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Tracking Your Coaching Conversations with Molly Dexter and Kathy Beckham, ep. 226

Chrissy Beltran smiling with a notebook open on the table in front of her. These words are on the image, "Tracking Your Coaching Conversations with Molly Dexter and Kathy Beckham".

This episode is sponsored by digiCOACH

Welcome to the first episode of our new series about having better coaching conversations! Today, we’re talking about tracking your coaching conversations.

To start, I’ll share why tracking your work matters and walk you through a few different ways to do it. Then, I’ll be joined by Molly Dexter and Kathy Beckham, who will introduce a fantastic resource, digiCOACH, that makes it easy to track and analyze your coaching conversations.

If you’re looking for practical ways to stay organized and gain valuable insights from your coaching conversations, this episode is for you!

Why Keep Track of Your Coaching Conversations

Keeping track of what you talked about with teachers is important. Here’s why:

  1. Identify needs on your campus
  2. Recognize the growth happening at your school
  3. Stay focused on goals and track progress over time
  4. Have a record of your conversations with teachers
  5. Ensure meaningful follow-up that drives real change in the classroom
  6. Leverage conversations into future coaching work

Methods for Tracking Your Coaching Work

There are lots of different ways of tracking your coaching conversations with teachers. The method you choose will depend on your organizational style and the purpose for documenting these conversations. In this episode, I walk you through my favorite methods starting with low-tech options and progressing to more high-tech solutions.

Low-Tech Options for Tracking Your Coaching Conversations

Personally, I like to write on paper. Over the years, I’ve used several low-tech methods for tracking my coaching conversations. Here are two of my favorites:

Notebook with Tabs for Each Teacher

You can use a composition or spiral notebook with a sticky note tab for each teacher. One of the major benefits of this method is that it’s simple to set up and you can start recording your conversations immediately.

The way I like to set mine up is to put the teacher’s name at the top of the page. Then for every entry I put the date, the topic of conversation, the next steps, and any follow-up (if required). After the conversation, I add a sticky note to that teacher’s page if I need to follow up, so I don’t forget.

Binder with Dividers

This was my go-to method for years. I love it because it offers a lot of flexibility. It’s easy to add and remove materials as needed.

To set it up, I would get a 3-inch binder and use plastic dividers with a pocket for each grade or department. Before each meeting with a teacher or team, I would place any resources I needed in the pocket, so I was ready to go!

Behind the grade or department divider, I had a divider tab for each teacher. I put a recording sheet, like the Instructional Support Log in my Instructional Coaching Binder Megapack. It includes a space for the date, type of support provided, if follow-up is required, and a checkbox for when follow-up is completed. The sheet also has a space for notes.

Google Sheets as a Tracking Tool

Google Sheets are a super handy option because you can open them anywhere and they’re searchable! You can organize them in a few different ways. Here are a few ideas:

  1. A tab per teacher
  2. A tab per grade level with multiple teachers on the same sheet
  3. A tab per grade level with individual tabs for each teacher

Option 3 is the way I prefer to do it. I would have a sheet for each grade or team and then have tabs for each teacher. On each teacher’s tab, I would include their name, the date, the topic of conversation, next steps, follow-up if required, and a space for if it’s completed. Once you set up your system you can add to it throughout the year.

You can also use the form from my Instructional Coaching Binder Megapack, which has a Google Slides version. You can save them in folders named for each teacher.

Using digiCOACH to Track Your Coaching Conversations

One really amazing high-tech solution for tracking your coaching conversations is digiCOACH. In this episode, Molly Dexter and Kathy Beckham from digiCOACH join me to talk about how this easy-to-use tool can help you track your coaching conversations and analyze the information.

They share their experiences with coaching conversations and the benefits of using a tool like digiCOACH. We discuss how to use the information collected during conversations to provide ongoing support to teachers. They also share how to leverage data provided by digiCOACH to support professional development and provide equitable support to teachers.

Below are some of the topics we discussed during the podcast. To get all the details be sure to listen to the entire episode using your favorite player or the player below.

Why Use digiCOACH to Record Your Coaching Conversations

We know coaches have a lot on their plate and it can be hard to stay focused in the face of it all! We want to provide continuous and meaningful support, but it can be challenging to stay on course without tools and strategies to help!

During the episode, Molly highlights how digiCOACH can help track our conversations with teachers and make them more effective. She says that a lot of coaching is invisible and that our memories can fail us. Having a record of discussions with teachers and being able to look back at those conversations over time shows if there is growth.

As Kathy explains, with paper and pencil you may write stuff down and never look at it again because you don’t have the time to go through it. That’s why she recommends keeping a digital record with digiCOACH. It allows you to provide immediate feedback to teachers and then disaggregate the data in a way that allows you to see trends. You can also use it to figure out who your superstar teachers are in a particular area and then send teachers to watch as they model.

Leveraging Data for Individual Coaching, PLCs, and Professional Development (PD)

One of the many handy features of digiCOACH is that it has prewritten strategies and coaching tips that can be customized to your voice. The platform will notify you if you’re using the same tip over and over again so you can choose a different strategy or tip to share with the teacher.

