Kickstart Your Coaching Cycles with Allison Petersen, ep. 176

Kickstart Your Coaching Cycles with Allison Petersen, EP 176, Instructional Coaching with Ms. B Podcast

Chrissy Beltran  00:01

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Welcome to instructional coaching with Miss B where we believe that every teacher deserves a coach and every coach does, too. I’m Chrissy Beltran, an elementary teacher who became a coach, and I had to create my own coaching program that worked. Now I teach coaches how to design their coaching programs, build a school wide action plan and use differentiated strategies to support teachers. Plus, I’ve got a special spot in my heart for literacy coaches. Now let’s dig into the episode. Hey, coach, and welcome to episode 176 kickstart your coaching cycles with Alison Peterson. This is one of the amazing episodes in my series about coaching cycles in season five, and I am so happy to welcome Allison back to the podcast. She’s been on the podcast before talking about building relationships with teachers who are resistant. And so I’m really happy to have her here today because coaching cycles is her bread and butter. This is what she lives, eats, breathes every single day. So I’m excited to share this special episode with you and I can’t wait to welcome Allison. I also want to remind you about the coaching cycles mini crash course that I have available for you at buzzing with Ms. b.com slash cycles head straight there to grab it. It’s a five day course that will be delivered straight to your inbox. And it will get you started with coaching cycles in ways that are realistic and practical. So check out the Crash Course. And let’s welcome our guest. Welcome to the podcast, Alison. Hi, Christy.

Allison Petersen  02:38

Thanks for having me.

Chrissy Beltran  02:40

I should say Welcome back to the podcast. That’s true.

Allison Petersen  02:43

I got to be out here for about resistant teachers. And today we get to talk about coaching cycles.

Chrissy Beltran  02:48

Yes, yes. And so I’m really excited to hear all of everything that you have to say because I know you’re really working on this subject. And this is like your main focus of your work. But before we get to that, I do want to know a little bit about you. I want to know who do you help? And how do you spend most of your time and energy at work? Hmm.

Allison Petersen  03:06

Okay, so I work with K to eight teachers at the school that I’m at now. And so I help Kate each k to eight teachers, and I specifically I do work with all of my like my middle school teachers too. But I’ve had a lot of emphasis on curriculum adoption for science of reading in Arcata five as well. So and then even more focused Arcata, too. So I’ve really been helping those teachers implement that new curriculum that we’ve put in place. And then what do I spend most of my time on at work? Building relationships with teachers even in, you know, casual ways that are in the hallway? And just thinking about them? I probably think about them way more than they realize how much I’m thinking about them. I’m like, okay, so what is she worried about today? And how can I help her and maybe I should go see this teacher. So a lot of my time is just spent thinking about my teachers and how I can be supporting them or what our next opportunity to connect is.

Chrissy Beltran  03:57

I love that that is such a great way to approach your coaching work. Now, I know you also support coaches, right beyond the work that you do at your school. When talking about that, yes. Okay.

Allison Petersen  04:07

Yeah. So in an online, I have them I host the new to coaching group that’s I’m the founder of the new to coaching community online. And we’re in Facebook, if you’re looking for us. And that’s a place where I support and coach new coaches who are just coming into the position really like the ones who just interviewed and been hired. And then they start trying to find their way and they come and find the new to coaching groups, so I help them and it’s kind of the same story about how do I spend my time I think about them way more than they realize and when I posted something in the Facebook group, just yesterday about coaching cycles, I was like what’s on your mind about coaching cycles, I want to know what’s on your mind. So that when when I do my live session that we are addressing the questions and things that are on their mind, so I’m always thinking about my people.

Chrissy Beltran  04:51

I love that that’s I actually saw that post yesterday and I liked that you take that and you use it as as information to help you just like whenever we survey teachers or When we talk to teachers, we use it as information to help us with the work that we do to support them. So that’s awesome. Yeah. So my next Oh, go ahead.

Allison Petersen  05:08

You heard another question Do you buy do I have one

Chrissy Beltran  05:10

more question is I don’t know if it’s quite as urgent. But I want to know what is your favorite dessert of all time? I’ve been starting to ask these fun questions, beginning of the episode to step the toe. Love it and give us a little background. So what is your favorite dessert?

Allison Petersen  05:23

This one was hard. I was really like, I’m not the most sweets oriented person. But I landed on cheesecake i My mom makes a pretty good cheesecake. She made one for my birthday the other day. And I was thinking myself if I was going to get dessert at a restaurant, what would I get? Cheesecake. So I like strawberries on top whipped cream, fresh cheese kick. So

Chrissy Beltran  05:45

that is my husband’s favorite as well. That and cookies and cream. He likes to combine the cookies and cream on the cheesecake sometimes. That’s great. Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about coaching cycles. And so we’re talking really today about kickstarting your coaching cycles, because many coaches get to various points in the year and go, Oh, my gosh, I am still not doing the kinds of work that I really wanted to be doing. I am still, you know, getting all of the other stuff done. And, and I have all these random tasks that are just getting in the way and all these directives. So getting started with cycles can be the hardest part. So what can people do if they’re feeling overwhelmed, like with PLCs, that they maybe facilitate meetings, and you know, other tasks, and they just can’t seem to find the time to do coaching cycles?

