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What Goes on an Effective Teacher Survey? with Amanda Sutera, ep. 222

Chrissy Beltran smiling in a classroom while holding a clipboard. These words are on top, "What Goes on an Effective Teacher Survey? with Amanda Sutera, Episode 222"

Curious about what goes on an effective teacher survey? Then you don’t want to miss this episode of the podcast!

Last week, I introduced your year-long guide to instructional coaching. In that episode, I shared how to create an action plan and what to include monthly. We covered teachers’ state of mind at various times of the year, intentional coaching tasks, and possible PD topics to focus on each month.

Today we’re continuing our series about developing a coaching action plan. In this episode, we’re talking about what goes on an effective teacher survey with Amanda Sutera.

As coaches, we need input from our teachers to create an action plan. We have to understand what areas our teachers are struggling with so we can provide opportunities for them to grow! That’s why today we are moving into teacher surveys!

Teacher surveys are not the only way to gather information for your action plan, but they are one of the things you need to establish a solid plan. If you want more help figuring out the steps, my free action plan challenge will guide you through the process.

Using Teacher Surveys in Your Coaching Work

On the podcast, I’ve talked about using teacher surveys before, and I can’t recommend them enough! A few simple survey questions can lead to big insights and offer direction for our coaching work!

Surveys help coaches understand what’s working, what’s not, and what teachers need right now! Regular feedback from these surveys makes coaching more effective and keeps support aligned with teachers’ needs.

In this episode, Amanda and I discuss the way she uses teacher surveys at various times of the year and how she analyzes the responses. We explore the questions she includes on her teacher survey, the tools she uses, and how she encourages teachers to participate in them. This episode will give you lots of ideas for what to include in your teacher surveys and how to use them in your coaching work. Be sure to listen to the entire episode to get all the details!

What Goes on an Effective Teacher Survey at the Beginning of the Year?

At the beginning of the year, Amanda asks teachers to fill in a pre-coaching survey. These surveys help her get to know her team as people and educators.

Here are some things Amanda includes on her beginning-of-the-year survey:

  • Top 3 values
  • How they learn best and what type of feedback they prefer – verbal or written
  • Their confidence in reading and writing (She’s a literacy coach, but you can ask them about whatever area you coach!)
  • Feelings about coaching

Amanda shows her teachers the data she’s collected from the surveys during their first planning session together.

Mid-Year and End-of-School-Year Teacher Surveys

Amanda repeats the surveys mid-year and at the end of the school year. She asks them how they’re feeling about their practice and the impact of her coaching work.

She highlights the importance of showing teachers their progress and the sustained impact of coaching. It’s something she says that teachers find quite eye-opening. She uses the survey results to foster sustainable growth.

Analyzing Survey Results and Sharing Them with Teachers

During the episode, Amanda tells us her process for analyzing and presenting the survey results to teachers. Here are the highlights!

She creates her surveys using Google Forms. Once she has responses, she looks for commonalities and highlights anything that stands out.

Then, she shows the results to teachers in a group setting. Amanda says she likes sharing responses with teachers and having them involved in the process. She encourages them to look through the data and analyze it too!

Helpful Questions to Ask on Teacher Surveys

Amanda shares the questions she asks her teachers on surveys. Here are the ones she finds most helpful for gathering data!

  • Tell me about your background and experience
  • Which area(s) do you feel comfortable in?
  • What has been most valuable from our time working together?
  • What do you need from me at this point in time?

What Goes on an Effective Teacher Survey?

I really loved this conversation with Amanda. She provided a different perspective on using teacher surveys. I enjoyed hearing about how frequently she uses surveys and the different ways she uses them.

As coaches, we have to get our data from different sources to understand what our teachers need! Once we have that information, we can figure out how to provide that support.

This episode will help you think about how you can use the information you get from teacher surveys to support your team. I think you’ll find our discussion valuable as you build your action plan. Listen now to episode 222 of Instructional Coaching with Ms. B to hear about what goes on an effective teacher survey!