There is also a report where you can see what specific strategies you’ve been reinforcing and how many teachers are struggling in the same areas. The report provides a clear picture of trends, which allows you to quickly see your teacher’s strengths and areas where they can grow. This information can be used to drive whole school PD or PLC work with specific teams.

Providing Equitable Support to All Teachers

Instructional coaches support a variety of teachers, and it can be difficult to provide equitable support. As we all know some teachers will do just about anything to avoid us! So how can we keep track of our conversations in a way that allows us to be aware of where we provided support and where we haven’t?

In this episode, Molly and Kathy highlight a few ways digiCOACH helps keep track and ensures that all teachers get the support they need from their coach. The platform offers reports that let you see what classroom you have been in recently, how long you were there, and how many times you’ve visited the teacher. You’re able to compare that teacher to other teachers to make sure you are providing equitable support.

Tracking Your Coaching Conversations

There are many ways to track your coaching conversation, ranging from low-tech to high-tech. In this episode, we looked at a few options – from simple paper and pencil to a platform like digiCOACH.

I enjoyed my conversation with Molly and Kathy and know you’ll get a lot out of it too! I rarely go this in-depth with a resource that is provided for coaches, but I think digiCOACH is really neat! I like that you can customize feedback so it sounds like you and not like you’re using a checklist. If you’re looking for a way to track your coaching work I encourage you to check out digiCOACH!

If you’ve been listening to my podcast for a bit, you know I recommend that you have the mindset to Always Be Coaching (ABC)! Documenting your conversations will help you always be coaching! Every conversation with a teacher is an opportunity to provide coaching and leverage that conversation into future coaching work. If you’re not documenting your conversations, you might miss those opportunities.

If you are looking for additional resources, check out my Instructional Coaching Binder Mega Pack. It includes tracking forms that allow you to record the coaching support provided to teachers.

Not sure how to start having these coaching conversations with teachers? My free feedback sentence starters can help you get started! You can get them by entering your email below.

Topics and Questions Discussed in Episode 226 – Tracking Your Coaching Conversations with Molly Dexter and Kathy Beckham

  • Tracking your coaching conversations
  • Different types of coaching trackers from low-tech to high tech
  • Why it’s important to track our coaching work
  • Methods for tracking your coaching work
  • How to set up a notebook or binder to track your coaching conversations
  • Using Google Sheets to track your coaching work
  • How digiCOACH can help you track and analyze your coaching conversations
  • Molly and Kathy’s experiences with coaching conversations and ongoing coaching work
  • Why it’s important to track coaching conversations over time and how digiCOACH can make it easier
  • How to use the information we collect during conversations to move our coaching work forward
  • Leveraging data from digiCOACH to support professional development
  • Providing equitable support to teachers even when they try to avoid us

This episode is sponsored by digiCOACH. digiCOACH is an easy-to-use mobile platform for school leaders to provide teachers with positive, actionable feedback that will increase their confidence and competence.

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Podcast produced by Fernie Ceniceros

Tracking Your Coaching Conversations with Molly Dexter and Kathy Beckham, ep. 226, Instructional Coaching with Ms. B Podcast

Chrissy Beltran 00:00
Chris, welcome to instructional coaching with Miss B where we believe that every teacher deserves a coach, and every coach does too. I’m Chrissie 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 00:28
Hey coach, and welcome to episode 226, of instructional coaching with miss B today, we are talking about coaching trackers to track your coaching work and conversations, and we’re really going to focus on the conversations as the first episode of my series on better coaching conversations. Now if you are looking for a resource to help you with this, you can check out my coaching binder, Mega Pack. It includes tracking forms for individual teachers, where you actually record the kinds of coaching support provided. And coaching conversations is one of those supports, and that’s in my TPT store. You can grab it there just search for Mega Pack. You could also grab it on my website, and if you search for Mega Pack at buzzing with Miss b.com you can also grab my free feedback sentence starters, if you go to the show notes for this episode at buzzing with Miss b.com/episode 226, and you can grab those feedback sentence starters if you are like unsure of how to start having these conversations with teachers. It’s been a really helpful resource that many people have told me throughout the years that has benefited them. So check it out if you’re in that same place.