Allison Petersen  06:35

Well, I think the first thing that they should do, and this is I’m huge encourage around is like you, you need to realize that you’re not crazy, and you’re not alone in this, like a lot of what you’re being asked to do as a coach is going to pull you away from the really important work of coaching cycles. And if you aren’t, and because they’re hard to get started, and because it’s hard to get figured out what to even start with, it’s probably pretty normal at this point, if you have not gotten things going. And so it’s kind of just like, first of all, take a deep breath, you’re going to be okay, but start looking for your opportunities to connect with teachers in one on one settings. And so like coaching cycles is a fancy word for having one on one, doing one on one work with teachers. And so when we’re thinking about how we can start those things, I think we have to go back to the relationships that we’re building. So let’s say you are going into PLCs. And you’re really putting a lot of energy into that. Those are group meetings, what can you do to take group meetings and turn them into one on one conversations that then could maybe turn into partnership work in which is a coaching cycle. So I think that the first thing is to start looking for opportunities for one on one connection points with teachers, that is solving a problem for them or supporting them or just helping them with something that could really turn into an ongoing partnership of some kind.

Chrissy Beltran  07:58

Yeah, it’s a really good point. Because whenever we are assigned to do a lot of these teen type things, or homeschool type things like professional development, sometimes we are not looking at that through the lens of the individual teacher, because there’s so much schoolwide stuff that has to happen. But if we don’t get down to the individual teacher, we’re probably not making that high impact change that we’re looking for.

Allison Petersen  08:19

Yeah, I talked about this in the book that I’m writing Kickstarter coaching cycles, it’ll be hopefully out in the spring and looking at April as a release date. But the thing that I talked about in there is that like, the reason that instructional coaches really have a job is because whole group professional development is not enough. It’s not that it doesn’t work. It’s just it’s not always enough teachers can only you know, can learn something in a whole group environment that for them to transfer it to their classroom. They’re going to need support and implementation guidance, and somebody who can help them problem solve all the little details of trying these things in their classroom. And often they’re left from to go from like a PD to Hey, you should have tried that. Why didn’t you do that in your classroom? So you’re in this bridge between PD and them implementing something. And so if we’re leaving it at PD, or even PLC time, if we’re leaving something there that I think we’re leaving something on the table, because if we don’t get to the one on one work, like you said, are we really helping them make the change that we know we want them to see? So?

Chrissy Beltran  09:23

Yeah, absolutely. We need to have I look at it’s kind of like tiers, Tier one is your PD that everybody gets tier two or more differentiated. So it’s probably PLC meetings that might look different for different teams in your school. And then tier three is that individual support and it’s not just your struggling teachers who need it. It’s every teacher who should be working with us to grow, and that is your differentiated support at the individual level. So that’s kind of like how I formulate my action plan to make sure that I’m reaching teachers at different levels.

Allison Petersen  09:53

Yeah, and it’s really I think you said like sometimes we’re just thinking about one and then the other and then the other but it We really got to see how all three of these places are where the teacher is getting what she needs to be able to implement, like she’s learning the basics in the PD, you know, they’re getting differentiated support in the PLC verse, specifically their grade level, but they need that one more level down of like, okay, my class, my students, my space, my environment, how would this look

Chrissy Beltran  10:19

to really implement what’s Yes. So whenever, when I’ve been speaking to coaches, one of the struggles that many of them seem to have is they’re overwhelmed by starting a process that is really specific to the way that they have been trained or to something that their district has asked them to use. So it might be like a really specific formal approach. And it’s kind of feels rigid. And then the documentation has to learn to look a certain way. And they have to call things a certain thing. And it can be very overwhelming whenever they’re trying to get that process started. So what can they do to take a really complicated process and make it something more realistic? Yeah,

Allison Petersen  10:56

this is, this is the core of what I feel like, is the most important thing to figure out as a coach, because a lot of it is figuring out like, what is your How are you going to take all these horrible things in this process that someone’s teaching you and make it your own. And realize that like, yes, these there are steps and processes and things you can do. But that’s just the somebody has explained that to you, when you go out into classrooms and hallways, these things are happening in a lot more of an organic way than the formal way it’s laid out like you can lead, you can go and connect with teachers and follow the process and not always make it feel like it has to be exactly like it is on the form. So the thing, the first thing that coaches need to do is realize that it’s important to understand the models that are out there and available. But also realize that when you are working with teachers in a real environment in a real building, it doesn’t always follow the exact steps. So you’ve got to look for places where you can have relational connections with teachers that will allow you to open up a door for something like a pre conference meeting, knowing that you’re trying to look for a pre conference opportunity means that you can now start having some conversations to go to, you know, these conversations with teachers that might turn into Oh, okay, so let’s have a meeting, rather than the thing that I think is, the hardest part is thinking that you actually should ask a teacher if she should want to start a coaching cycle with you. But I’ve never started a coaching cycle by walking up to a teacher and asking her Do you want to start a coaching session with me? That is not how it says or worked for me. And so it’s a much more organic approach of saying, yes, saying, Okay, I heard you talking about this thing and PLC or Katie, and I would really love to talk to you about that a little bit more, do you want to have a meeting about that? Like, I think we move into meetings, and then that meeting moves into the next meeting, the next meeting, the goal, setting the process. So if we can just help create this, take this really formal process and start it from a relational touch point to do you want to have a meeting about that, and see if we can get that first step, then you can you can see that the other steps will start to follow.

