what can I do to support teachers in this area? Because this is what they’re asking for.

Alyssa Tyra  34:19

I like that idea. Because then I can even do specific, like more individualized coaching at that point. If I’ve got, like some free time. I hate saying it because not free time. Right. A slower time for coaching. Yeah, I can do more individualized, like okay, they sent me this, I can help find resources specifically for this. I like that. Absolutely. So I need I feel like I need to do more. Not like serving of my teachers to feel like to get a vibe for where they’re at. I don’t think I’ve done that enough this year. But I’m learning so I definitely are going to put a survey into place, one for PLCs and one for general and kind of get some feedback going forward.

Chrissy Beltran  34:56

That’s a great way to do it. Yeah, I like that. You split it up because PLC is We’re gonna be thinking about their grade level, you know, or their team, you know? And yeah, that’s what would be really good. I use the Google forums for surveys, three, the the most people are very familiar with how to use it actually have a resource for surveys in my TPT store as well, the feedback and surveys from for coaches, it’s I think it’s teacher feedback and surveys or something like that. Because, because yeah, that’s how it’s something that took me time to realize, but the more information we get from teachers, the better we can design our role and shape it in a way that actually gives them the support. And if they’re getting support from us, then then they feel like okay, you have value you are, you’re useful here. I’m not gonna, you know, I’m gonna be nice to you. I appreciate you. Yes. Awesome. No, no, I’m

Alyssa Tyra  35:48

very excited to kind of take some next steps. Now. I, I kind of felt I was on a low there, like, like, I had some meetings today that I was just like, Oh, you guys. Oh, you got it. Okay. Oh, you know your standards better than I do, because I didn’t teach the subject. So I’m looking forward to having a more active role in our meetings.

Chrissy Beltran  36:04

I love that. Yeah. As a facilitator, there’s so much that can be done to support teachers in growing that that collegiality, and that that camaraderie. And so I’m sure that you’ll find lots of opportunities to do it in interesting ways through your PLCs.

Alyssa Tyra  36:19

I’m very excited. Thank you.

Chrissy Beltran  36:20

All right. All right. Well, thank you, of course. All right, Coach, I hope that you got some ideas about how you can implement better PLCs that are more purposeful that teachers walk away with something really tangible and easy to use in their classrooms. I love coaching calls, I love to talk shop, so I’m so glad that Alyssa joined me today. Next week in Episode 165. We are starting our new series today wrapped up our PLC series. And so next week, we’re going to talk a little bit more about coaching cycles. I try to come back to this all the time, because obviously, it’s the bread and butter of coaching work. We’re going to talk a little bit about how you can coach with fewer meetings next week. And so I have some ideas about what you can do to minimize the number of meetings that you need to have because teachers I know are pushing back against having meetings in like pre conference and post conference. So we’re going to talk about some ideas and tools that you can use to make that work out for you. And I want you to not forget about that waitlist, grab that confidence or go to confident literacy coach.com If you are a literacy coach and sign up for the waiting list because next week, of course opens and I would love for you to grab it while it’s open. Until next week. Happy coaching

Chrissy Beltran  37:38

Thank you for listening to buzzing with Miss B the coaching podcast. What more coaching ideas. Check me out at BuzzingwithMsBcom and on Instagram at buzzing with ms 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!