Coaching Cycles: Your Questions Answered!, Ep. 168 Instructional Coaching with Ms. B

You have coaching cycle questions, and I am here to answer them!
Recently, I asked instructional coaches what questions they had about coaching cycles. I received a bunch of questions and wanted to record a podcast where we really dig into them. So get ready for this special episode – Coaching Cycles: Your Questions Answered!
Instructional Coaching Cycles
Coaching cycles don’t need to be scary! They can be a simple, natural process that you follow whenever you work with teachers!
In this episode of The Coaching Podcast, I tackle 7 questions coaches have about coaching cycles. You’ll get ideas for introducing coaching cycles, working with resistant teachers, and ways to end a coaching cycle. I offer practical tips for how to follow up with teachers when they have limited time to meet with you. You’ll also learn about focusing on small achievable goals, how to support teachers who have meltdowns, and what to do when your guiding questions aren’t helping you get through to a teacher.
Whether you’re struggling to get started with coaching cycles or looking for ways to improve your existing approach, this episode is full of practical tips and solutions to help! Listen using the player below or wherever you listen to podcasts.
7 Questions About Coaching Cycles Answered in This Episode
- How do I introduce coaching cycles to teachers?
- How do I deal with negative teachers despite having a positive relationship with them socially?
- Teachers are really busy and don’t have a lot of time, how do I follow up with them?
- When do I end a coaching cycle?
- How do I support teachers who have meltdowns about how much they’re struggling when they come to see me?
- What do you do when you feel like you’re providing guiding questions, but the teacher is completely off track from what you’re trying to get at?
- How do I start coaching cycles with resistant teachers?
Additional Topics and Questions Discussed in Episode 168 – Coaching Cycles: Your Questions Answered!
- Introducing coaching cycles to teachers by offering support in a specific area and in a natural way, rather than overwhelming them with a comprehensive plan
- Creating a coaching menu of support and introducing it to teachers
- Turning teachers’ complaints into coaching cycle support
- Using colleague visits to shift teachers’ perspectives
- Examples of how and when to end coaching cycles, including using the gradual release model
- Being a good listener and helping teachers identify what they want to work on during coaching cycles
- Using video with teachers during coaching cycles
- Starting with friendly teachers
- Giving teachers choices to help reduce resistance during coaching cycles
Grab the Coaching Cycle Forms here and start working with teachers today!
Join the Instructional Coaching with Ms. B Facebook Group
Still have more questions? Then you need to check out my Facebook group, Instructional Coaching with Ms. B. We’re talking about coaching cycles all month long! I did a Facebook Live about coaching cycles in the group. If you’re not in the group or you missed it, you can watch the replay which offers some great ideas and answer questions about coaching cycles.
Ready to listen?
- Ready to listen? You can listen below with the media player, or search for Buzzing with MS. B: The Coaching Podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts!
This post contains links to products from one or more of our advertisers. This means I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post when you click on links to those products. Thank you for your support!
Learn more
- Episode 163 – Writing Curriculum Together with Linsday Lyons
- Episode 165 – Coaching with Fewer Meetings: Texts, Video
- Episode 167 – 5 Options for Classroom Work in a Coaching Cycle
- Join My Facebook Group: Instructional Coaching with Ms. B
- Jenna Kutcher – Goal Digger Podcast
Helpful Resources
- Coaching Cycle Forms and Slide Show for Instructional Coaching
- SEL Tools for Instructional Coaches & Admin to Use with Teachers
- Buzzing with Ms. B TpT Store
- The Confident Literacy Course
- Instructional Coaching Start-UP Course
- Express Readers
- connecthub.io
Thank you for listening to Buzzing with Ms. B: the Coaching Podcast. Want more coaching ideas?
Check me out at buzzingwithmsb.com and on Instagram @buzzingwithmsb.
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, too. Happy coaching!