Topics and Questions Discussed in Episode 222 – What Goes on an Effective Teacher Survey? with Amanda Sutera

  • What goes on an effective teacher survey
  • How to incorporate teacher surveys in your coaching work
  • Helpful questions to ask on teacher surveys
  • Using pre-coaching surveys at the beginning of the year to get to know teachers as people and educators
  • Types of data to collect at the beginning of the year, mid-year, and end of the school year
  • Understanding your teacher’s values and learning preferences
  • Finding out about your teacher’s confidence in their skills
  • How to incorporate student data and reflections in surveys
  • Asking teachers about their experiences with coaching
  • Analyzing survey responses
  • How to share the data collected with teachers
  • Using the data from teacher surveys to show the progress and sustained impact of coaching
  • The value of asking teachers what they need from the coach right now
  • Adapting support based on feedback
  • Tools you can use for your teacher surveys
  • Using thinking routines like Connect, Extend, and Challenge to gather information
  • Getting teachers to participate in surveys

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Podcast produced by Fernie Ceniceros

What Goes on an Effective Teacher Survey? with Amanda Sutera, ep. 222, Instructional Coaching with Ms. B Podcast

Chrissy Beltran 00:00
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 00:29
Hey coach and welcome to episode 222, of instructional coaching with miss B. Today, we are looking at what goes in a good teacher survey with my guest Amanda.

Chrissy Beltran 00:39
Now this is part of my developing a coaching Action Plan mini series. Last week, we introduced your year long guide to instructional coaching, what to focus on at various times of the year. And then we’re moving into teacher surveys this week, which might seem like a weirdly specific topic, but the reason that I chose it is that part of your action plan needs to be to get input from your teachers so that you can determine what areas of need that they see and what they what they are struggling with, what challenges they have, and you can provide opportunities for them to learn and grow in those areas. Now this is not the only way you’re going to collect information whenever you’re doing your action whenever you create an action plan. So I want you to head to buzzing with Miss b.com/action and you can get the free action plan mini challenge. It’s going to go straight to your inbox and it’ll walk you through the steps that you need to take in order to establish a really strong action plan. One of those steps is going to be to send out a teacher survey and communicate with teachers about their areas of need. Now, if you want some things to get you started, I have teacher surveys in my store ready to go, and some of them are editable, so you can change certain statements if you want to, you can go to teachers, pay teachers.com, and head to Chrissy Beltran, or buzzing with Miss B. They should both pop up if you search for those stores. And then I’ve got my teacher feedback surveys for instructional coaches. They’re really handy if you’re in a pinch and you are looking to get some input from your teachers. So without waiting to any further ado, I guess is the phrase, we’re gonna welcome Amanda settera to the podcast and start talking about surveys. Thank you so much for being here today, Amanda and welcome

Amanda Sutera 02:14
Thank you so much for having me. Chrissy, it’s great to be here.

Chrissy Beltran 02:17
As a quick way to introduce yourself. We would love to hear about a few things about you. So who do you help, and how do you spend most of your time and energy at work?

Amanda Sutera 02:27
I help upper primary and lower secondary teachers. So here in Australia, we call that the middle years. So years five to eight, and I work with them in a construction instructional coaching capacity and leadership coaching capacity. I work with them in their classroom, so modeling and observing, depending on what it is they have identified that they would like to learn, and I also work with them in their facilitated planning. So being a literacy coach, I specialize solely on their literacy practice. We work together during their facilitated planning to really plan out their lessons, identify their goals, and then work through what we’re going to do with our in classroom sessions. Perfect.

Chrissy Beltran 03:07
Thank you. And then the next question I have is one that I’ve kind of made my own personal mission this year to share hobbies with instructional coaches, because so many times we dedicate so much of our work to schools and we don’t save so much of our time for ourselves. So what is the hobby that you love to do

Amanda Sutera 03:24
that’s so interesting that you say that? Because when I was in a school setting, from teacher to leader to now instructional coach outside of that system, I found that really challenging, and so it was only once, I guess a little bit of burnout came into things, and I was trying really hard to hold on to my hobbies the aftermath of that. Now in this space, I really hold on to so part of the hobby for me, while I was in the school system, was actually blogging and posting and sharing, which then ultimately became the work that I now do, but just in a different capacity. So now that that’s sort of no longer a hobby, I absolutely love to work out and spend time with my family and my friends, getting steps in and moving. Because, as you would know, sitting for a long time during the day or observing in a classroom or sitting during planning or face to face online professional learning, we need to be moving. So always making sure that I’m moving and and reading so trying to keep up with some of the research that’s out there, or just reading a text for fun, purely for enjoyment, what kinds of things, which is, well, it’s still, it’s which is actually quite funny and ironic, I guess. So I love reading student novels so that I can support the teachers, and that’s sort of like a little bit of an escape for me, but I still enjoy reading professional reads. So books about literacy, books about coaching, and then whatever sort of text is coming up for the teachers in their classrooms, which is great because there’s such a mix, yes,