Chrissy Beltran 01:30
So we’re going to start today by talking about some of the different methods for tracking your coaching work. And I’m actually going to invite a special guest on to share a technology resource that could be really helpful for that as well. But to get started, first, I’m going to share my experience with you, and then we’ll jump into that conversation. So there are different methods for tracking your coaching work, and it kind of depends on your own organizational style, because that’s a real thing and the purpose that you’re using these conversations for. So I’m going to give you a couple of different ideas about why you might want to keep track of coaching conversations, and then we’ll talk about the methods. One of the reasons that you want to keep track of coaching conversations is because it will help you see the needs that your school has. You can actually look for patterns across the conversations that you’re having with teachers and identify patterns that that really jump out at you, that you could use to plan for sort of a school wide action plan, like a tier one everybody learns PD, or tier two, differentiated PLC teams or PLTS. So you can use those conversations to notice patterns across your school. It can also help you identify growth because the kinds of conversations that you have throughout the year will hopefully be changing and growing, and so if you’re having more authentic conversations without teachers with teachers about their teaching practices, that’s a good way of of determining the kinds of growth that’s happening at your school. Keeping track of your work can also help you stay focused, because if you have a goal that you’re working towards, but then you look at your conversations that you documented, and nothing is leading you towards this goal. That’s an identity, that’s an opportunity for you to say, yeah, maybe I’m kind of moving in the wrong direction, or maybe my goals aren’t really where I need to be working because it doesn’t actually meet the needs of my teachers. It’s also just for practical reasons, really helpful to remember conversations you have with a specific teacher, because, let’s say you’re working with one teacher, and you meet with them in February about one topic, and then you’re going to follow up with that teacher, right? Well, March can happen. April can happen, and you don’t follow up because you haven’t had a record. You don’t have a place to go back and say, oh, when was I going to follow up? What was the action I was supposed to take? So it can help you to remember those conversations and then follow that thread of conversation until it actually makes change happen in the classroom, which, if you’re not purposely recording and documenting those conversations, you may not realize that those conversations aren’t actually going anywhere. And that leads me to my last point, which is the point, one of the purposes to recording these conversations is to leverage them into future coaching work. Because you have to have the mindset that you are always going to be coaching. ABC, always be coaching. Every conversation with a teacher is an opportunity to, one, provide some coaching, and two, leverage that conversation into future coaching work. So if you’re not documenting those, you might be missing out on those opportunities. And really, with coaches, we don’t have time for conversations that don’t go anywhere. We have got to leverage our time thoughtfully. So documenting conversations can help you always be coaching. So let’s talk about some of my favorite methods. The first one very low tech. We’re going to start low tech, and we’re going to go more high tech. Okay, low tech is just a notebook, like, like a composition book or a spiral notebook with little tabs for each teacher. And personally, I love this method. I like to write on paper whenever I’m making little notes for things. I like a little bulleted list I made on. Paper, and you can just use really simple little sticky note, little sticky tabs to separate, kind of like, I don’t know if you if you read the Bible or another similar large text like that, and they have those little tabs that you can use to separate. You know, they’re already labeled. Those are cool. Well, they have similar ones that are just plain, and you can just stick them on to the pages in your notebook and write the teacher’s name on there, and have a handy dandy notebook all ready to go to record your conversation. And so the way I do this is at the top of of each little section, right? I’m going to divide it evenly into sections the first page, I’m going to put the teacher’s name at the top, and then I’m always going to record the date, probably in the right margin, is where I usually like to do it, just like whenever we were kids in school, right we record the date in the right margin, and then for every entry, we’ve got the date, the topic of conversation, any next steps and a follow up if required. And you could actually add a little sticky note to that teacher page if there is a follow up required, so it pops out and reminds you, oh, hey, I need to do this thing.

Chrissy Beltran 05:58
Moving forward in technology, it’s still a very low tech option, but a binder with dividers this, I used this, this method for years. I like to take like a like a two or three inch binder, a good size binder, really, two inches works, and then for each grade level or or department, I like to have one of those big plastic dividers that has a pocket in it. And I’ll provide you with a link, because I just love those dividers. Once somebody gave me a set of those, I was like, these are my favorite. They’re so good because you can put little resources that you need for the conversations or for that specific team in the pocket. And I just love having that flexibility. So I have a big divider or a like something to distinguish the grade levels or the departments, and then behind that divider, I have little dividers for each teacher, like the normal yellow divider tabs or the white ones for every teacher. And I use a recording sheet, like the one that I have in my binder Mega Pack, so that one is called the instructional support log, and it has the date, the type of support provided if follow up is required, and then a little check box for the follow up it’s completed, which is handy, because sometimes we’re like, did I do that right? And then just a space for notes. And so it will it’s a simple document. It’s got space for three entries on each page. You can write it out, or you can type in it and print it out. If you prefer to have a printed document to support something that you’ve written on your computer, you can do that, but it’s an easy way to keep track of the kinds of work you’re doing with each teacher and the support that you need to provide as a follow up.