Chrissy Beltran  13:08

I totally agree. I think that we get really hung up on on the names of things and the language of things. But just like whenever you’re teaching your students, if you have a curriculum that says okay, this is whenever we’re going to do the interactive, I don’t you know, they call stuff they have interactive read aloud. Yeah, you don’t have to tell the students Hello, children, we are now going to complete our interactive read aloud. You don’t do that. They don’t care. They don’t need to know, right? They don’t need to know that they don’t like I knew I knew people who were like, No, we’re going to do or the students would actually say no, we’re going to do our Wilson time. Like that means nothing to kids, why are you telling them that tell them you’re gonna learn phonics telling, you’re gonna learn how letters work, it’s the same thing with your teachers, we don’t have to say we’re gonna have a pre comp, I would just say, Hey, you want to get together tomorrow to talk about that. That’s all it wasn’t like labeled as anything. It was literally just a conversation. And then on my little forum, I would document it. However, I needed to document it, because the content of that conversation was what mattered not the name of a conversation.

Allison Petersen  14:10

Yes. And I think that’s important, just for any coach who is struggling or overwhelmed with this whole idea of coaching cycles is like, there are names to these things, but they are just meetings that you’re bringing teachers into and, and natural processes that keep leading like one meeting leads to you deciding, hey, well, let’s work together on this student learning thing that you came up with, that you want to work on. Like, for example, I have a teacher who wanted to make sure she got 10 minutes of independent reading time in her class, right. So that that was the thing we’re working on together. Once we’ve identified that then the natural next step is for me to help her with that during her classroom, like later that week, like it’s a natural progression, but we’ve tried you know, we put it into a system so you could learn like this might be this might be the order that I feel like If you let one thing lead to another, you’ll see that these things will start to happen. And you won’t have to be so caught up in, like you said, the formality of a pre conference and I’m going to do a classroom visit and I do an observation. And then I give feedback. Even when you get to that debrief meeting, which officially it’s called the debrief meeting, in your mind, you didn’t tell her that you just wanted to meet with her again, after you went to her classroom, there will be an opportunity for you to give feedback, it will naturally come up as you are talking to her about well, what did you see? And where were you like, Okay, so let’s work on this together. And that conversation leads to the natural spot for feedback. So I think it just, you know, when you lay it out, and somebody teaches it to you, it feels real formal, but when you start stepping into it, relationally okay, what would the natural next step be here? You’re going to find that it doesn’t, it follows the method, but it doesn’t sound as formal as it seems like it would be.

Chrissy Beltran  15:51

Yes, I agree. So then, in terms of getting teachers started with this process, in terms of getting teachers into the cycle in the first place, how can coaches actually get them excited to work with get teachers excited to work with them?

Allison Petersen  16:05

Yeah, I’ve thought hear your thoughts on this too. But one of the things that I encourage coaches to do is to really go after, and I know you call them the friendlies, right, the friendlies are the runners, right, the ones, I call them, the runners, but basically the teachers who are excited already to work with you on something and are wanting to try something new. And so one of the first things you can do is like, go look for the ones who are already excited. And just in that note, go look for they’re not, nobody’s going to come to you and ask you if you want to start working with them. So it really, really is go looking for them, right and being really aware of how we can find them. But then knowing that starting with the ones who are excited or want to try something new, can help you create some momentum to get started. And then creating a professional development. That’s possibly like an optional one that you could bring people to that might excite them about something and then use that as a way to follow up from there. So I like to have short, optional PDF, like you know, 30 minutes after school about a certain topic, and then take an exit ticket and tell them like ask them how they might want to continue working on this, and then use that as a way to follow up again and say, Hey, I saw you want to work on this, and I’m so glad you came to my PD, I would love for you to, I’d love to have a meeting with you. And so then you get that first meeting, and then you’re kind of starting to get your foot in the door. So you can you can spin off of those. If you can’t do a PD, then you can spin off of your PLC time. And you can just spin off of a problem that you heard a teacher talking about in the work group, right? I know you talk a lot about solving problems, because I think that’s a place to where you can look to find, Hey, I heard you said this, I think I can help you with that. Yes,

Chrissy Beltran  17:50

I like to think about it as like turning complaints into goals. So you know, teachers sent certain teachers especially have tons of complaints. But every teacher has a struggle in their classroom that they probably complain about. And if you can hear that in that moment, sometimes you’re like, you feel defensive about it. And you’re like, oh, like I can’t fix like, he’s just frustrated. And they complain, it’s just driving you bonkers. And you don’t know what else to do. But what we can do is offer to help. And so we can say yeah, that’s that sounds like a real problem. I would love to work with you on that. Can I come by tomorrow, and then that just get the ball rolling that way and you turn that complaint into the goal for your work together. The goal has to doesn’t have to be this long, you know, lengthy thing that includes three data points and all this stuff. It can just be what the teacher wants their kids to be better at what the teacher would like their kids to do that they are not currently doing.

Allison Petersen  18:41

Yeah, and the idea, the question was like, what how can we get them excited? Like, if it’s something that they want to solve? Yeah, it’s gonna be a lot more interested in it, then something you came up with and told them they should do? Right. So going from their questions or problems or concerns or even their complaints can be a way to create motivation, almost like okay, well, if that writing thing is really important to you, let me come by tomorrow and see how the kids are doing we can work on it together.