Chrissy Beltran 04:54
and isn’t it funny how we shape so many of us shape our hobbies kind of around our work a little bit. Because, I guess to that blogging hobby that was my hobby for years, was just blogging, you know, enjoying writing about my work as a teacher and my work as a coach, and now it’s like a big part of my job. And so it’s not, it’s not my hobby anymore.

Amanda Sutera 05:13
It’s no and that tends to happen, doesn’t it, when you sort of realize that this hobby can be something so much bigger to support more people, and rather than just keeping it contained, you can actually do so much with it to reach even further so. And I think that comes from being in within a school setting. I think sometimes we just have this perception that we just have the four walls within our classroom, or the four sort of gates of the facility that we’re working in, and then we realize there’s a big, wide educational world out there that’s so much bigger than we really thought.

Chrissy Beltran 05:43
Yeah, that’s so true. So to dig into our topic today about teacher surveys, this is something that I encourage people to do several times a year at least, and if not more than that, and definitely as a part of creating a coaching action plan. So this series that we’re in here is about developing a coaching action plan, figuring out what actions you’re going to take as a coach and and what that can look like. And so that’s kind of how I have shared about how teachers can use surveys in their work. I would love to hear your input on that. What are some ways that you use teacher surveys in your work, or that you think that people can use them effectively?

Amanda Sutera 06:17
Yeah. So the beginning of our school year, which takes place in January, I asked the teachers to fill in a pre coaching survey where I sort of get to know who they are as people and as teachers, because I think that who they are as people really connects to their values. I’m such a big fan of Brene Brown’s work, and so I always ask, what are your top three values? And I credit a principal who did that activity with us when she first arrived, because I feel that really supports the seven partnership principles that Jim Knight talks about, and really establishing that relationship and common ground. So I always start with that, and then that sort of gives me a little bit of a sense. And then we use that in some of our facilitated planning sessions, where we sort of come back to do you remember what our values are? Can we see any commonalities? And I always ask the teachers I work with their mantras or their affirmations, and again, really getting a perception of who they are as people. First, I love knowing about who they are as learners. So you know, how do you learn best? What sort of feedback do you appreciate, whether that’s verbal or written? And the other thing I like to do again, because we’re thinking about this work in terms of the literacy space that I’m in, I ask teachers around their confidence in terms of teaching reading and writing skills. I ask them to use their student data, so the beginning of the year, we always have that pre data around reading and writing depending on the assessments that they’ve done. And I asked them to analyze that and put into the survey, what are you noticing? What are your students doing really well, and what are some areas of improvement? So there’s always a student data section, and I’m just having a look to see. I always ask them about what they think about coaching at the very beginning of the year, because I don’t ever want to walk in and make an assumption that they know. And I guess because we’re in this space, often, we live and breathe it, and we think everybody else does too. But that’s not always the case. So asking them a little bit about, well, what do you believe coaching is? It’s about relationships. Tell me about what that looks like for you. And have you ever worked with a coach before? Because that can also be quite interesting, and again, around expectations. So when we come to that first planning session together, I show them some of the data collectively and quite interesting. Interestingly, they see what each other’s sort of responded with from that coaching survey, with some things de identified. But on the whole, it gives them a bit of a sense around what they’re thinking and believing in terms of their literacy practice and what they believe about coaching. We repeat that survey mid year, so I ask them how they’re feeling again about their practice. I ask them about what impact the coaching has been making on their practice, and then again, at the end of the year, we do the same thing. And at the end of the year and middle of the year, I sort of screenshot some of their results and show them their progress around their practice. And quite interestingly, there’s growth. But for me, the biggest thing with coaching is that it’s sustainable. What they’re doing and what they’re seeing within themselves and their students is just is sustained. And they find that quite eye opening, because no one’s ever really shown them that before. So they they collectively value that. Can you