Podcast produced by Fernie Ceniceros
Coaching Cycles: Your Questions Answered!, Ep. 168 Buzzing with Ms. B: The Coaching Podcast
Chrissy Beltran 00:00
Spending time in classrooms is one of the most impactful ways we can support teachers and grow our schools. But all of that classroom work can result in tons of documentation that really goes nowhere. If you’ve got piles of sticky notes all over your desk and random collections of fonts and all of your apps, it’s time to consolidate Connecthub.io is a platform created by coaches. For coaches. It’s designed to help you organize your notes as you meet with educators and get powerful data on your impact in their classrooms. You can also use this information to support their professional learning and growth. Connecthub.io includes great features to help you protect the coach teacher relationship by providing different levels of account access for sharing only what you want with administrators. You can also customize reports to share specific kinds of information with your admin. This is such a great software for coaches. Check it out today at Connecthub.io to simplify your instructional coaching with a free trial.
Chrissy Beltran 00:56
As a literacy coach at an elementary school, I spent so much time trying to find the perfect supplemental resources for my teachers. That’s why I am so excited to share a special resource with you today. decodable texts are essential for students who are working on mastering phonics and primary grades especially, I have come across the sweetest decodable books that I love and my kindergarten daughter loves them to. They’re called Express readers. Each book has a complete storyline includes fun and funny characters like bug and duck. And the stories are engaging and increasing complexity over time as to the words and sentence structures on each page. Sticky words are identified in each book to help children with words they aren’t able to decode yet, or those with irregular spelling patterns. There’s a perfect resource for giving students at your school the practice they need and applying phonics skills, head to express readers.org and visit the Decodable Books page. There you can download a quick keys guide with teaching tips for each book, including teaching sticky word mapping, you can also get free sample decodable sent to your address, head to express readers.org If you’re building your phonics instruction, and you’re ready for some really great readers
Chrissy Beltran 02:11
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 02:35
Hey, Coach, we are well into our month of October, where we are digging into coaching cycles all month long. If you’ve been in the Facebook group instructional coaching with Miss B, then you know I did my Facebook Live earlier this month about coaching cycles. And if you’re not in that group, and you or you missed it, definitely head to Facebook to join that group. And you can watch the replay because I gave out some great ideas and answered some questions about coaching cycles. Today, we are looking in Episode 168 about answering your questions. You have coaching cycle questions, and I am here to answer them to the best of my ability. I am really excited to share this information with you because coaching cycles are in some schools, they’re like the way that people are coached completely and in other schools. And it’s like I really wish I could find time to do these right. So one of the things that I want to share with you before we get started answering your questions is a free download. For coaching cycles. If you head to buzzing with MS b.com slash Episode 168, you will see the show notes for this episode. So any links that I mentioned will be there. And if you scroll to the bottom, you will be able to get this free download it is tips for helping your teachers get excited and engaged in coaching cycles. And it actually includes a colleague visit note taker, a note taker that you can use if you have a teacher visit another teacher to learn from them. As I discussed last week in Episode 167, we talked all about how to get teachers to visit each other to really learn from each other as part of that coaching cycle work. So I am going to answer about about six questions six, seven questions that I received from coaches about coaching cycles so that I can answer them in this episode. My first the first question that I got is, how do I introduce the idea of a coaching cycle to teachers? And that’s a really good question. Because you kind of have an idea of how you expect things to go, but they might not. And so I think that the best way Personally, I believe the best way to introduce it is to not introduce it as this really complicated process, or anything really specific, but instead to say whenever you hear an opportunity, or whenever you get maybe at the end of a PD, there’s an exit ticket where teachers have to say what they plan to implement or what questions they have. You could take those things, one of those opportunities and you send the teacher message or you go visit the teacher and you say hey, I know you’re working on this I We’d love to help you with that, can we set up a time, so I can come start, you know, having these conversations with you. I can be here tomorrow during a conference or it’s Thursday better, I find that giving parameters tomorrow or Thursday better, is a better way than saying, When can I meet with you, because that’s overwhelming, we