Coffee with the Coach – Introducing Yourself as an Instructional Coach, ep. 287

Coffee with the Coach – Introducing Yourself as an Instructional Coach, ep. 287, Instructional Coaching with Ms. B Podcast

Chrissy (00:01.41)

Hey coach and welcome to instructional coaching with Miss B. Today we are talking about how to introduce yourself as an instructional coach specifically with a coffee with a coach event. This is part of the get focused on instructional coaching series where we dig into what you need to know to help you start the year strong. Now, if you are looking for a resource that’s ready to go, I actually have guides for coffee with a coach, cupcakes with a coach and cookies with a coach in my teachers pay teacher store.

That’s Chrissy Beltran buzzing with Miss V. You can grab them there and they already include editable resources for you to use to create your own event so you’re not starting from scratch. When I started out as a new coach, I knew that I wanted to make a good impression, right? But I didn’t know what that impression would be. I felt a little like, and you can tell what movie I recently watched, okay? I felt a little like Joe Pesci during the beginning of My Cousin Vinny. He was super excited to be in a new role and he was completely.

honestly comically unprepared for that role. He’s trying to explain to everybody why he’s good at this or why he would be suitable. And he’s really not. It was not a good plan. Right. I had a general idea of what I was expected to do as a coach. But my coaching experience was from the perspective of a teacher. Right. I had been a classroom teacher prior to that. And I didn’t know how important my introduction to teachers was going to be for the rest of the year.

Helping out a colleague when you’re in the classroom is great to prepare you for coaching work, but it is not the same as building a coaching partnership when you are an instructional coach because you have got some very special hurdles to leap over when you are no longer in the classroom. So basically I had street smarts and survival skills and no formal understanding of what the role could be like. So during a PD,

I was introduced as the literacy expert. And the problem with this might not be apparent at first, but if you think about it, most teachers don’t want an expert coming into their rooms because what does an expert do? They tell you what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong and what you need to do better. And that feels icky. teachers were not excited about that. I felt like I had to dig out of that expert hole for about a year because I didn’t even know it was a problem until we were well underway. And so I really want to help save you that struggle.

Chrissy (02:17.26)

by striding on the right foot. Even if you have already been coaching at a school, that’s okay. This is another opportunity this coming school year to set yourself up for success instead of having to undo what framework and groundwork you laid at the beginning of the year. So we’re gonna talk today about how to create an event. Doesn’t have to be coffee or cookies or cupcakes themed. It can be any sort of event, but the point is you’re going to establish your coaching role with your teachers.

You’re going introduce yourself as a person, you’ll introduce your role as a coach, you’ll start building relationships with teachers, specifically coaching relationships. You’ll learn about teachers as people, and you’ll identify areas of coaching support and learning opportunities that could work for you this school year. So before you plan an event, the first thing you’re gonna wanna do is talk to your principal. You wanna discuss these questions with your principal in order to actually plan an event that works and functions within your school system.

So you wanna know, is this going to be an event that everybody comes to, like they’re all required, or is it optional? Is this something that I should have before school, during conference times, after school? And can any supplies like coffee or tea or treats be provided by the school? If you have any kind of budget, you could partially use some of it towards providing little treats or coffee to teachers, and it’s just a nice.

little gesture that shows that you appreciate them and their time. And also who doesn’t come by for like a free cup of coffee? You know, do you know I worked at a school once that you had to bring your own coffee? When I was a class, this is, I know this isn’t a side, I’m sorry. When I was a classroom teacher, the custodians made coffee for us every day in the lounge. And I don’t know where the coffee came from. I guess the school purchased it. When I became an instructional coach, there was not coffee unless you brought it. So we had to take.

We had to like every month bring like a bag of coffee or a bag of creamer or something or a container creamer or something like that in order to contribute to the coffee club. And that was the only way coffee was made. And basically the person who got there first, which was never me, I’m not that person. The person who got there first would make the coffee for the coffee club. And if you didn’t bring stuff that month, you did not get to have coffee. This is insane people. We are professionals. You can give us some coffee. Okay.