Chrissy Beltran 07:35
Now, the next method, again, we’re moving up on the technologies here is a Google sheet. Now this is super handy, like I love Google Sheets, because you can open them anywhere. You can use the app to edit on your phone, which sometimes is a little less than perfect, but it does work, and it’s just a handy dandy spreadsheet. So you can have different ways to organize this. You can have a tab per teacher, and then each teacher has its own little tab. But if you have, like, a ton of teachers, that might be too much, you could also have a tab per grade level and multiple teachers on the same sheet. But the way that I prefer to do it is have a different sheet for each team. So like, let’s say I have a third grade sheet, I have a sixth grade sheet, or I might have a science department sheet, a Social Studies Department sheet, and then within there, I’ll have different individual like, little tabs for each teacher. And so then you’re just recording information on there, like a spreadsheet, and you can format the stuff so it’s already formatted the way you want. So you can do the teacher’s name on as on the top of the the header, you have your the date and like the first left column, the topic of the conversation, the next column, next steps, and then the follow up if required. And then you could, of course, add that little space for if it’s completed. You can also do those forms that I mentioned from the Mega Pack. I also have those available as Google Slides, so you can do that and just save them into a certain folder and name them by the teacher’s name. And so there’s, like, lots of different options for keeping track of those kinds of things, then more accessible methods that doesn’t require really a lot of money from you, you know, or a lot of effort to set it up. Once you set up your system, you can just add to it throughout the year. And the benefit of having it in technology is it is searchable, so you can, like, search that sheet. Okay, what is,what is, did I talk to this person about this, and then if that word pops up, then you know that you did. So that is pretty handy. But I’m actually going to welcome my guest here in a minute. My guest is there are a couple of representatives from digicoach. Molly Dexter is going to be joining us, and we’re going to be talking about their resources that could be really helpful to you. Molly and Kathy Beckham are going to join me, and we’re going to talk about these resources that are, that are. Are great tools that I have seen myself. They are really designed with support personnel in mind, and so I wanted to share them with you. So I wanted to invite DiGiCo today to join me for this episode, and we’re going to welcome them in just a minute. So welcome Molly and Kathy to the podcast, and thank you so much for joining me today.

Kathy Beckham 10:20
You’re welcome. Happy to be here as a

Chrissy Beltran 10:24
quick way to introduce yourselves. I would love to hear about a few things and you can, like, take turns answering however you want to do this. Who do you help? And how do you spend most of your time and energy at work?

Kathy Beckham 10:36
Go ahead, Molly. Okay, great.

Molly Dexter 10:38
Well, you know, did you coach as a whole, we support school leaders in providing you know that coaching feedback, improving their instructional coaching on their campuses. For me, I’m our client success manager, and so I’m really coming in and making sure that you know the platform is being utilized, you know, as the best they can. Want to make sure that you know you purchased it, you coach and you’re using it effectively and getting that support that you need and feel like you have someone else on your team.

Chrissy Beltran 11:08
Awesome. Thank you. Kathy,

Kathy Beckham 11:09
well, I with 50 years of experience in education, I’m kind of, I was always into curriculum and implementation of that, and then I’ve stayed with that here. I make sure that everything we do is research based, and I make I do a lot of the technical writing, and I help client. I help administrators or coaches, whomever is using the platform to get their teachers on board and give them lots of different ways to utilize it to help for their clients, not just their teacher, their student clients to achieve and to understand and to learn the skills we want to learn and be lifelong learners, but we want to make sure that I want to make sure that everything we put in is Teacher language. It’s how we’re helping to coach teachers, and that’s very important to us. Molly and I, both were practitioners for Well, me for a long time, Molly for a good time, and when I moved into supervising, I it didn’t change for me. I was always a coach, and wanted to be a coach too.

Chrissy Beltran 12:14
Awesome. My next question for both of you is, might seem a little off track, but it’s because I am on a mission this year to share hobbies with people. I feel like educators don’t spend enough time being whole people. Instead, they are so devoted to schools and their work that sometimes we forget the rest. So what are the hobby that you love?

Molly Dexter 12:34
Yeah, for me, I mean, that was definitely huge as a teacher, I oftentimes didn’t devote enough time to my personal life. Now I’m very thankful. I love movement, anything exercise related. I really love so I love roller skating, weight lifting, paddle boarding, anything that can get me outside and just, you know, moving, especially, you know, being so devoted so much of your time to very intellectual things. It’s just nice to be in tune with your body.

Chrissy Beltran 13:02
Yes, I love that. Thank

Kathy Beckham 13:04
you. Well, I was a swimmer in high school and college, and was always a coach. Also. I love to swim. I love anything about the ocean. I like to walk at the beach. We live at the beach, so I like to walk. I like to read anything that gives me a little bit of peace. I watch my grandson during the day too. And so that’s, he’s 18 months old, and that’s a that’s a active thing, but so I wouldn’t call him a hobby. I call him a blessing. But so I like to read and and swim and walk and just visit. I like to be with my friends. I

Chrissy Beltran 13:39
love it. Thank you so much. Okay, so as educators with varied roles and lots of experience, could you share a little bit of your experience specifically with coaching conversations, and you know in terms of the ongoing coaching work that you’ve done and then why this became such an important part of the work that you do now? Yeah,

13:59
Cathy, do you want to start on that one?