want to give some simple options. And that’s basically how I choose a coaching cycle, I would, I would say, this is the kind of support that I can provide to you once I met with a teacher and I would take a coaching menu and say, Okay, these are some different things that we can do together to help you work on this concept or this idea that you’re trying to implement. And then I would say, after we do, like, as we’re talking about it, we’ll say, Okay, we’re gonna plan to do coaching work together on this day. And then why don’t we talk about it again, on, you know, Tuesday, the next morning, so we can kind of debrief about how it went, and then figure out what we want to do next, I would just keep it really simple. I wouldn’t introduce it as a really scary process, or a big thing that teachers have to do. I don’t think there’s a benefit in doing that, honestly, I think it’s overwhelming. And I think it’s, it feels very inorganic, and like, you’re just checking off boxes. So that’s how I would introduce it, I would literally just say, Hey, I know you want to work on this, why don’t we work together? And if they don’t want to work on something, but they complain about something, guess what, that’s what they want to work on. So you they complain, and you say, I would love to help you with that. I know, that’s really hard. Why don’t I come by your room tomorrow, we could talk about it, they go, there’s your pre conference. And then you go through your pre conference, you do some classroom work together, and then you talk about how it went during your reflection. And it doesn’t have to be a scary beast, it can be a simple, natural process that we can follow whenever we work with teachers. And I think that what I would introduce more formally, is what kinds of support you can provide. So if you didn’t do a coffee with a coach, or cookies, or cupcakes with a coach at the beginning of the year, and if you didn’t do a anything like that, to formally introduce your, your, your role, and your what you can actually do to support teachers, I would do that. And I would create a coaching menu that shows the different ways you can support teachers. And with those tools, I would explicitly introduce what your job is, and what you’re there to do and what your vision is, I actually teach teachers coaches how to do this in both of my courses, I teach them how to do it in instructional coaching startup. And for literacy coaches, I teach them how to do it in the confident literacy coach. So from from after that you’ve introduced what you can do for teachers, it’ll be a more organic conversation whenever you actually go to work with an individual teacher. Okay, question two, how do I deal with negative teachers, despite having a positive relationship with them socially, I know what you mean, I’ve seen this teachers who can be very friendly and perfectly nice. But then whenever it comes to the work, there’s a lot of negativity about the work and about trying something new. I think that what I would do in this situation, one of the things I might do is use that positive kind of outward social sentiment that you get from them, and turn it into a colleague visit. That is one of my biggest go to answers for working with a challenging teacher, because a colleague visit means that you take that teacher and you put them in another classroom, and they get to see some teaching happen. And they get to see teaching happen without saying no, that won’t work. Because because it is working, it’s right in front of them. They might still say that won’t work for my kids, because and then we would say, Well, how would we make it work? What do we need to change to make it work? How can I help you do that? But we definitely want to set them up to say, oh, things are possible. I could try that. And they just have to go see it happen. So that’s one of the easiest ways to deal with that negativity. And that person who shoots down all of the possibilities and says that won’t work. I can’t do that. No, no, no, I don’t want to or, or I just don’t want to work with you. Okay, don’t work with me. Let’s go to your colleague, let’s see, see, like something that they’ve got going on. If there’s something specific that needs to change, you can specifically choose a colleague who demonstrates that as a strength for them to visit but if there’s not an even if there is, but they’re just so resistance to everything. You could just say what do you want to see if you can see anything if you can make one thing better in your classroom, if you can help? If you could make one change that would make you feel better by the end of the day? What would it be? And then go find the teacher who does that really well and take them to see them? That’s my recommendation. We’re dealing with those teachers, show them things that are possible by getting them into other classrooms. And also, you kind of capitalize on that social goodwill. If they’re socially and they’re just fine, then they probably will be more likely to benefit from seeing another person because they have that social connection with other people as well. Okay, this question, question number three. The challenge I have is following up teachers are so busy and they don’t have a lot of time. And that’s a good question. I actually worked on I gave a podcast episode on this just a few episodes back that was coaching with fewer meetings, because one of the issues is getting into those