Week 4: Why You Need a Proactive PD Calendar as an Instructional Coach, ep. 199

Week 4: Why You Need a Proactive PD Calendar as an Instructional Coach, ep. 199, Instructional Coaching with Ms. B Podcast

Chrissy Beltran  00:01

When I work with new coaches, the two words they use to describe themselves most often are excited and nervous. Even to an experienced coach, the New Year can bring butterflies and back to school nightmares. Figuring out what to do to set yourself up for a successful year can feel like putting together a puzzle when you don’t know what the picture looks like. Instead, let’s start the year with a roadmap that tells you exactly what to do each day. For the sole very important first 20 days of school. The things you do the first month of school will make or break your coaching year. Let’s do the right things together. Head to buzzing with misty.com/startup to join instructional coaching startup. This course teaches you what to do each day for the first 20 days of school. With a short video and all of the resources you’ll need to set coaching goals. Define your role, communicate with administrator, build relationships with teachers understand your school’s needs and so much more. Join instructional coaching startup today and get your GamePlan for instructional coaching. I even have a private Facebook group for startup coaches where we work through the course one day at a time together, you can share artifacts, you can ask questions and get so much information about your coaching role by supporting each other inside of that Facebook group. So head to buzzy with Miss b.com slash startup and join instructional coaching startup today.

Chrissy Beltran  01:23

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Chrissy Beltran  01:58

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.

Chrissy Beltran  02:26

Episode 199 of instructional coaching with Miss B, why you need a proactive PD calendar as an instructional coach. This is our last week in our four week series about the first 20 days of coaching. And I’m excited because next week is going to be our 200th episode. So if you want to play bingo with Miss B, you can go to buzzing with Miss b.com slash bingo or you can join this Facebook group which is instructional coaching with Miss beat, to play and enter to win some really cool fun prizes. Some of my favorite things I’m giving away because they’re my favorites. And I’m the host and I can do that. Somebody give out $200 worth of prizes for 200 to 200 episode next week. And I really hope that you can join me to play.

Chrissy Beltran  03:08

So let’s get into this this episode. Like I said, it’s our last episode in our four week series about the first 20 days of instructional coaching. And so the last week, whenever I teach the first 20 days of coaching in my instructional coaching startup course, the last week is really focused on getting into classrooms starting to look at at coaching cycles and getting that initiated all of that. But I’m pulling out one piece of that today because I think it’s really valuable to anybody whether you do the course or not. So I’m excited to share that with you today. You can get all the step by step instructions and every single document and form that you’ll need to get yourself set up for this year at instructional coaching startup, which is buzzing with Ms. b.com slash startup, definitely grab that. And of course, you can join our Facebook group for the live challenge that is starting this week about designing your coaching role. It’s your three by three jumpstart challenge, I cannot wait to share it with you. So head to instructional coaching with be a Facebook group, if you want to do that.

Chrissy Beltran  04:04

So the fourth week of school is usually where I teach coaches to initiate coaching cycles. And so you’re gonna find a friendly, you know, friendly teacher make an offer they can’t refuse based on a need or an interest they have and try out the coaching cycle with a practice cycle. It’s a really great way to get your feet wet without too much stress and pressure and most of the time, you can find someone who’s interested in working with you and who would make a really great partner to start with. We know that the idealistic version of coaches is that they are asked to focus on that one on one coaching work in individual classrooms. Most of the time that I have actually been a coach guy with a really big job description and I can tell you that was a piece of what I did. I absolutely felt the responsibility of learning across the campus as well and alignment and building content knowledge and features and making sure that lesson plans were great. All of that was my Good job. And so I know many of you also feel that responsibility. So if a PD is going to happen, you’re probably going to get it right. If a group of teachers is unsure about something, you’re probably going to have to figure out an answer to that question. And if you’re moving people into new ideas and new curriculum, guess who has to be the resident expert, just to help it get off the ground? This doesn’t mean that you have to have all the answers. Actually, that is having all the answers and giving all the answers is the hallmark of a problem solving coaching model, but doesn’t really work, right. And I fell into that trap, my first year of coaching, what teachers really need is a coaching partner who can walk alongside them. But whenever somebody is walking alongside you, you do want them to know a little bit more than you, you need to be a little ahead of the game. If you can show up on day one with a plan that will proactively support making things happen, you will be so much better off than if you wait for things to go off the rails and try to figure out what to do in response to that.