Chrissy (04:38.754)

Sorry, that’s just my own little soap box. So as you’re envisioning your event, you have a lot of decisions to make because every school is different. So you’re wanna think about how your school schedule and your teacher availability will work. And so here are a few different options. And then this also might help you think about the way you could structure your own event at your school, even if it’s different than this. Let’s just get the juices flowing here. So one thing you could do is you could have a schedule for the whole day and teachers sign up for a time to meet with you.

And then you just have individual conversations with teachers, which is actually a great way to do it because one-on-one is a good way to really get to know somebody. And you could just do like maybe 15 minute chunks. You could also share a range of times that teachers can walk in. This might not be as well attended if they just are able to walk in if they choose, but it works at some schools. It also might be because you’re providing snacks or treats, you you can be like, come by and grab this and get to meet, you know, your new coach. So you could say, OK, you can come by in the morning.

before school starts or after school. Or you can say come by any time during the day during your conference period. You could also take a cart and visit classrooms during conference periods, like do a little traveling coach work there to go meet the people where they are. You could host the event in your space, in your coaching room, whatever that space looks like, if it’s big enough. You could ask if you could use a common area or like a planning room or a PLC meeting room if you have one of those. Or again, you could take a cart and go mobile.

There are also some schools that have those really cool, mostly new modern schools that have like in between around every set of maybe four or five classrooms, they’ll have like this little space in the middle where people can hang out and they have like cushy chairs and things. I have never worked at a building quite so new, but I done some workshops with them and those are fantastic and that might be a nice spot to hang out and chat with teachers as well. Sometimes you can only manage to host this event with groups of teachers rather than individual teachers.

It’s not ideal just because people might not be as willing to share and open up, but it’s so much better than not having an event at all. So if the case is that you’re going to have to do it with groups of teachers, that’s okay. Think about how you can ensure to get to know each teacher and have them share during that time. So let’s say you’re doing during conference periods and each team is going to come to your space during their conference period. That’s okay. You can still make this work.

Chrissy (06:59.448)

Then you’re going to want to think about what kinds of materials you’re going to provide to teachers to introduce yourself. It can be helpful to use documents that are already printed out. And maybe like if you had any things that you want to edit, you can do that. You can also just have a conversation and record notes in a notebook or any other system. You can use a survey to get information from the teacher. I do recommend having pencil and paper rather than a device because devices can seem sort of authoritative and evaluative.

and they can make teachers feel less comfortable sharing. And also they might not, they might be concerned about where that’s gonna go, whatever they say. So here’s a couple of ideas and materials that you can share with teachers and then you can choose which ones are gonna work for your event. You can have a what a coach is or isn’t handout. Actually I have one in my TPT store. You can have a newsletter page that introduces you and your work or any other document that does the same thing, that just kind of introduces who you are as a person, because you need to be a person first.

and also what it is that you’re planning on doing that year. You could use a brochure. I have one of those in my store as well. You could use a getting to know you survey or questionnaire that teachers actually fill out and give to you, or you can just ask them conversational questions. Or you can use a four square survey that helps you see what their experience with coaching has been. And that four square survey, you can do a lot of different things with it, but some of the things that I’ve done is in one square, it’s just a piece of paper folded into fourths. In one square, I’ll say,

have you worked with a coach and what was that experience like? You can write, one thing that I have seen a coach do that I like is, one thing I have seen a coach do that I didn’t like is, I am interested in learning about the way that I learn best is. You can use different things to kind of get input from your teachers about their learning and coaching experience. Because if there’s an experience you want to overcome, you’re going to want to know about that, if they’re willing to tell you. Then you’re going to want to notify your teachers.

Okay, and I recommend featuring heavily that snacks and treats will be provided. That is the way you’re gonna get people in the door. That’s one thing I learned from my principal as an instructional coach. You can’t always do everything for teachers that we would like to do, but we can feed them. So some options to notify teachers, and you can choose more than one of these to make sure teachers know for sure. We wanna give them multiple opportunities to know about the event.

Chrissy (09:19.564)

You can give them an email with a link to sign up for a time, like using a service like Calendly or Picktime. I use Calendly and I love it. You could give them a flyer in their mailboxes and then you can include your calendar link on there as well. You can also post it in wherever their mailboxes are, like up on the wall. You can have a sign up sheet in the lunchroom of the office somewhere that you know people are going to filter through. Like maybe if they have to sign in in the morning, some teachers do, then you can have the little sign in sheet there next to the sign in.