classrooms to have meeting with meetings with teachers. So that’s episode 165. And one We, in that episode, I shared mostly different technology tools that you can use to work with teachers, when you don’t have the time to sit with them, and they don’t have the time to sit with you. It kind of honors your time because they can listen to this while they’re like, if you leave them a voice memo, they can listen to it while they’re driving home, you know, they can, they can do it whenever they have a couple of minutes, rather than having to have a whole special dedicated meeting time to sit with you. It’s not always possible. That’s just the reality of schools. It’s unfortunate, but it’s true. So I do recommend that you check out that episode, because it’ll give you different ways that you can work with teachers, when you don’t have the time mutually to sit together. The next question, when do I end a cycle? That’s such a good question. I think this varies, I am very big on responding to teacher needs. I don’t believe there is a one size fits all answer to learning. I didn’t believe that in the classroom. And I don’t believe in as a coach, either. In working with schools or teachers, I don’t think there are some things that we can have a standard processes. But I think that we need some flexibility. And so in responding to teachers needs, we need to end the cycle when they need us to end the cycle. And that can come at different times. One example is I was coaching somebody I had taught with her years before she was a great teacher, but she was in a different classroom. And she was with a different group of kids at different grade level. And she was struggling to figure out how to support kids. That’s such a it’s such a wide range of levels. She was a dual language teacher. So she taught some things in English and some in Spanish. And it was just a bear figuring out how to put her schedule together and how much time to spend on different things. So I said what do you how do you want me to support you because she was a pretty
Chrissy Beltran 11:47
self pretty much a self starter, she seeks learning out people like that you say, what do you want to do? And you can give them options on your menu. But if they have an idea, go with it. Because they they’re they’re self starters, they want to learn they’re ready to go. So she said, I just want you to I don’t want I just want to see it. I just want to see it. I said, Okay, so I modeled in her classroom for a few days. And at the end of the third day, she goes, I’m not trying to say anything bad. I just, I think I’m good. And now I want to try it. I was like, great, she ended the cycle, I was fine with that. Because she was confident in trying things out. She was I want to try it out a couple days by myself. And then can you come back and watch me? Awesome. She set the plan, she set the tone. And I followed her lead. And it was great because she was a self starter. Some people want to cycle to go on forever, because they’re really nervous and afraid. And they’re like, What am I going to do when you’re not here. So in that case, what I would recommend is following kind of a gradual release model. So we want to do, we want to start out where you’re modeling first. And so they’re seeing everything happen. And then you’re thinking aloud and saying this is what it looks like whenever this is why I’m doing this, this is I made this decision because I see this many percent of kids are doing this or this many kids are this. So I’m going to respond in this way, then you’re going to move into co teaching. So then they’re going to have responsibility and you’re gradually shifting more and more of that responsibility to them. Like in the gradual release model, right? I do as the modeling we do. So we do I do with your help. And then you do with my help. We’re gradually giving them more responsibility and the co teaching model, then you can move to Okay, I’m ready, I think I think it’s great for you to try this out yourself. You can support their planning as much as they need that. And then you’re going to sit and watch, you’re going to do some observing. And then you say, I think that you should take some time to try some things out without me around here feeling like I’m like standing breathing over your neck, and like peeking over your shoulder. And I’m going to come back and check on you in a week. And so you can gradually taper off support. Again, timing. I don’t have an answer in terms of days or weeks. I think some people do like six week coaching cycles. To me, that’s wild I that was not ever the structure of my school. So I think the longer cycles that I did were maybe two to three weeks. And that was within Iraq interruptions between because one day, it was PLC all day meetings and another you know, so it was not like every single day, but it was maybe three to four days a week for two to three weeks. Those are my longer cycles, my shorter cycles were two to three days. Because I was getting in there doing what we need to be done and then moving out, you know, and that was not the only way I supported teachers were coaching cycles. I supported them through many, many strategies. So that is my recommendation. You end a cycle when supporting the teacher further is actually at their detriment. Because they need to try things out. Everybody needs to play with stuff. And so I think that we kind of have to feel it out for each teacher if they are