Chrissy Beltran 09:22
tell me a little bit more about what that looks like whenever you go back and share what things look like at the beginning of the year versus middle? What do you do in that that like the meeting individual teachers or the like, yeah,

Amanda Sutera 09:34
in a group setting? So I’ll screenshot their results, and it was usually it’s to do with their confidence and their capacity around how they feel about teaching their literacy in their literacy practice, how they feel, you know, depending on the goal that we’ve had, the questions will be tailored to the goal. So with the teachers I’ve been working with with one group, it was really around transforming their literacy practice to incorporate the here we’ve got the. Victorian curriculum here in Melbourne, or the Australian curriculum in Australia, and using that to teach explicitly the reading and writing skills using what we call novel studies or text based units. And so I screenshot some of the questions that I’ve tailored from the beginning, middle and end of the year, and I put them on the same slide, and I just asked them, tell me what you notice? First, there’s a little bit of a discussion collectively. And then the second slide, I say, Look at this. There was increased confidence between this beginning of the year to middle of the year, and now there’s this sustained confidence. Nobody sort of dropped off. So from middle to end of the year.

Chrissy Beltran 10:37
How interesting. I really like that. Then you can actually talk about like so why do you think that is? What are some of the things? Of the things that we have done that have been Yes,

Amanda Sutera 10:44
yeah. And then an interesting question I love asking, because often they’re reflecting on their themselves as teachers, I often have them ask, you know, if a teacher in this position was preparing to do the same thing and make the same move or implement the same strategy in their practice. What advice would you give them? And they say, I remember some of those sponsors with this same group were, don’t give up, give it a go, try something new. And so whenever there’s this moment of they’re feeling stuck or unsure, or they’re hesitant about something new that’s coming up, or a new goal they’ve identified, and they’re not sure about the strategies to get there. We come back to that. So I often show them that in the planning sessions that we have together in as a group, before we split off and decide some some individual goals. But it’s quite interesting that they’re sharing that with other teachers who are thinking and feeling the same thing, or maybe at the beginning of their journey. And yet sometimes we bring that back, and that actually becomes their own mantra.

Chrissy Beltran 11:42
I like that. That’s so I love the way you’re using this data, not just for yourself, but as a way to encourage and support teachers who are going through like a challenging learning process. That’s great, yes,

Amanda Sutera 11:52
and we know that they’re, they’re often, you know, sometimes you’re on this role and it’s working, and then other times, it may just be this little fork in the road or a little pivot that you have to make, and that’s another way it’s easy.

Chrissy Beltran 12:04
Yeah. So as you are creating your surveys, which kinds of questions are do you find the most helpful

Amanda Sutera 12:14
at the beginning of the year, asking them who about who they are. So tell me a little bit about your background. Tell me a little bit about your experience, and using that data to then come back as a group and share that together. Because sometimes there’s this assumption that because they work together in a team for a while, that they all know each other. But that’s not always the case. I love asking questions about their confidence. You know, which area do you sorry their comfortability? So which area do you feel comfortable in? And again, thinking about it from a literacy lens, because that tells me where their area of expertise is, but it also helps the group realize that if somebody is really strong with teaching grammar in a meaningful and purposeful way, then we can tap into their expertise to support us in our practice. It doesn’t always have to be from a leader or a coach bringing in that that knowledge or those skills. I love asking what’s been most valuable at the end of each survey. What’s been most valuable in our with that from our time together over the course of this year, this month, this term, and that’s a question I ask at the end of every coaching cycle as well. It’s a great takeaway for the coachee, but it’s also, it’s affirming, and it also supports me as a coachee, knowing well what Ladd did or what sort of needs support in a different direction. And asking, What do you need from me at the moment is a really important question, because sometimes teachers really just want to be heard, seen and valued, and so listening to them, rather than giving them more or getting them to do something else. But what do you need from me at this moment and again, there can be an assumption, as a leader a coach, that we go in and we pick up where we left off from our last session together. We’re getting ready to walk through a coaching cycle. And it may not be what that teacher or leader, perhaps, if it’s a leadership role, that you’re a leader, that you’re coaching, but it may not be what they need at that point in time. So always asking, each coaching cycle, what do you need from me at this point in time? Because things have shifted. Things have changed from the last time we got together, and that very much happened to me. The other week, I was so excited, ready to go our first time back. And usually I think I can read the room pretty well, but this time, it was just poker faces, and I thought, oh, you know, I was ready to go, and then I wasn’t, and I had forgotten to ask that question in that moment. So it really reminded me of how important that question is, what do you need from me? So the next week, when we got back together, was the very first thing that I asked to open the session, as well as what needs our attention today. That seems to be another great one to start with. I