Chrissy Beltran  19:06

Yeah, it’s relevance. And starting with something relevant. We know it’s important for kids, it’s important for adults to relevance is probably even more important for adults. Because we don’t have time we don’t feel like we have time to spend time on novel things that are not going to be real, like, like rational for us to do. We didn’t feel like Time is ticking. And teachers are pressed for time. So it has to be relevant. So if you like let’s say that you are, there’s a classroom that clearly has some other issues, or sometimes that I mean, I know this isn’t the way it works in every school, and it’s not ideal, but that you have been asked to go in and work with that teacher on something, right? That’s just the reality in many schools. You may not get to that thing the first time because the first work that you’re doing together could be on something that they are wanting to do, but it is a way to get the door open, build the relationship through the coaching work, and then hopefully turn that into Do some really meaningful stuff. Or even maybe the teacher what she were there wanting to work on could be hugely impactful because it’s something that they wanted to start with. Yes,

Allison Petersen  20:10

yes. And I think that’s can be frustrating for new coaches, especially at first, because they’re like that I see all these glaring problems. Yeah, like management problems, or they see things that could easily be fixed, if they would just do it differently. But if you try and jump in on those things, you might not get as good of a response from that teacher, because she doesn’t think that’s a problem. Or she’s offended by the fact that you want her to change her management style or something. So trying to drive the coaching conversation around what she wants, or she sees as a problem will help you, like you said, motivate, keep that motivation high. And then there will be opportunities for you to speak into other things like management, if you just kind of follow the lead of the teacher often.

Chrissy Beltran  20:55

That’s very true. The one time I will bring up management in a lesson towards the beginning of our coaching work together is whenever teacher wants me to model or co teach, because if I’m going to be responsible for children, I need to know what’s up. And so I will ask, Well, do you have a management system you want me to use? That many times those classrooms are like, not really.

Allison Petersen  21:19

The one, the one that I will do even it like is the callback? So if they don’t have, especially my elementary classrooms, right, if you don’t have some kind of a callback to get their attention, but yeah, I’ll, I’ll come in and be like, Okay, well, we’re using flat tire. So, but yeah, you know, so I will teach it to them real quick. But what that will do also is show the teacher that, like, if you had a callback, you could get them back more quickly. If you have that opportunity to almost like model, you’re gonna model that strategy, even though she doesn’t necessarily have one in place that she uses. I find that one to be really handy. Yes, I

Chrissy Beltran  21:56

agree. There are certain elements that if you’re going to model and nothing is in place, behaviorally, you’ve got to sometimes bring some tools with you. Because you have to be able to model ineffective less than or else, there’s really no point in you doing that job. It’s kind of a waste.

Allison Petersen  22:12

If you are having an opportunity to model because you’ve worked with the teacher, and you’ve you know, gotten that opportunity to do that, then, then it is helpful to show her like, here’s what, yeah, here are some of the strategies that you could try. Let me try them out today. And then you can tell me which one of them you think you want to carry forward? You know, you can try a few different ways to get their attention, and then you know, or something like that. So I think that that’s important.

Chrissy Beltran  22:40

Yes, I agree. And many times, I the I lose a simple behavior, motivation strategy. It’s just like a proactive strategy for behavior. And I have whenever I have shared that in a classroom, most of the time I seen the teacher say, Well, I’m just going to start using pieces of this because they realized that actually fulfilled a need that I had in my room, that maybe I did,

Allison Petersen  23:00

I didn’t realize no, I Yeah.

Chrissy Beltran  23:04

So okay, yeah, let’s talk a little bit about you talked a little bit about, about runners right about identifying the runners. And so I want to dig a little bit more into that idea and ask about if a coach has never done a cycle before. And they’re like trying to get them started. They don’t know where to start? How can they choose these teachers to work with them? How do they know who the runners are?

Allison Petersen  23:28

Yeah, I find that the the runner, if anybody’s going to find you, the runner is going to find you. Because she usually is more of a collaboration, collaborative teacher. And she actually usually has a lot of questions and wants somebody to talk through it with. So there’s two sides, there’s kind of two sides of a runner, you could find a novice runner, like a new teacher, who is really eager to learn and really okay with working with somebody and wanting to brainstorm. So you’re looking for those new teachers who are really eager, or you’re looking for maybe more of a veteran or seasoned teacher, but she has big ideas, and she is wanting to try something new. And she’s maybe like, maybe she doesn’t know how to try something new or she’s really can’t wait to do this. And she’s hoping she can have a partner, often to the thing I do to help the explain the runner is to realize that like the coach was likely a runner teacher in her building. She was, you know, going above and beyond, she was always trying to do you know, the next big thing or tweak something and she’s not really as afraid of change in the classroom, as you know, some teachers might be and so like, you’re kind of looking for those ones who when you look in the mirror, you see yourself and that helps you to go okay, I know I could connect with this teacher because I was like her when I was a teacher and we are going to have a great relationship. And those relationships that I have the opportunity that I’ve had the opportunity to have as a coach over the past 10 years have been really the most like I don’t know And then if beneficial, yeah, fun, like the most fun, but also like mutually beneficial, because like I grow from working here and she grew from working with me. And that is I just say, you know, the highest level of like coaching is when you’re really actually reciprocating what you’re doing. And so you start looking for those ones who you just personally connect with and can tell you’re like them. And it is so easy to just jump in stride with that teacher once you got talking to them. So have you found your friendlies along the way?