Kathy Beckham 14:01
Yeah, I think I will. I I’ve always wanted to help everyone, so I became a bits, a coordinator, a mentor teacher, then a supervisor. I think that I learned the most about being a coach from being coached by some really good people. I had one lady that really helped me. I have the ability to see the big picture, but I’m also very detail oriented, and that’s a good thing, except when you’re trying to focus on one or two things. So she this coach I had, she really helped me, not just with the big picture, but to focus on what I was going to work on for this amount of time, the data all shows that people can do things, two things, well, you add a third thing, something suffers, and that’s proof that’s science. So I learned that from her, she would talk with me about what my goals were, and I was kind of all over the place. Half the time, I saw so many things that needed to be. In and, you know, and that can be paralyzing if you’re not careful. So she really helped me say, Okay, well, what are we going to focus on this month? What do you want to really hit hard this month? And I would tell her, and I would work on that when she came back the next month. That helped me so much. That was a really a great thing. So that’s what I try to help people do, is have a that’s why we moved into DiGiCo too. We talk a lot about coaching cycles, because you need to have a focus, and it needs to be a strong focus. And you cannot do everything at once. You try that, you’re not going to be good at anything. Yes,

Chrissy Beltran 15:37
I think that’s sort of a hole that a lot of us fall into at the first at the beginning of our coaching careers, is we try to tackle so many things at once and make so much change happen at the same time, and then that’s not realistic. You can’t do everything well. And I think, like you mentioned, I think a lot of coaches are natural helpers, so we kind of like, oh, we can help you with this and this and this, and it’s just too much. It’s overwhelming.

Molly Dexter 16:03
Yeah, I think, as as from the teacher lens, I was a teacher for several years, and, you know, I sometimes didn’t get a lot of coaching, you know, feedback and and I had a, really, I had a growth mindset. But I, you know, I knew that there were areas that I needed to improve in, and so I wanted to know that. But, you know, I really wanted that continuous, meaningful support, so not just try this and then, like that was the end of it. I really wanted to, you know, have somebody to work with that could come in and, you know, show me, you know what I could try and try it out. And, hey, did it work for you or not? And where can we go from here. And, you know, DiGiCo really helps with that too, being able to track like, you know, what have we what have we shared? What are those conversations that we’ve had in the past? And, you know, are we, you know, moving towards that goal that we’ve set together? So really, kind of that partnership in that from a teacher lens, was really important to me.

Chrissy Beltran 17:00
Yeah, that’s a good point, too. As a teacher, you know, in the beginning of my career, I could relate to that. I can remember going to someone who was our coach, but they were kind of assigned to work with certain grade level and I can remember taking like, these are my reading groups. This is how I’m going to provide intervention. But I don’t feel like this is the best way to structure this. What are your thoughts? And they looked at it, and they were like, looks great. Like I would like asking for feedback. I was asking for support, and I guess they just were not able to provide it at that time, or maybe for the the other groups of kids I was working with. And so it just felt very like, well, you’re on your own, you know, and and even with a growth mindset, even with trying to learn new things, and being pretty efficacious, it’s, it’s difficult because you don’t know what you don’t know, and so you need somebody to provide you with that feedback and support in an ongoing way. Yeah, I think I

Kathy Beckham 17:53
was so I feel so good about this, and like to doing what I did when I got into the profession, because when I got in, I received nothing. I mean, absolutely nothing. And I think part of it, I started out in special ed. I think that I started out at kindergarten, really, and then when it moved in, but I think they just didn’t know how to help me. Sometimes, I really think that was also the case. And they were like, Okay, well, you’re doing great. So I’d be like, what did you? And I think that’s why I’m so passionate about it now, is because I know people need health, and I agree with you. You just you don’t know too you don’t know. Don’t know what you don’t know. And people need to help you get focused on that, because there are good strategies that work for people,

Chrissy Beltran 18:42
yes, yes, that we can share with them if we’re aware of their needs. So something that you mentioned Molly is about building a partnership over time and having ongoing support. Why is it important to track our coaching conversations over time like not just, you know, oh, this is what we talked about yesterday, and I’m going to follow up now. Why is it important to have that record of conversations that have happened over

Molly Dexter 19:05
time? Yeah, I mean, I think it’s really important because so much of of the coaching is is kind of invisible. If you don’t have a tool that you’re using to to go back and look at those different conversations, our memories fail us all the time. You know, I’m not going to remember what you told me last week. You know, it’s a new day, and being able to see, you know, I can implement something once that you’ve recommended me, great. But am I doing it consistently and improving over time? And being able to go back and look at those conversations and those strategies that you’ve shared, you know, that really shows that there is growth. Or, Hey, this is something that you suggest me, but I’m I did it once, but I don’t understand, actually, I just kind of did what you told me, and I didn’t actually, you know, learn from that, and I don’t know how to apply it to a different scenario. And, you know, a lot of that is, sometimes you need somebody else to show you, or give a really specific. Thick example, and that just might not be an area that you’re, you know, as experienced in, you know, especially, you know, if you’re in a new subject or a new grade level, like you might just need more than that, but being able to see that you are meeting those goals, and actually, you know, growing in those areas, I think that’s really important,