Chrissy Beltran 14:45
like the wording of that because I think that sometimes whenever we ask about, you know, challenges in the classroom, or we ask about areas of struggle or areas we would like to grow in the wording. Take on a connotation that people can feel is sort of like an attack, like, tell me what you’re not good at. So I think we have to be thoughtful whenever we word these questions to where they are not teachers don’t feel like we’re using them against them, rather that we’re using them to provide support in some areas that they’re identifying, you know. So I think that that the wording of that is just broad enough to where, you know, it can open up the conversation to a lot of different

Amanda Sutera 15:27
things it can. And that’s the beauty of having that type of question where it’s not narrowed down into just one sort of pigeonhole, or they’re already thinking about, well, this is an even better, if sort of a question. There’s a lot of scope for that. And it’s great because it also means that your learning as well as the coach, what you do need to take on and what you can give over to the teachers, and what you can then support them within a different capacity.

Chrissy Beltran 15:53
Yes, I like that. So that whenever you give a survey and you have results from, I don’t know how many teachers, let’s say, like a school of teachers, or a fairly amount, large amount of teachers. How do you go about looking at the results, like, Do you have a process that you follow? Are you disaggregating any kind of, you know, numerical data, or is it just all, you know, sort of open ended response, and then you’re just reading through them? What does that

Amanda Sutera 16:15
look like? Yeah. So the way that I sort of analyze the data is that open ended response. So I go through and I have a look, and I print off the I use Google Forms. It’s probably not very fancy, but it works for me, and it gives me the data that I need with the teachers. And so I print off the individual forms, and I have a look at their responses, and I sort of circle anything that really stands out to me or that’s worth sharing, and I sort of highlight anything else as well that might just be something to work on. I look for commonalities across the board with those results. Sometimes I’ll group the responses together and look at them collectively rather than individually. And I always present the data, depending on what it is, but I love showing the teachers, so once I’ve had a look, I often get them to do the same thing and analyze and interpret. Because sometimes when teachers do some surveys, they never really see the responses. It usually goes to people right higher up, somewhere else to do something with that data. But I really love having them involved with that. So I’m lucky that I’m able to print off and have a look at that the individual teacher responses for the moment, and sort of just see their responses from that.

Chrissy Beltran 17:29
Yeah, I like that. I think that’s great for personal reflection. You just mentioned Google Forms. Is that the only tool that you use to create surveys? Because I agree, it’s like, you don’t really have to pay for anything or hunting, yeah, really great tool that’s available to everybody.

Amanda Sutera 17:43
Yes, I only use Google Forms. At the moment, I was going to ask you, then, Chrissy, what you use as well, because I could see you nodding while I was saying Google Forms. And I thought, Oh, I wonder what Chris was using. Or if there’s, and I know there’s, is a typo type, form type, there’s one called type something. Have you been lucky?

Chrissy Beltran 18:03
But it’s only free up, yes, number of responses. So then if you have more response than that, then you have to pay to access the rest of the information. Yeah.

Amanda Sutera 18:10
So you use Google Forms as well. I usually

Chrissy Beltran 18:13
do. I also have created more on like, just, you know, actual printable forms, like surveys that, yeah, created, um, yes, just pay teacher store as well. But some more editable, but they are, you know, just completely personalized forms that I’ve made for different purposes. You know that, yes, completely paper, pencil,

Amanda Sutera 18:30
yes, a hard copy. And the other thing I like to to collect some data is using some thinking routines. So if I’m running a session or I’m working with a group of teachers, and it’s just for the hour, and we’re doing that together. I love having a hard copy thinking routine, or a digital copy on a Padlet or something, and I use that as data as well, because one that I really enjoy is connect, extend challenge. And the Connect shows me again, what’s resonating. And it’s a little bit like the question in the questions from the Google survey, but the extend and the challenge really show where there’s opportunity for growth and fits and learning.