Chrissy Beltran  06:04

So my best advice to you is make a proactive plan. I teach you again, how to do this inside of instructional coaching startup, but I wanted to share this with you today to help you start thinking about how you can proactively support teachers. So why is this so important? Why do you need a proactive PD Plan? So picture this, okay? Two weeks before school starts, teachers get to new curriculum for literacy. And for math, this is a real true story. Okay, they have had next to no time to plan with it or get comfortable with it. They’re basically asked to toss everything they thought they were going to do and start over. What do you think the school year is gonna be like, teachers are gonna be scrambling, they’re going to be frustrated, they’re going to be possibly likely resistant, right? These things are normal for a new curriculum. The thing with a new curriculum is you probably have some trainings and workshops and things that are going to go on throughout the year that are going to support teachers. But you also know that’s not going to be enough, because teachers are going to go through the regular cycle of things that are hard. And the new cycle of the coat of the curriculum. That’s hard, right? If we know this, if we know teachers are going to be stacked with things that are hard throughout the year, why don’t we wait and see what happens. And then watch it fell apart, like watching a train wreck, like we can’t do anything about it when we can, when we know where teachers are headed, it can help us do a few things. It can help us identify possible hurdles or frustrations. It can help us plan support in advance around those frustrations. And it can help us create a consistent ongoing method of providing that support. So let’s talk about what this looks like. If you know you’re starting a new curriculum this year, I want you to take some time to really dig into whatever pieces you have access to, and ask yourself, what are the biggest shifts that teachers are going to have to make? When will they happen? When will teachers need help with this? Okay? So like if you know that assessments are going to look really different with your new curriculum, make a note of when that’s going to happen on a calendar, if you know that getting access to resources is going to be a real challenge. Make a note of that somewhere on a calendar, put it in the right place, so we can make sure we address it in the right place. If you don’t have a new curriculum or a big move this year, and even if you do, I want you to ask these questions of you. What are some of the things that teachers always have trouble with, that they always need help with, or that they always need ideas for? And when do these things happen? So here’s what I want you to do, get a piece of paper and divide it into 12 pieces. So all you need to do is you can fold it into 12. Or you can draw like two lines vertically, and three lines horizontally, bam, you’ve got 12 squares. And I want you to label those starting with the school year. Now, you can start with July, if you like or you can start with August, depending on you know, I mean, I think we’re already July is pretty much you know, maybe let’s just start with August. So. So we’re going to start with August, and we’re going to label all the way through the school year. And you can also include summer if you plan to do any kind of support over the summer. And then I want you to walk your brain through the school year and think about those questions that I asked what are some of the things that teachers always have trouble with, that they always need help with? They always have questions about they always need ideas for so here’s some examples in fall in the fall, for example, this could go in August, you know, depends. Back to school. I know we call August the fall, it’s like 105 degrees here in August, but we still pretend that it’s like least falling from trees and children walking to school with their backpacks and you know, sweaters. Not true here. So in the fall, we’re talking back to school. So we’re looking at management. We can look at team building like community building ideas, maybe classroom setup, classroom library, how to get those organized rituals and routines. How to Use Your attendance gradebook. Other do the job technology that people sometimes just kind of forget, or they’re like, Oh, I used to know how to do this, but I haven’t done it forever. Those are things that could be relevant to lots of different teachers, new teachers, experienced teachers are always looking for new ideas. So that’s what could go in your first month of your planning calendar. Now, I want you to work through the rest of your calendar. I actually do have suggestions for each month inside the course. But I want you to think about your school, what are some proactive supports that you could provide for each month? Okay, so let’s look at you know, in October, well, we tend to start really digging into some data that we probably have a bench, excuse me benchmark accent assessment at that point. And so you could maybe talk about how to use Excel to look at your data, how to export reports, how to use ways to use aware, every, everybody has their own thing. So how, what system do you use to look at data? And how can you use that, maybe you can plan something around that topic, you can look at, maybe January, we need to come back to management behavior expectations, and we need to look at student engagement, you know, closer to the test prep, maybe we need to look at some different activities about review centers, or something like that, depending on what month it is, and what kinds of issues your teachers are likely to need at that time. You walk through your whole calendar, and you plug in some ideas for each month. And then you’re gonna have to choose the one that you think is the best and most relevant and the most proactively supportive of teacher need at that time.