Kathy Beckham 20:24
yeah. And I think when you’re coaching, I always coached in the time of a lot of the time, paper and pencil, and, you know, I’d write stuff down and put it in the folder, and I’d have a folder an inch thick, and I never looked at it again. And if anybody says they do, it just doesn’t happen. You don’t have the time for that. I mean education, and people in education suffer from being time poor, and we just have so many things to do, whether you’re a coach or a teacher, administrator. And I just didn’t look at it. And I think that then we’re back to the I think I feel, because I’ve been in there, I’ve observed, but what is the true picture of what I’ve seen? And I think that’s why keeping a record and having it digitally, that’s, you know, I’m so ready for DiGiCo when they found me, and I was decided that I was going to do this, because the Google Sheet, no one would help me disaggregate the data the way I wanted it to. So I made myself another job, going and doing it myself, and then trying to write an email at the end of the day, at 536 o’clock. I’m tired. I didn’t want to do that, but I wanted to give immediate feedback to the teachers the way we want them to get immediate feedback to their students. And that’s the kind of thing that teachers need to be trained with. PD needs to look that way, how you want it, to see it in the classroom. Meetings should look that way, and other things handled by email, but we should be giving teachers, having them do things that work in the classroom, rather than just constantly talking about it. If talking about it worked, none of us would have it. Would have had a job, because you could tell somebody one time they do it, and that’d be it. That’s right. So I think the consistency and now we with funding issues and everything else, we’re in the middle of a well, what kind of data do you have on that? And I think it’s important to have that, but why are you the one that has to constantly collect it and disaggregate and this that’s taking away from your true mission of working with your students. You know you should be developing lesson plans, or out there helping someone else and but us by being able to use digicoch, it changed everything. Our scores went up. We talked to each other better. It was it was really a good thing for us. It was all because everything was right there. And I think that’s important. You know, as a coach, you can go in and look at exactly what you talked about last time. What did you make a coaching plan, what did you do? And then we can, you can move from there. Yeah,

Chrissy Beltran 22:57
I love that, because as a coach, I had a notebook. I my notebook I carried everywhere. Everybody knew that’s Christine’s notebook. And I used to joke, if I lose my notebook, I have to quit, because I have no idea what I’m doing anymore. And I would go back and look at it. But the effort that is required, you know, to go back and scan through your notes, and then you have to pull out patterns that you see that jump out at you. But it’s not necessarily you know database, and then how to use that to justify anything to anybody else is very difficult, because those notes are like your shorthand for you in your notebook, and there’s nothing quantifiable which, like you said, What data do you have to support that we have to justify so many things that we do as coaches, and that system does not help you do that. It’s handy for certain purposes. And I very much a paper pencil person. I prefer to write things on paper. I’m more likely to remember them that way. Well, I think actually studies show that, but then you you can’t remember everything. You cannot. It’s too much. So even the act of writing it on paper is not enough. And so I do love that your system actually allows for you to go back and notice these trends and patterns without having to do all the disaggregation yourself.

Molly Dexter 24:07
Yeah. One of the, one of my favorite features coming from like teacher lens like coaching, is the strategies, the pre written strategy coaching tips that we have because we have a report where you can go in and look to see, you know whether it’s a teacher, a department, grade level, you can see, you know what specific tips you’ve been giving or what strategies you’ve been reinforcing, and really see, you know what areas as a you know, campus, are we doing well in? What area as a teacher am i doing well in? And what areas can I grow in? And it’s like very, very specific pieces of data that you can see, like, I’m doing this well, or I can improve in this area, and it’s something that’s so easy to look at, and it’s like, my favorite part of my job is getting to go in and look at, you know, each school site or each district’s data, and really get to see it shows a really clear picture of of those trends and kind of what. What strong suit you have and what areas that you can grow in. So I love that from a teacher. You know, it’s all written by teachers for teachers, so it’s really about that coaching conversation, and it’s, you know, really helpful to track those conversations easily. And

Kathy Beckham 25:16
what I found out too, is that with that, Molly and I like the same report. That’s our favorite report, because it’s very specific. But the thing I liked about it the most as a coach is that I always had my personal voice. I mean, I’m a digital immigrant. I mean, I was dragged kicking and screaming into this world, and so I needed something that was easy to use for me, that was simple for me to understand and get used to. But the other part was by use, by giving my own voice. I would walk in, I would do my walk through. I would step right out, hit the speech to text button, and I would just record my observation, what I saw, what I thought, all that in my voice, which is important to a coach, to have your voice, and then I could move on. And in the afternoon, I could correct it, because I’m a grammarian. Molly a laugh, Brandon’s always Yeah, but I could correct it. And then I could choose the pre written coaching tips and strategies that we had to go along with the lesson we were looking at and that my team, the teachers, knew was just another form of data collection, and so that helped us drive PD. And so what I had found before and trying to schedule PD, or even going to PD and be like, oh, you know, I don’t know that I want to do this, but most times, if they survey you, then all of a sudden, everybody’s choosing something they are fairly comfortable with, and not what they really need. And this also gives you an idea of what people really do need to, you know, move you toward the goals you have together. And also digicopes helps you set those goals. You can look and say, This is what we need to work on. And then you can work on it, and then you can gather data on it, then you can look at it, you can talk about it, you can share it in meetings, and then you’re talking about the strategies you’re using with kids and how it’s helping them, instead of, should we sell donuts in the Student Store? So I mean, that’s the kind of thing you want to have in your meetings. And it it moved us forward. It really, really helped. And you saw teachers talking to each other, because that’s the magic. Teachers working together and sharing strategies and helping each other, and that’s where it happens, because they’re they’re there, they’re in the trenches, they’re on the front lines, and that’s important to support them and support them well, because they’re staring at 30 little faces every day on top of everything you’re asking them to

Chrissy Beltran 27:45
do. Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up, because sometimes we collect tons of data. We have all these conversations recorded, but then we’re unsure of what to do with that information and how we actually can leverage it into future coaching work, you know. So it sounds like this, you’re talking about leveraging it into PD, you know, differentiating to meet needs, and really using that information you’re collected, you’ve collected, to keep your forward momentum and keep working together on things that are relevant to teachers.