Chrissy Beltran  25:30

Yeah, I will explain that. That’s a really good, good question. But before you reminded me of the very first runner I met, whenever I was like my first week of coaching, and I, you can remember walking down the hallway and feeling like, oh, my gosh, there’s so many things I’m supposed to be doing. And this person came up to me was like, I really want to work on vocabulary, because I’ve noticed my kids really struggle with vocabulary. So if you have any ideas, yeah, she did. She just came up to me. And she’s an amazing teacher. And she actually took my position. When I left, I begged her, I was like, please do this job, because we need somebody who’s gonna really get after it. And so she

Allison Petersen  26:05

one of my favorite renters also took my coaching job when I left that school. So that’s what I mean, it’s become this like, kindred spirit to you. But the meaning the minute you meet them, you know that you can work with this person? Yeah, you find them, they will, they will be, they’ll

Chrissy Beltran  26:20

be there, they will make themselves known. Yeah, I usually call them friendlies. Because they’re friendly to learning new things. They’re friendly to you as a person. And they are also friendly to the idea of working with you. Because sometimes people are friendly, but not friendly to working with you. They don’t want you to come into their room and you know, do things. So yeah, I call them friendlies. And I do keep eyes open for those people who always have a new idea, or asset asking for feedback. Because I know as a teacher, if I asked for feedback, if I might do it in the sound, it might sound like, look, I’m sharing my plan with you, this is what I’m thinking I’m gonna do. And I’m waiting for somebody to tell me something better. I want to hear something that I didn’t think of, I want to hear a different way to do this. And I can remember going into my coach and saying, This is my plan for my reading groups. I’m not sure if this is going to work, because I had all these you know, things I said, I don’t know if these kids are getting enough time to read. And if these kids are getting whatever, and she looks at my plan, and she was like, that’s good. And that was it. And I was like, no, no, I wanted some support here. I wanted you to pick my plan apart and tell me what I was missing. Or give me another way to do it that I did not think of Yeah. And that’s what I needed. As a teacher, I wanted somebody to have some different kinds of ideas than what I already had had. And I didn’t want them to just tell me great job because I had already gotten Thank you. That’s good. I guess I this is the best job I can put together here. But I’m sure there’s something I’m missing. And you’ve been to 7000 trainings, I have not been to so maybe you know, some ideas, you know. So that’s what I was, as a teacher, I was like that. So then, as a coach, I was looking for those people who were like, well, I was thinking about doing this. I was thinking about trying this. And whenever they say I want to try this, that’s when you can say I would love to help you with that.

Allison Petersen  28:05

Yeah, yes. And when they come to you for that, that is such an opportunity to turn it into a coaching cycle. Like I mean, that’s why they’re so great to just latch on to. And also, sometimes you don’t realize that you should turn it into a coaching cycle if you’re new to this thing, right? So like it come to you this, right? You didn’t know that, oh, this is about to be a coaching cycle. So I had a teacher the other day, one of my runners send me an email and she was like, I want to do I want to fix my grammar. I just don’t feel like I’m doing great with grammar. And I was like, Oh, this is this is a great opportunity for coaching cycle. I could have just emailed her back. Yep. And like just sent her some resources like No, no, no. So instead, I stood up, and I grabbed her the grammar book that I wanted to show her but it’s a little bit more, it’s a little a lot more information. I didn’t want to just like I hand it to her. So I’m like, I’m gonna go see her. And I, you know, I think the in person touch point is so, so important to the whole coaching cycle process. We’ll just add that aside here, but going to see her led to an initial conversation. It wasn’t like a sit down, let’s plan together. But it was like, Okay, so tell me more. Okay, so this is one resource. Do you want to look at this? Okay, great. And then that led to, Hey, okay, so next Friday, I can meet with you, and we can make a better plan. And she was like, that’s great. I’m going to start my writing unit. And she, she, she wants to talk about this more than just one conversation. And so that’s how it turns into a coaching cycle. Because now I met her on the Friday and we started doing a plan together, but we only had 15 minutes. And so we I said how about next Friday? So she was like, yeah, that works perfect for me. So we’re now waiting meeting weekly helping right now we’re just planning out this writing unit and how we’re going to do it. And I’m connecting with her this week. I met with her too, and she’s telling me about what she did this week to kind of start to preemptively teach and it was you know, just what we had talked about was like great. So then once she starts going with this writing, I’ll be able to go into her classroom and and help her with the students like during the class. So it’s, it’s creating that one single like request or hey, we helped me vocabulary really helped me with grammar and making that into a partnership where you guys are working on something over time to try and create a certain effect and or, you know impacts the classroom in some way. And like the next thing we’re going to do is write her rubric together. And that’s going to be really helpful for her too. She doesn’t have a rubric for this writing assignment. So but if I had just left her at answering her grammar question, we wouldn’t know it, we wouldn’t get all the way to Hey, now that you’re doing this writing unit, do you think we should write a rubric? That’s what organically came up from having a conversation and now we’re meeting weekly? So usually to the other thing about coaching cycles, I get the question a lot is like, how long should it be? Or? And that’s really kind of a everybody has a different answer to that question. I just really believe in an ongoing conversation with this teacher like, this is one that I worked really closely with the beginning of the year, we’ve had a little bit of time not meeting and now we’re back at meeting every Friday until this Gabino, maybe until this unit is over. But it doesn’t always have to have a timeline on it. It’s just that she knows I can be her thinking partner, when she needs me. And that is just I’m always, you know, I can always put her on my Friday at 850. Because that’s a good time for her and a good time for me. And that’s our ongoing coaching cycle. That’s how I’ve always had it organically habit, especially with the runners. It’s just like, hey, do you want to just meet again next week, and we’ll just keep going on this same topic. Yeah, I like

Chrissy Beltran  31:31

that. And I love the way you describe this very organic way that your cycle sort of grew out of this request from the teacher. So we talked about a couple of those those ways, right? Like a teacher requests for information can turn into a coaching cycle, if we can see the opportunity. And I think that sometimes as a newer coach, you don’t see the opportunities, you don’t realize that’s what they are. Right. So that’s one of them. We talked about, we talked about complaints, you talked about an exit ticket, from PPD or from like some sort of learning PLC or something like that, where are there any other organic opportunities that we can turn into cycles.