Chrissy Beltran  11:31

Then you have to say, Okay, well, where does this go? What mode of support am I going to provide? Because remember, this is a proactive pte calendar. This is not the new training on the curriculum, this is anticipating issues that teachers may have at certain times of the year, and making sure that you have tools available to help them at that time. So is this gonna go into a newsletter, and it’s focused all on that one thing, and you have some helpful links that people can read to learn more about it, you have some photos of people using it in action? You have a little article where you explain something what you know, is it going to go into a newsletter that you send out every month? Is it going to be a special PLC meeting that you have every month about one of these topics? Is it going to be a special after or for school PD, maybe it’s like optional, you provide some you know, bear claws and collages in the morning, and hit the teachers get to come in and have coffee and learn do their little learning and then go to their classrooms. Is it a monthly video with some ideas in an email? So like, let’s maybe you do a ScreenFlow every month? And you say, okay, you know, I know that one of the big questions that comes out in around November is about integrating technology. So I’m going to do a ScreenFlow of a really cool technology tool. And then I’m going to link three more tools people might want to use and put that in an email and send that out in my monthly newsletter style email. Is it a PD inbox, I have an episode all about PDF be the inbox where I talk to a coach about how they actually got teachers more excited about you know, different ideas and, and kind of interested in different topics, they kind of got access to the classrooms using PD in a box. And if you’re unfamiliar with PD and a box PD in a box is sort it doesn’t have to literally be in a box, but it could, it’s often in like an envelope. And so it might be like a sheet with a QR code on it. And you scan it, it takes the teacher to maybe a video lesson or a video or somebody teaches them how to do stuff, or really cool tech tool. And then there are some activities in that. In that folder or box. There are some resources teachers can use, some people really go out and put like cute stuff in there like stickers, or like a little treat for teachers who participate in PD in a box. So that’s a really fun one. And if you want to learn more about that, you can go to Episode 68. And that is all about PD in a box. It could also be just your website. So if you have a website for yourself as an instructional coach, you can actually just have like a little feature monthly feature corner, and maybe you put your newest stuff in there. And then even if people don’t check it, but they asked you the question, it’s already there. Right? So you go, Oh, yeah, I thought you guys might have a question about that. You can check out this video that I’ve got linked on my site, go to my site, and you can check it out. It’s ready to go. Because you’ve been proactive, which is the definition of proactive, it’s already ready. You’re not waiting for the problems you’re anticipating. Once you’ve got a plan for the year of what you’re going to do each month and you’ve got a little method for it, start working on it. If you’re doing PBN, Abaqus that’s gonna take you some time, especially if you’ve got a different topic for every month. Maybe you won’t do every month, maybe you’ll do twice a year for PT Univox. Because it’s just, that’s how much time you can spend managing it. But really be thoughtful about what you’re putting in there. And get it all together as soon as you develop your plan. Because, you know, and I know it’s the same thing as a bulletin board. You go. It’s just one bulletin board. How complicated can it be the changeable board every month? I’ll just update it every month. I’ll do a cute theme every month and then You know, in December, you’re looking at your, you know, September bulletin board going yes, that that did not work out as planned. Get it done as soon as you can in advance, because that’s what proactive means you are preparing it in advance so that it will be ready when you need it. The more likely that the earlier you have it ready, the more likely you are to actually share it with with teachers when the time comes because it’ll be ready to be proactive in your own productive btw, you can get all of this plus 90 more days of essential startup coaching tests inside instructional coaching startup. This is the last week you can get the well no, it’s actually not. This is the last week you can join the course before our live support starts next week. I’m going to leave it open in August because some people don’t start till later. Around here, we start kind of early. So I always make sure it’s available for people who start early like us. But if you want to join throughout August you’ll be able to however, the live support is starting this Monday inside of our instructional coaching startup members only Facebook group. So I would really love to see you there. And I really hope you get the course I do believe it will help you set yourself up for a super successful year. If you are unsure go back to listen to that episode with David White just a few episodes ago because he shared a lot about his experience. And he actually took away some really great stuff from it. So that was episode 195 instructional coaching startup success stories with David White. Now I want to remind you about my bingo with Miss B board because next week is a very special episode, because it’s our 200th episode. It’s not that I didn’t think I would get to 200 episodes. I mean eventually if you just keep going you will, you will get to 200 episodes, right. It’s just like wild to actually have done it and to be here and to go man, that’s a lot of time I spent talking by myself in a room right? So you can grab the bingo board from bingo with Miss B at buzzing liveness b.com slash bingo or if you go to the My Facebook group instructional coach coaching with Miss B you can grab it there. You just fill it out. It’s not hard to do because it’s all fun stuff. And then you take a picture and you submit it and the directions are included when you download the boards you know where to send it. If you don’t have Facebook and you’re like I’m sure you need help send me an email chrissy at buzzing with b.com. I’m healthy happy to help you.

Chrissy Beltran  17:20

Next week, I’m going to announce my answers to the questions and I’m going to share some fun stuff about the podcast. So you can see if you have the most matches. I’ve given out some fun prizes to the winners and so definitely fill out your board this week. I cannot wait to share this with you next week. And until then, have a good

Chrissy Beltran  17:42

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