Molly Dexter 28:14
Yeah, and you know, for us, we also offer our data reviews for everyone we work with, so you’re not just left to go look at your data. We, you know, do this every single day, so we’re able to look at your data and highlight things that from an outside perspective that you might not notice being on the inside, and be able to take that and give our recommendation and, you know, leverage that in a different way. Yeah,

Chrissy Beltran 28:37
that’s a good point. You know, we get stuck in our bubbles, and it just happens to each of us, because you are so like in your school, you know what I mean? You know, ins and outs of everything at your school. And so then your perspective becomes very much what is happening at my school, but it’s you’re looking at it through the lens of everything else you know about your school. And so sometimes you don’t see things that an outsider could see very quickly. You know, like if you have somebody from Central Office come by, sometimes even just having somebody from Central Office show up, you’re like, Oh my gosh. How have I not noticed this? Suddenly you see things like from their eyes. I can remember that used to happen to me as a teacher. I would be teaching a lesson, and my principal would walk into the room, and it was like my perspective shifted over to their perspective. And I was like, Oh my gosh. Like, that is a mess that has not been updated in how long and but you don’t notice it because you’re so in your little bubble. And so it’s good to have outside input to help us kind of shift our perspective and look through a different lens. Yeah. So one of the issues that coaches sometimes have is just due to the nature of our work, right? We’re responsive. We’re supporting a variety of teachers, and so it can be difficult to actually make sure we provide equitable support to teachers, because sometimes you have teachers that avoid you, like every time you go into their classroom, they are not doing the thing they said they were going to be doing, right? Or you walk down. The hallway, and they walk the other way. And so you’re like working on relationship building, but it’s not always a quick process. And so then over time, you realize, oh my gosh, I spent all this time with these people, and I have spent next to no time with these people. So then how can coaches kind of keep track of conversations in a way that will help them be aware of where they provided support and where they haven’t or the other issue is we’ve gotten stuck at the conversation level, like we are. You know, we were working towards something, but we are. We never moved into the classroom to actually make an input. So how can we keep track of conversations in a way that will forward our our motion?

Molly Dexter 30:35
Yeah, did you go to offers? I think a lot of different ways to do that, honestly, which is something that I love. We have a few different reports that lets you see, you know, who’s whose classroom have I been in and recently, like, how long I was in there, how many times I’ve been in there? Be able to compare that teacher to teacher and be like, Oh, I’ve been into this person’s classroom five times, and this person once, like, sometimes we just don’t really notice that. And I think one thing about really building that relationship too, with digicoach, we are very focused on that coaching conversation and making sure that we are building those conversations. Because while I was a teacher that really wanted that feedback and didn’t mind when you came in, I also worked with many people who were very apprehensive to it, but everything that we write being so coaching friendly and so encouraging and very, you know, based on, hey, like, have you tried this before? Or really based on, like, reflective questions and that really driving that conversation, and be able to see, like, what you’re sharing directly with those teachers shows, hey, like, I want to support you in this way and kind of opening up that conversation more, but being able to see that frequency of, you know, when I was in their classroom, and even, am I providing, you know, just in reinforcements for stuff that they’re doing well, or am I also offering ways that they can grow. Because when teachers start to see that we are really invested in their growth and in their so, you know, in their in wanting to support them, like that really builds that relationship. And they’re going to start inviting you into your into their classroom, because they see that, you know, you’re not just trying to catch them doing something wrong. You really are trying to support them. And all of our reports really reinforce that all this data that we’re collecting, you know, it’s really just to support teachers. And I think data sometimes feels like pass or fail, if you if you don’t think about it enough. And it really is these reports that show us that it’s it’s deeper than that is going into, you know, what are we doing well and really praising that we often talk with schools about, you know, pulling that data and sharing it with your teachers, actually, and showing, hey, you know, this is a strategy that we’ve seen all of you guys using really, really well. And then, you know, here’s one that we noticed that, you know, we’re in we’re generally struggling with so like, let’s, let’s have a conversation. In what ways can we incorporate this into our classrooms? And I think that really helps drive that more equitable coaching atmosphere. Yeah,

Chrissy Beltran 33:14
yeah. Something else I want to ask about you and Kathy both mentioned this one report that you love the most, because it includes, like, next, what was it? Something about strategies that that are recommended? Can you give us some examples of

Molly Dexter 33:27
what that sounds like? Yeah, so a lot of them might be so our strategies are always written to say, you know, you I saw you doing this in the classroom, and this is how it helped your students. So for example, you know, we might have something around, like a think pair share strategy. So you know, when you incorporated that think pair share for your students, your students really took initiative in their learning. And then, for every strategy we write, we also write the flip side of a coaching tip like, you know, to help your students have more buy in and practice speaking and remembering what they’re you know what they’re learning. Try incorporating, I think, pair share, and it might go into more specific strategies than that. It might just be, you know, your room arrangement, like, hey, try switching up your groups or using different level groups. There’s so many we’ve written, like, 1000s and 1000s of them at this point, just to make sure that there’s something in there for everyone. And if someone you know comes to us with something that they want customized, like all of it is very customizable. So we write strategies and coaching tips, you know, every couple of weeks because someone has, you know, asked for something new that we are incorporating, okay?