Allison Petersen  32:08

I mean, I, the other thing is kind of what we just said, but just any, any conversations that you’re having with teachers can be a door into a coaching cycle, like if they’re in the work room, and they are working on something and just having an effort, always talking to them about what they’re doing, you can lead to. And then. And so those conversations will always be like something that I can follow up on, I’m always listening really attentively to what they’re sharing, so they can look for a place to follow up. And then right now, we’re also doing some, some data meetings with our teachers. And so sometimes it’s the student data that can drive you to, okay, so we have this group data meeting, maybe a PLC or something, and I would love to come work with you on, you know, helping you move your students and helping you plan your small group or whatever. So trying to take those conversations to and not let them end at a meeting and take them to the individual level as well.

Chrissy Beltran  33:03

Yeah, I think that we have to be thoughtful about, like you said earlier, moving that into future support, because we can we can you know, meet with a data PLC and maybe we go observe, we say, oh, you know, what, why don’t I come watch those kids? Because the teacher goes, I don’t know what else to do. Like it’s not working. And so we say, well, why don’t I come watch them during a lesson? That’s a great way to get in the doorway, get your foot in the door. But then sometimes we provide the teacher with information or we what whenever we notice, and then we’re like, okay, thanks. And then that’s it. And we don’t use it as an opportunity to keep building that relationship and say, so what could we do next? What are you? What are your thoughts are? Or how can I support you in this? Because this is what I saw. So what support would be helpful to you as you’re trying to figure out how to work with these kids? Or what do you think if we and then share an idea that you have, you know, how about what do you think if we tried like refining our lesson plan with, you know, the question the responses to each kinds of, you know, question, the structured response we want kids to use in the plan, so you remember to use it, or how can we make sure these kids are participating during a lesson, and then you can go put that on your form as a conversation about student engagement. Right? It’s all it’s all there. It’s just not labeled? And that’s fine. You know, because that’s we don’t talk that way. It’s in normal guy doing those things. Yeah,

Allison Petersen  34:21

it’s like, we just have to go formally document this thing that we’re doing very naturally and organically in our conversations with teachers, but somebody wants some formal documentation. So okay, I’ll write it out. But I know that I’m just connecting with the teacher and checking in on her and seeing if I can support through the next phase of what we’re working on. Are there other ways you could think of to enroll teachers into coaching cycles and some

Chrissy Beltran  34:46

of the other things that I have done? Definitely after PLCs and PD, the exit tickets are a good way to do that complaints are a good way whenever teachers are starting new curriculum They are likely to have lots of questions because, you know, just because I mean, it’s a whole new thing. And, and they are having the same struggle of here’s this really scripted thing or this really structured thing, how do I make it work? And so that’s an opportunity to be like, Yeah, you’re right, I can come work with you on this, I would love to work with you, we can figure out how to make it work in your classroom. That’s a really good opportunity. Whenever kids are really struggling, like we just talked about. Yeah, we’re seeing a group of kids, maybe there’s a group of kids who has moved up every grade, and they’re always on the bottom of their testing data. And that’s an issue well, what can we do? A teacher who is teaching a group of kids that is maybe different than what she’s used to, like, maybe they have a lot of students with limited English proficiency, or who are learning English language learners. And they have not had as many students of that in last year, or they’ve changed grade levels. Anytime there is a potential like challenge to the teacher, you can acknowledge the challenge and acknowledge that it’s normal that that’s hard to do, and then offer the support at that time.

Allison Petersen  35:57

Yeah, yeah, no, I love that. One of the other, I saw a few things in the new to coaching group about people doing book studies with teachers. And so that’s kind of like a form of a PD, right? If you get somebody to opt into a book study, but I think if you had an opportunity, and teachers were saying yes to that, and we’re overwhelmed by doing a book study, usually your runners, then you can, you know, bounce off of something that’s in that content, right. So like, Hey, I saw in a, we did a book study one time on writing conferences. And so like, I saw that, you know, we’re working on these writing conferences, I want to, I would love to come in to your room and, you know, work with you on your writing conferences, or also conference with kids. I mean, let me come do that, because I miss conferencing with kids, you know, so there’s just all these ways to use the places where teachers will, you know, maybe agree to be in a book study or to be at a PD and then take that strategy and take that into let’s try and implement this in your space.

Chrissy Beltran  36:54

I like that, I think what we have to be thoughtful about is sometimes we feel like I spending a lot of time on these very low impact supports, like recommending resources, or tech support, even maybe, are sounding board, like a teacher coming to you with all these issues. And then you’re like, Okay, I have an opportunity here, that teacher is asking me for help, regardless of what it is, sometimes you’re like, This is really not my best, you know, regardless of what it is, you can take that and use it to turn it into work that is more high impact in that classroom, because you are, you’re, you’re helping them solve a problem. So you’re giving them a quick win, maybe with a tech support. And while you’re there, you say, Oh, so you’re gonna use, you’re using, I don’t know, Flipgrid. That’s so neat. I would love to work with you on that, I really don’t know as much about it. Maybe I can learn from you on this. Or, you know, what I also learned about this new, you know, technology app, whatever, the other day, and this workshop that I was at, and it says a similar thing, but I think it’s easier, would you like to try it out? I would love to try it out with your class, you know, I learned this new thing. So I think those are opportunities. I think that, you know, looking at student work together is another really good one. Because sometimes we have to, we need input on what our kids can do and what they can’t do. Or even whenever I was a teacher, I remember colleagues would come to me and say, Chrissy, I don’t know, I’m looking at this, look at their, their, this is a mess, like look at what they wrote. This is like remember, my my friend came down from sixth grade. And I was a fourth grade teacher. And she started teaching fourth grade. And she was like, these are not. These are just like words that they glued together. But they that doesn’t mean anything. I was like, yeah, it’s August. And they’re in fourth grade. And they haven’t been held, held accountable for writing anything that makes sense in a while, if ever. And we got to, we have to teach them that writing makes sense. And she was like, Oh my gosh, that’s horrible. So, but it was like so baffling to her. And in looking at her student writing, I was able to say these are this is what we can do next. You know, and looking at my colleagues math assessments, I can say, hey, they’re not they’re not doing anything here. They’re circling answers. Peggy you got to make them do some work, what are their strategies? What are you holding them accountable for and she was like, oh, so in looking at student work, we can find opportunities to help teachers refine their instruction as well and to to do the planning to do the next steps with them and then just be part of that teaching whenever the teaching is actually happening in the classroom to address what they saw in the student work.