you ready to do this? We can ask them Are you ready? Would you like more support in this area? Are you ready to try that out? I can come back and we can support you on something else. But if you’re ready to do this on your own, I say go for it. We sometimes have to push the little baby birds out of the nest and we all So don’t want to overstay our welcome to the point like my friend, my friend who said, I’m ready for you to go. She said, I appreciate so much what you’ve modeled, it’s time for me to do it on my own. She was like feeling like, I’m ready to teach, I need to do this. And then I want you to come back and give me feedback. We don’t want to overstay the Welcome to we’re working with us is no longer a joy. I know. In some cases, we don’t even feel like working with us as a joy on the first day. But if it is a joy, we don’t want to you know, like we’ve been wanting more, I think that’s okay. My next question is my biggest challenge is teachers who come to see me and have meltdowns about how much they’re struggling. Oh, boy. Yes, I see what you’re saying there. I know. And I get it like some one part of our job is listening. And just listening. And just responding to what we hear in terms of like, I know, this is a hard time and yeah, no, you’re right. This is difficult. That is a big challenge. You know, we want to we want to verbalize back what we hear the teacher say. However, there are a couple things to say about that one is having a meltdown all the time is not good. Something is not right. If we’re having meltdowns all the time. I don’t want to say well, maybe you don’t need me teach anymore. But maybe it is time to do be like a different school, a different grade, something may need to change. Because if you’re having meltdowns, like every other day, something’s not right. With our home lifestyle at work, balance, something is not happening, right? We meet and maybe we just say, you know, I’m feeling like this is happening pretty frequently. What are you thinking about that, and maybe they can move into the next phase of whatever it is they need to come to realize about their teaching. Another thing is, I have horse coaches Listen, right? But we don’t just listen all the time. Sometimes we need to say, look, if there’s one thing I can help you with, what would it be? What is one thing that if you could change it, and it’s something you can change? I think it’s in your control. It’s not parents, it’s not changing the nature of children in 2023. It’s something that you could change, if you could change one thing that was in your control, what would it be? What can we do? What is an actual thing we can do? So sometimes having teachers make like a little map, I actually have one in my SEL toolkit for teachers where they record things that are in my control and things that are not in my control. And then looking at those things that are within your purview and think what’s one thing on this list that I can help you with? Maybe the schedule is a problem. Maybe we’re not intervening? Well, maybe our tier one instruction is not meeting students needs. And that is the issue that we’re having. And that’s why we have to do so much intervention, what is it that we need to change, and so sometimes you can be there to support that change. And that can be the start of a way to get into the classroom and to make a positive impact. Teaching is hard. It is not for the faint of heart, unfortunately. And while coaches do you have to work with a lot of the emotions of teaching and coaching, because that is just the nature of our field. You are not a counselor, you are a coach. So what does a coach? Do? They help people think through things. They help people work through things. So we listen. And then we support. That’s what we have to do. So if somebody is constantly and if they say no, no, it’s not going to No, really, this is telling me like the fact that you’re having you know, you’re you’re having a lot of feelings about this tells me that there’s something that we need to do, we need to do something to support you. I am here to support you, I am your coach, it is my job. And I would love nothing more than to help you have a better day. So what can we do? Let’s figure it out, then write the things down and identify what’s something that we can work on together and then go do that work. That’s how I recommend get into, like coaching cycle is what I recommend get into one on one work with that teacher, because they need support in probably many different areas. And you can do at least one thing. My next question is what do you do when you feel like you’re providing guiding questions, but the coachee is completely off from what you’re trying to get to? I’m gonna give you a couple of answers. One is the correct doing air quotes is the right answer. And the other one is my answer. Because, you know, I’m nothing if not honest and practical. The correct answer for many people is why are you trying to get to something? What are you trying to get to that is the teacher doesn’t want to get to why are you deciding what the conversation is? Right? That’s what people some people will say. And, and I see where they’re coming from, right? We want the teacher to reflect and make adjustments based on their teaching, and what their reflections are in their conversations with you. However, here’s my here’s the rest of my answer that makes it a real answer. Sometimes you just got to tell them.