Chrissy Beltran 34:42
And then if the if Is there something to notify a coach when you’re using the same thing over and over again, because sometimes we provide the same tip over and like, coaching tip over and over,

Molly Dexter 34:53
yeah, in the app, we have our library of all of our strategy and coaching tips, and if you’ve already shared it with the teacher. So you as a coach or anyone that’s on your team, whether it’s your vice principal or principal, we have a dosage. We have a little number that pops up next to that strategy or coaching tip to let you know, hey, we’ve shared this tip with this teacher three times. Might not be the tip that I choose in that moment. Then, because you know, if we’re if we’re sharing this many times, that’s that’s a conversation that we need to have. Like, hey, we keep sharing this, but it’s not coming across in the same way that you know, we’re seeing that change. So let’s have a conversation around that. And I might choose a different strategy or coaching tip to to share that time and instead have that that conversation later on.

Chrissy Beltran 35:37
Yeah, like that, because that happens frequently. And then you might realize, okay, this is some learning we need to do here. You know, this is maybe we need to to do some professional development about this, or I need to model it during a PLC meeting or something. You know, we need to have further opportunities to get better at that.

Kathy Beckham 35:52
Yeah, with the dosage on strategies, it also helps to know who your superstars are. So if you need to go have somebody watch a lesson and you offer that up, that was helpful, but, you know, you just want to be giving that feedback. And the kind of, the nice thing is, is we have quite a few and the beautiful thing is, it’s customizable. If you don’t want to use that and you want to use something else, then you can, you send it to us and we’ll get it. We’ll do it for you, you know, we’ll

Molly Dexter 36:23
put it for you, yeah, and even as you, you know, insert one of those tips into this email. You can even adjust that language there. So if it’s not exactly, you know, it doesn’t sound exactly like you, you get to adjust that, and it’s still tracking that data. That’s something you shared, but you were able to customize it a little bit more to really make that teacher see that you were, you know, were there, and you’re paying attention and giving them more direction into, you know, where you want them to go, I like.

Kathy Beckham 36:52
And the part, part of that, too, is with the coaching, with the use of the app and having coaching cycles, you’re not giving them a ton of stuff to read, you know, I mean, if you include a whole lot in an email, nobody wants to read that. And so it needs to be, you know, you need to support the teacher, give them kudos and some suggestions. That’s what coaching is. So it’s just that teachers are now being exposed to this. You know, instead of being the last bastion of control in your classroom, you know, people are coming in and out, people are giving suggestions, people are helping you. Because education change is changing very fast. The world’s changing very fast, and we need support. So

Chrissy Beltran 37:39
what a good summary statement to wrap it up, thank you so much for being here today. And how can people learn more? How can they access these resources? What do you have for us?

Molly Dexter 37:50
Yeah, if you visit digicoach.com we have a few you can contact us right there. We send out monthly newsletters where I really like to go into kind of more educational content, something that we can offer you, whether you subscribe to digicoach or not, and we have a coaching center on our website as well that kind of has blogs and some more information about coaching cycles or anything if you’re looking to grow in that area, or you can follow us on Instagram, social media, DiGiCo app,

Chrissy Beltran 38:21
awesome. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank

38:25
you.

Chrissy Beltran 38:30
It’s rare that I go into depth this much with a resource that is provided for coaches. But I just thought, I really think this is neat. I mean, the hours that I’ve spent going through my coaching notes, I know how difficult that can be, and I like the customizable tools. I like that you can personalize the feedback to teachers so it sounds like you and it doesn’t sound like you’re just checking things off of a list. I really like that. I think that coaches need the tools that they need to do their job. So check out DiGiCo, and if you like it, that’s great. If not, you can certainly take away some of the ideas that Molly and Kathy shared during our conversation about, you know, using that as forward momentum, having conversations around the things you’re seeing across the school. And I love the suggestion visit a colleague is one of my favorite strategies for working with teachers. So getting teachers into each other’s classrooms to really build on the good things that you already have happening at your school. If you are looking to track your coaching conversations, I would love to hear about what method you are going to pursue. If you want to send me an email about this episode, I would be more than happy to respond to you, and I can’t wait to share next week’s episode with you. We’re continuing our better coaching conversation series with Becca silver. Becca has been a guest on this podcast before, so she’s going to share about breaking through resistance with difficult conversations, and she had some really cool new thoughts on this topic. So I cannot wait to share that episode with you next week, and until then, happy coaching. You. 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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