Chrissy Beltran 19:06
Can you explain exactly what that sounds like? What does the language sound like around each of those?

Amanda Sutera 19:11
Yeah. So the Connect, extend challenge thinking routine. So I do the same sort of thing as I would over the course of a year, but if it’s, for example, in our last session that we’ve got together with some teachers, we do it at the beginning of the session, the middle of the session, at the end. So I have pause points in all of this learning opportunities that I have with the teachers, and I ask them to connect. So tell me something that’s resonated with you from the information I’ve shared, or from some of the learning that I’ve written other people have shared from this session, maybe the first 10 minutes. And if it’s on a Padlet, they might write down their ideas, and they can see each other’s as well. What’s connecting, what’s resonating with you, what’s something you’ve tried. It’s affirming. If it’s on a hard copy, usually there’s a big a three sheet in the middle of the table, and they can all contribute to that extend. What’s making you think different? Certainly about this, what’s a perspective you haven’t really thought of before? What’s making you tick at the moment? What are you considering? What are some considerations that you hadn’t thought of but maybe now you are. And then the challenge is, how, where are you still stuck? How are you still finding this difficult? Why might this not work for your context. What are some limitations around this? What are some restrictions? So where are some of those blocks to get this up and running? Or, from what I’ve said, how might this not work in your context?

Chrissy Beltran 20:32
I love that. Thank you for sharing that when I wrote it down,

Amanda Sutera 20:36
have you not used it before? I have not

Chrissy Beltran 20:38
used that specific verbiage, like, you know, you do kind of like a stoplight. We’ve done the red, yes, yellow, things like that, similar kinds of things. But I like the language of that, so I wrote that down verbatim.

Amanda Sutera 20:48
That’s okay. So that’s from Ron Richard’s work with visible thinking routines.

Chrissy Beltran 20:53
Yeah, thanks. Okay, so then my last question is, how do you get people to participate in the survey? Is this kind of an optional thing, or is this something? I mean, obviously some of them happen. Some of them happened during PD opportunities and things, but anything that you send out, like to a whole faculty, how do you encourage people to send in their responses?

Amanda Sutera 21:12
So it’s often done by email. So and then in the email, it says, here’s a link, looking forward to our session, looking forward to our time, and they have about a week before we come back together to analyze that, so they know that they’ve got the week to complete it. Usually, they’re pretty good. Sometimes there might just be a friendly email nut reminder, because when we get together next I’m using the data from the survey, so they have to have completed it, so that there’s authentic data and that it’s accurate with everybody’s response to it. So usually it just goes out via email if for some reason, somebody hasn’t had the chance to fill it in, I sort of politely remind them once we do come together if they still haven’t responded via the reminder email, okay,

Chrissy Beltran 22:00
yes. Do you ever do anonymous surveys, or is everything attached to someone’s name

Amanda Sutera 22:06
that’s really interesting? Everything is usually attached to somebody’s name within saying that, though the teachers have been quite honest with their responses. So I feel that there is this level of trust that’s been built, and there is this level of respect as well that’s there that they can just sort of word vomit for a better word what they’re thinking and feeling, if there are any concerns or they’re not happy about something. So they the surveys always are attached to a name. Haven’t thought about doing them anonymously yet, but I get the data from what I think I need. It might be interesting to do that anonymously and to see what sort of results come back or come through. Is that something you’ve tried as well we

Chrissy Beltran 22:53
have done as a school. When I was at a individual school, there was a survey. It was sort of a mid year survey, but it was like a school wide survey. It was not individual, yes, what I have sent out, yes, whenever I send something out, usually I have means attached to it because I need to, or at least a grade level. I need to know where it’s coming from. That’s right. Really do much with it. I can’t help That’s right, yeah. But that we did send out sometimes school wide, anonymous surveys that were like that included, you know, lots of different components. And because it was also going to go to admin, they felt like they thought it would be better to have something more anonymous, which, I mean, it made sense. I think it really depends on the culture of the school as well. Yes, but a school that’s going through a lot of changes, as my school was, and a lot of those changes were not always. I mean, they were not organic, you know, they were, they were kind of imposed on the school out of the city whenever I started coaching. So I think in that situation, anonymity was helpful, because it was people were like, there’s so many, they didn’t know who all was going to see the information, I guess. And they also didn’t know, yeah, who it was, a group of people who were going to receive it. They knew for sure leadership team was going to see it, which that’s like, yeah. So yes, you know, you want to make sure that not everybody has individual relationships with teachers, that they were like, trusting relationships. And so to get accurate information, we did make it anonymous. So I think it just kind of depends on the culture of your school and the who’s going to see the survey and how it’s going to be used. And