You can also announce it over the school announcements and just let them know, don’t forget teachers, coffee with the coaches tomorrow during your conference time. I cannot wait to get to know you and share some special treats. I will see you in room 211. 211 is always room I say, because that was our first PLC planning room whenever I was a teacher, our PLC meeting room. And that number is going to be stuck in my head for the rest of my life. You could also ask your principal if they have a little newsletter that they send to teachers monthly or weekly, you can include your calendar link there.

Basically, you’re gonna wanna let them know in as many ways as possible so that it’s not like, I didn’t know about it. Principal can also announce it during a, maybe an after school PD or any other time that they’re communicating with teachers. Now let’s talk about how to make this fun. You can set a little menu and you can choose a variety of items so different people can participate because remember, it’s kind of a bummer. Like I tried to avoid sugar. I’m not always that good at it, but I try to avoid it for health reasons. And so,

If I show up to a meeting and all there is is like sugar stuff, I’m going to be a little bummed because none of that’s for me, you know, unless I am just, unless that day is day I’m giving up. OK, now you can have coffee and include flavored creamers and powdered creamer. Please have a powdered creamer. I have a powdered creamer. Die hard. I know that that is very unpopular. I even bring it to myself to like.

coffee shops, especially local ones, they only have almond milk or oat milk and almond milk tastes like water to me in coffee and I don’t understand anybody, why anybody would use it. And then oat milk to me tastes, it’s so delicious, but it’s got so much sugar in it that I try to avoid drinking sugar. So I just take my powdered creamer in a little bag and it looks like I’m carrying around drugs. Provide different sweeteners and sugar, know, sweet and sugar alternatives. Consider decaf if you have like the possibility of making more than one pot, especially in the afternoon. Some of us can’t be.

Chrissy (11:38.21)

drinking coffee at three in the afternoon and not regret it later. You can provide tea with herbal and black tea varieties. You can provide little flavored honeys. You know, they have like orange blossom honey and like cinnamon honey or whatever. That would be so fun. And how cute could you make that setup? You could provide treats like donuts or honey buns or sweet bread. Of course, cupcakes. If you do cupcakes with a coach, you can do all different kinds, including gluten-free.

You could consider having sugar-free and gluten-free options of any kind of food that you provide. I know this can be more expensive, but having one little box of sugar-free or gluten-free would really be thoughtful to teachers who don’t always get to participate in those things. Some other ways to make it fun are having music at a reasonable volume so you can still communicate. You’re not going to a rave. You can have some lovely tablecloths or fun tablecloths in a theme if you’ve picked a fun theme. You can make it look like a coffee shop. You can wear an apron. How cute would that be?

You get to wear an apron. my gosh. You could have cute cups and napkins and plates. You can have little freebies like fun pens or sticky notes or stickers, something with your school’s logo on it or the theme. Like if your theme is, you know, baseball that year, as the school I was working with recently had a theme about baseball. And so then you could put baseball stuff on all the little things or you could have cute teaching sayings on them. All of these things are small, but they go a long way toward making people feel like you thought about them and that you want to

you that you want to have fun and that is important. School is heavy. Have some fun guys. Have some. It’s OK. Have some fun. I just want people to be happy at school. It’s so hard right now. So if you can be the one to bring the joy, bring the joy. It’s the beginning of the school year. We still have a nice full battery at the beginning of the school year. Let’s use it on some things that matter.

If you’re looking for the place to go to get resources like Coffee with the Coach included in a monthly membership and you want to get fun and engaging thematic PDs for your teachers every month and resources that will help you grow as a coach plus forms that will help you do your job, I have got instructionalcoachingclub.com. You have got to check it out. It is a fun 90s themed membership and I am having a blast creating resources.

Chrissy (13:54.392)

specifically for these people that are in the club. And I have already had some really great response about how excited teachers are and how excited coaches are to use these resources. definitely check it out, instructionalcoachingclub.com. next week, we are talking about a, we’re still focusing on instructional coaching.

We are talking about instructional coaching priorities for school growth with Dave Stewart. So we’re going to dig in to a little bit about how to focus on what matters most in teaching that will help your teachers figure out what they need to prioritize in their practice. Because what teachers need to prioritize, that helps us figure out what we need to prioritize, right? So until next week, happy coaching!