Chrissy Beltran 19:46
And I don’t think we tell them in a way like, look, I’m telling you what I’m trying to say is your classroom management is terrible. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is to say Well, one thing we could think about is, is management. And this is just an example I just chose management because sometimes that’s one of the biggest issues, right? What I’m wondering, what are some things we can do to support student management, in order to make it to where you can teach these great lessons that you’re teaching and kids actually benefit from these lessons. Sometimes we have to be very thoughtful about how we say something to teachers. But I do believe there’s a way to say almost anything, as long as we think about what what the message is that we’re trying to deliver, and how we can deliver that in the most respectful way possible. I don’t think it’s helpful or respectful to a teacher to let them suffer and struggle when they have no clue what’s going on. I think that’s harmful to teachers and kids. And so I think sometimes we just have to tell them, but we have to tell them in a respectful way, and a supportive way that shows that we’re there to help them. Another thing that we can do is, we can have them visit another classroom, that I mentioned this before in this episode, because I really think it’s that powerful. If the teacher has no clue what you’re talking about, they may not have a frame of reference, and they haven’t seen it. And it’s very hard for the majority of people to envision something they have never seen. We see it described in PD, we read an article about it, we talk about, you know what it could look like in your classroom. And then they still can’t, they go into their classroom, and it doesn’t work, they can’t imagine, they don’t know how it even would work in there. They don’t try it or they think they tried. But it was so far off, that it really wasn’t true to what we were talking about in the first place. When that happens, they need to see it. I would take that teacher and put them in another teacher’s classroom. This sometimes happens with new teachers. And it also happens with veterans who have been in their teaching bubble. And we get in our bubbles. Teachers get in bubbles and coaches do too. That’s why we have this podcast, right? It’s to get input from a different perspective. That’s why you’re listening right now. Because you want different perspectives. Teachers need different perspectives, too. But it can be hard to see from those perspectives because they’ve been in their classroom bubble. I don’t know about you. But whenever I moved out of my classroom bubble, Whoa, boy, were my eyes open. I was like, what is happening out here. And it was just very shocking. In case some cases, teachers haven’t had that benefit. Many times they see the kids in front of them, they don’t even see their own teaching. So that’s my second suggestion. Like it’s, it’s really my third because my first was just tell them, you have to feel out to determine what is the best way to proceed in this area. But when you’re having a reflective conversation, and the person you’re talking to, it’s just like not, they’re kind of like, what do you I don’t know, or they’re constantly saying things like, well, the kids, kids, kids, they’re changing the subject, they’re not really kind of thinking about the thing that you’re thinking about, when you could tell them to get to have them visit a colleague, three, you could have them record themselves on video. And then you can say, this is kind of what I was asking about the other day. Here, whenever you say this, this is how the students respond. And I’m wondering if that is the response that you were trying to elicit from them? And then you can ask those questions in such a way that will help teachers go, oh, no, no, no, no, I see what you’re saying. Hopefully, that will shed a little light on the conversation that you’re hoping to have about the teaching so that the teacher can be thoughtful about what what changes they could make. In addition to that, we could ask them things like, Okay, but what would happen if we, and then you just fill in the blank with whatever the thing is that you want to get out of it, see how they respond. Sometimes they just don’t have a, some people do not think big. And so the changes that they might make are small because they’re stuck within a structure. So you might say, let’s just do a thought experiment like my guest, Lindsey said, during my during September PLC month, let’s do a thought experiment. And talk about what would happen if you do your thought experiment. And you just kind of paint the picture and discuss with them what that would be like. Another interesting thing that I’ve heard, and I don’t know if it completely addresses this question, because I’m not exactly sure the nature of the conversation, but I was listening to I listen to podcasts for business owners as well. And one of them was talking about how the question she’s asking herself was actually Jenna Kutcher, the gold digger podcast, talking about what if it were easy? So sometimes we make things really impossible and really hard? And what if we let that like it was just easy to do? What would it look like? How would we do this in the easiest way possible? In a simple way, it doesn’t have to be as complicated as we’re making it. So that’s another way to think about that. I don’t know how well that last one is, but the other three I think are pretty good. My last question here is How do I start coaching cycles with resistant teachers? And that’s a really good question. I have a couple of different options for you here. One, don’t start with the coaches that are resistant and I know that may not be the what the question is asking you. They’re asking how to start them with resist teachers, not how to start with only resistant teachers. But one thing to think about is make sure that you have done coaching cycles with teachers who are Happy to have you around. I call them the