Amanda Sutera 24:28
I think that’s really important for the teachers to be aware of. You know that transparency of where the survey the data, is going to end up and who is going to see it, because I do believe that that determines what they put down. I know it does for me, I will put a different response. If that was anonymous, or if I knew who was seeing it, that response would be very different. And I heard what you said about you know that level of trust, if you don’t, if you know that eight people are going to see it, and you don’t have that level of trust, you don’t have that rapport with those teachers or the leaders who are going to be seeing the results, it makes it difficult to be really. Honest and vulnerable, I guess is really what we’re asking them to do in that space. Yes,

Chrissy Beltran 25:04
it does. And, you know, I think I can remember one response. One of my counterparts received some feedback about PLC meetings for math and science, and they were not, it wasn’t like happy news back. And, you know, he his feelings were very hurt. I remember at the time, and said, I keep asking what they need, but they’re not telling me. They’re not giving me any input. And then this is then they turn this in and, you know, and so I said, you know, the hard part, I think it can be navigating feelings around some of those results. It’s normal to have feeling, but I also, you know, we they’re telling if they’re telling us these things, it doesn’t mean if sometimes they don’t have the perspective on things, sometimes they don’t have the full picture. But maybe we can share a little about that, about why things are being done the way they’re being done, and also our feelings are not the most important thing at that time, because we’re not doing the work in the classroom with kids. That’s right. I remember telling him, I know it’s hard, but you’re kind of going to have to put your feelings up on a shelf and then go to your job today, because you can carry those ugly feelings into PLC meetings with you and just be looking at grade levels and wondering which one it was that

Amanda Sutera 26:14
sent it and who said it. Yeah, yes. And you’re right. We do as leaders, we have feelings, and sometimes it really can be difficult to sort of separate that, because it can be that sort of personal attack. But at the same time, you have to remember that you’re in that role for a reason, and once you’ve navigated those feelings, then you have to step up and do your job. And I guess the leadership is taking the responsibility. So what’s been shared is great, because they were brutally honest, by the sounds of it. But then he had something to work with. And sometimes that actually acts as a self reflection tool for the leader too.

Chrissy Beltran 26:49
That’s right, it shows you something that you wouldn’t have seen any other way. And so at least you can say, well, now I know. So what can I do? That’s really all we can do.

Amanda Sutera 26:59
Yes, I can’t imagine those teachers would have gone up to that leader and said, and by the way, this is what I really think. I think having the opportunity to put something in a survey, there’s a different level of honesty, and again, that vulnerability coming through, whether that’s anonymous or there’s a name to it, but it’s very different to having a face to face conversation, unless it’s that one on one coaching cycle.

Chrissy Beltran 27:19
That’s very true. Thank you for everything that you’ve shared. And if people want to keep learning from you,

Amanda Sutera 27:26
where can they go so they can go to my Instagram page, which is hands.on dot heads. So hands on heads, or on LinkedIn under. Amanda sotera, all right. Thank you so much, Amanda. I appreciate you being here. Thank you so much, Chris. It was fabulous to chat with you. Applause.

Chrissy Beltran 27:43
I just love this conversation with Amanda, this different perspective on coaching surveys, how frequently she uses them, the different ways she uses them. I think it’s so valuable and definitely something that you want to consider as you’re building your action plan, you’re kind of triangulating your data from different sources to make sure that you have a clear picture of what support your school needs, and then you can figure out how to go about providing that support. So next week, we’re going to talk a little bit about prioritizing PD topics as a continuation of our developing a coaching Action Plan mini series, again, if you needed some support in developing those that action plan, you can head to buzzing with Miss b.com/action for that free action plan mini series that is sent right to your inbox and until next week. Happy coaching. 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 VIBee and check out the podcast. Show Notes. Happy, coaching!

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