Allison Petersen  39:19

Yeah, and I think sometimes like a coach who has not been doing this for a while, she doesn’t realize that like maybe that new that teacher does not even know where to start, like she doesn’t know what to do. And you may maybe as a coach, you know what to do. So you would know you would do this, this and this but the teacher doesn’t actually know and so I think we sometimes shy away from work working with them because we feel like oh are telling them what to do. But in some cases they literally don’t even know the steps or where to start. And that’s where you can really partner well with a teacher because you have some a little bit of expertise to bring but you but she wants to achieve something and so she you can show her like hey, this, this is where we’re we’re You can go to, and this is where we can get to. And I can help you with that. And so I think sometimes just don’t shy away because you think they know how to do it already. Often they will say they know how to do it. And then you realize, like, Oh, I think if we can work together on this, yeah, you’ll, you’ll see that there’s more places where you can kind of shouldn’t give your expertise in terms of like the process of look like this, where those types of things are, like, a little more welcome in that space where they really like want to try something, but they don’t know how.

Chrissy Beltran  40:25

Yeah, like that. So then my last question about coaching cycles is, is an important one, because I think that one of the things we’ve talked about is having these ongoing cycles, and continuing continuing to work with teachers in a way that meets their needs at that time, and kind of follows a natural progression of growth. How can coaches actually create systems that help them do that, that help them sustain this work over time, and manage them over time, whenever they’re inundated with so many other things?

Allison Petersen  40:53

Yeah, I think that this is a lot about prioritizing the importance of the one on one, because it’s really about prioritizing all of your time. So if we’re trying to create systems to make sure that you’re getting to coaching cycles, the coaching cycles are going to be the last thing that you’ll get to because all of the other things will get dumped on. And they will feel more urgent because they are a little more scheduled, like, you know, like your PLCs are scheduled. And so you have to write them, your admin meetings are scheduled, so you have to be at them. The coaching cycles are kind of the thing that you have to get started yourself, and you have to get scheduled yourself. And so I think creating a one thing I do is I create an ideal week calendar. So I can kind of see in my week, when I have these scheduled meetings, and these important things, I try to block in things like my meetings, my principal, every week, Monday at 930. So that I have that one blocked in so that I can see the other space where I have space for coaching cycles. And so then I start finding places where Okay, I am going to, you know, put coaching cycles in these spots. But I’m looking, then I start working on like, Okay, how about how many could I really manage? How many teachers can I go and get to work with and so then I start looking for those teachers. And I mean, if I don’t already have some in mind, then I start thinking about who would be the next one that I that I’d like to work with or that I heard something, I heard her say something the other day, that would be a good one for me to follow up in. And I start just trying to plug those coaching cycles into those spaces. So that if I can I try to do a reoccurring weekly meeting, that’s something that has always really worked for me, like I said to this, like this teacher I’m working with on this grammar thing, we decided on Fridays during her planning at 850. And so I just start putting that on my Friday block. And then that’s where it sits until this coaching cycle is over. So start looking for some others, like my kindergarten team, their planning is from 812 15 to one. So I’m looking for times where I can connect with those teachers in that block. And so I start finding ways to kind of put some protective time around when I know I want to go and touch base with those teachers to put those structures in place. And then you have great forms that I’m sure you want to share with everybody. So I mean, the things like boards, but some other tracking tools. Like I use Google, just Google Docs to put together my documents and document where, which teachers I’m working with and who I’m working with and who I haven’t seen in a while, because I also feel like sometimes I need to circle back to some of them. So just keeping good documentation around, like who are all my teachers, when I’ve seen them and who I want to be kind of like thinking about and not losing, not losing touch with honestly, because there’s so many of them that I can’t always see them every week or, and when they there’s a worst moment is when they say oh, if they haven’t seen you in a while. I’m like I failed. Because it just it’s a thing where it’s true. Like I probably am working with another teacher. So they probably haven’t seen me in a while. But that makes me go, Oh, I haven’t done my relational connection with this teacher this week, because she is saying she hasn’t seen this. Okay. But that is an opportunity. Like if she said that, then maybe she needs something. Well, did you want to work on? Did you have something you want to chat about? I’d love to talk to you. You want to meet next week. Like, even if she says I haven’t seen you this week, I’m gonna say join me next week, because maybe she’s got something, you know, so I’m always looking for that. So I don’t know, I’m not the best with systems and structures. And well, I’m not the most type A myself, but you can share I please share some things that you do too.