friendlies, we want to start with them. Because we can’t start with resist resistant teachers, because we just create more resistance. If we are forcing people into stuff, especially right at the beginning, people don’t want us around. So that’s one thing to consider. Another option is actually one of the options you can grab in that free download that I mentioned a minute ago. But I think with msp.com/episode 168, you can grab a free download that will help you come up with a couple of different ways to actually reach teachers where they are and use coaching cycles as a way to support them in something they want to work on. So if a teacher is super resistant, I want the world to be their oyster, let’s let it be easy. If it were easy to work with me, what would we work on? Right? And we can do that by saying, Okay, what is an area you would like to grow in and getting everybody to set their little goal and collect their little goals. This is the idea that’s in the free guide, collect a little goal. And then you look at it, you say I can help, I would love to help you with that. Sure. We’re working on Sr. And we are talking about how to align our instruction, K five, but you want to talk about graphic organizers. Great. You know what I love graphic organizers. And I would love to work with you on that. So we want to make it easy for them to work with us. Because they have spent some time making everything really hard for themselves, right? They’re putting up walls, they’re resisting, they’re uncomfortable with people, and they don’t want support. So let’s make it easy. Because the thing is, the truth is, we can’t stick with the people who are excited about us forever. We need to do that at first to practice a little bit and to get good at it. And then we obviously need to continue to support those people. But we can’t only support those people. We can’t go oh, those people don’t want me around. That’s okay. I’m just gonna work with the people who want me. Now that is not usually our job, some schools I guess it is, but in no school that I’ve ever worked out with that, okay, because change needed to happen. And kids deserve it. So we have to figure out ways to get into those tricky classrooms. And one of those ways is saying what do you want to work on? What is something you’re interested in learning about? If you can do anything in your class? What would it be, and then you are right there to help them. Another way to do this is to say, the to listen to the complaint, and turn that complaint into coaching support. So a teacher is complaining about our students, oh my gosh, they do not stop talking while I give directions. I give directions. And then as soon as I’m done giving directions, you’re gonna miss what this what this for, right? How many times have we heard this? You can say, oh, man, that would drive me bonkers. I know, I’ve had classes that did that, too. I would love to work with you on that. And we could kind of figure out maybe there’s something that we could do. Why don’t I come by tomorrow during your conference? And again, you set the parameters, you give them a couple of choices, you don’t give them the option? The choices to say no isn’t, isn’t really put out there. Some teachers, there’s some pretty brave people, and they will say, No thanks. But a lot of teachers will be like, Okay. And now they know that they opened the door for that conversation, right? Because they’re complaining to say, I would love to come by let’s Can I come back tomorrow, and we can talk about that. And then when you come by tomorrow, you don’t come with all the answers, because they don’t want to hear your answers. Some people do want to hear your ideas, those independent learners, they want to say what do you know that might help me? What do you know, that might help me maybe somebody has an idea that I haven’t thought of the resistant teachers, they don’t want to hear it. They want to hear what they can do coming out of their own mouth. And so then you have a conversation. Let’s you know, what can we do? Let’s, let’s get some ideas here. And the classroom work that you offer, could be visiting another classroom. It could also be video coaching, where you say, You know what, I’m just gonna record the kids. Because maybe the teacher is like really paranoid about that. Resistant teachers are often very uncomfortable with being recorded, because it’s like scary. It’s scary to all of us. But until they get comfortable with it, we have to make it easy, right? So let’s just record the kids. And let’s, like you’ll be we’ll hear your directions, and then we’ll see what the kids did. And then that might give us an idea about how to reframe how we’re giving directions based on the way the kids respond to it. Let’s make it easy for those resistant teachers to work with us. Right, let’s not overwhelm overwhelm them with a six week coaching cycle on something we choose. Let’s make it easy. That’s my biggest advice for that. So those are the questions that I was asked this year about coaching cycles. And there were different versions of these questions, but they kind of conglomerated into something along those lines. And I want you to grab that free download at buzzing with Ms. b.com slash episode 168. I hope this was helpful to you. Maybe you had some of these similar questions. And if you still have more questions, definitely head to instructional coaching with Miss B, the Facebook group, because we’re talking about coaching cycles all month long.
Chrissy Beltran 29:43
Next week, we’re going to talk to a coach in the field about her coaching cycles. We’re going to troubleshoot what’s happening a little bit do some problem solving. And so I want you to listen in because this might be the answer to your coaching cycle quandaries. So check it out in Episode 116 I’m coaching cycles, a coaching call. And until then, happy coaching
Chrissy Beltran 30:10
Thank you for listening to buzzing with Miss B the coaching podcast. What 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!