Chrissy Beltran  44:27

Well, I think what I’m hearing and I love it is that basically you’re saying you want to put on your coaching cycle glasses, you want to make sure that you are looking at everything through the lens of am I prioritizing time in classrooms with teachers, and I think that’s a great way to do this. So one of the things that I do that it’s a very simple thing, but I plan my big three, so I have like big three goals that I want to do and then I devolve those goals and that can be like semester long semester. I think it’s a reasonable amount of time. I think that if you do for the year, I don’t think it’s a real thing. It’s like, quarterly.

Allison Petersen  45:01

I drop it down we do in nine weeks.

Chrissy Beltran  45:05

Yeah. So then from the semester, I dropped them down to the, to the court for some months really to each month within the semester. And then within the month when I plan my leak, I have like three little lines on the top of my calendar. And many calendars have this nowadays, I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, even just an ordinary, like blue sky calendar, which is what I use now. They have like three spaces for you. And so I will record, these are the three things that I’m going to focus on this week to help me do those big three things by the end of the semester, or by the end of the month. And so like in breaking that down, you know, the instead of just trying to do Oh, these are my big lofty goals, well, that’s lovely, but how are you going to do them. So I have those actions every week. And if one of those actions that you’re really trying to do to support your big goal is getting into classrooms is focusing on those coaching cycles, and you’re going to look at your calendar, and you’re gonna plan your time according accordingly to make sure that you block off time to get into classrooms. So if that’s the way that you’re going to approach it by looking at your calendar through that lens, having it written on each week of your calendar, I think is going to be kind of essential. Yeah,

Allison Petersen  46:10

and I kind of will do the thing where I’m like, Okay, well, I want to be doing three coaching cycles in the next, you know, nine weeks or five coaching cycles in the next nine weeks. And then I’ll go and say like, Okay, well, I’m already in two, because I’m working with these two teachers already. So who are the other three going to be I’m sorry, I’m trying to be intentional about making sure that I’m getting into relationships with teachers that are going all the way to coaching cycles, just so that we can get to the classroom like sets we can get to the impact. And, and setting that in my mind and numeric, something that I can measure by a certain time. That helps me to go okay to do it or not. And then when I sit down at my desk, and after the whirlwind hits, you sit on your desk, what do you do you start reading emails like that? No, don’t read emails, like, you know, so it’s that moment where you have to stop yourself from reading emails and prioritize like, No, right now I need to be thinking about the thing I’m going to do to check in with this one teacher that might turn into a coaching cycle. So just trying to realize a whirlwind is always around you. And if you aren’t prioritizing something like your big three, and your goals, and you haven’t taken time to set those, then you’re just gonna get sucked away by the whirlwind. And then you’ll be frustrated, like, Well, my principal kept telling me to do to get it out. I’m like, I know. But you also have things that you can do with your time. If you see your time clearly on your ideal week planner, then you see, there’s time there for you to do it. You just keep it keeps getting sucked away by the vacuum.

Chrissy Beltran  47:35

Nothing else becomes an urgency or like a like an immediate priority, but it’s not really a long term priority.

Allison Petersen  47:41

Yeah, yeah. So it’s important to figure out how to get those and make them happen. Yep,

Chrissy Beltran  47:49

that’s a really good point. So then, Alison, you mentioned your book, would you like to share a little bit about that?

Allison Petersen  47:56

Yeah, I, my book is called kickstart your coaching cycles. And it really talks a lot about with all the things we’ve talked about today, but specifically about how the organic coaching cycle, which is a coaching cycle I designed to help you enroll teachers into into coaching cycles through some of these models that we’ve touched on today, some of these modes of relational connection that will enroll you. And I think that is, so the book is intended really for brands for brand new coaches trying to find their way into trying to get over the overwhelm. So like we’ve talked about today. So it is coming out in April, I am so excited to finally get it in the hands of coaches, because I’ve actually been working on it for quite a while. And I’ve been teaching a kickstart your coaching cycles workshop in the new to coaching group. So I’m taking some of that and putting it into the book, and putting the resources with it and excited to get in the hands of new coaches so important to getting that out in the world. That’s

Chrissy Beltran  48:54

amazing. So if people want to keep learning to you from you, they should go to Facebook and search hashtag new to coaching. Yes, yeah, absolutely. All right. Sounds great. Well, thank you so much for being here today.

Allison Petersen  49:05

Yeah, I’m sorry to see you’re busy. I’ll see you next time. Thanks. Sounds good.

Chrissy Beltran  49:11

All right, Coach. I hope you are ready. more than ready to kickstart kickstart, oh, goodness, your coaching cycles. With all of that great information from Allison. I want to remind you that if you are looking for a simple approach to a mini coaching cycle, I have a free Internet course for you email course it’ll go straight to your inbox, go to buzzing with MS b.com slash cycles and you can grab my practical coaching cycle mini email course and it’s five days of the exact steps you need to take in order to get your next coaching cycle started. Next week, I am actually going to interview Alyssa Crabtree and you’re going to talk about providing feedback to teachers which we know is a piece of the coaching cycle. So we talked about that. With Allison that that that debriefing or more reflective conversation at the end goes in your post conference. And so we’re going to talk a little bit about exactly what that can look like, and what mistakes people make and how we can actually help people take action as a result of these conversations. So definitely join me for 177 next week and until then, happy coaching

Chrissy Beltran  50:23

now that you’ve got so much to think about, head over to buzzing with Miss b.com to grab some free downloads, become a VIP, and check out the podcast show notes. Happy coaching!