Setting Up PLCs for Success When You’re Just Getting Started with Casey Watts, Ep. 161 Instructional Coaching with Ms. B

Setting Up PLCs for Success When You’re Just Getting Started with Casey Watts, Ep. 161 Buzzing with Ms. B: The Coaching Podcast

Chrissy Beltran  00:01

Coach, I know you’re trying to figure this all out on your own. You’re investing in your own learning on your own time because you want to show up for your teachers in the best way possible. Building your coaching program is a huge challenge and it’s even more difficult when you’re asked to know about literacy practices and how to support them. That’s why I created the confident literacy coach. This self paced course gives you the knowledge strategies, processes, and downloadable tools that you need to be confident in your coaching work every single day. The new update to the reading and writing modules includes information about literacy that will help you grow your skills practices, and grow your students into skilled readers and writers. Check it out at competent literacy coach.com And stop reinventing the wheel. Hey, Coach, Are you new to coaching starting out as a coach can be incredibly overwhelming, especially when you aren’t given much directions or your administration. That’s why I created the new coaches playbook. It includes a roadmap to help you start building your coaching Foundation, and a guide to seven podcast episodes in order that will give you the steps and ideas you need to build relationships. Define your role, communicate with your admin, and make a plan to start coaching. Grab it today for free at buzzing witness b.com/new coach and save yourself so much time and stress. You’re listening to Buszzing with Ms. B the coaching podcast where we believe that every teacher deserves a coach. And every coach does too. I’m Chrissy Beltran, an instructional coach, resource creator and coffee enthusiast, and I’m your host, stay tuned for practical tips and honest coaching talk that will help you coach with confidence.

Chrissy Beltran  01:43

Hey, coach, and welcome to episode 161. Initiating PLCs with Casey Watts. This month we’re looking at PLCs and how we can establish a true collaborative community of learners at your school. If you’ve never worked with a true PLC before, and you want to help your teachers work together and an effective team, this episode is for you. I’m chatting with Casey Watts about how we can initiate PL feeds when they’re not in place. And how to improve the ones that we have that just aren’t working that well. So I’m so excited to welcome my guest to the podcast today. Casey, thank you for being here.

Casey Watts  02:18

Yeah, thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be joining you today.

Chrissy Beltran  02:22

I’m really glad that you’re here because I know that you’ve done a lot of work around this topic. So I’m super looking forward to what you have to share. So can you introduce yourself to our listeners talk a little bit about who you are, how you ended up here, and what kind of work you focus on.

Casey Watts  02:37

Yeah, so I am Casey Watts, I am an instructional specialist by day in like a school based instructional specialist. And on the side for now, until I pursue this as my full time career. I am an impact coach and consultant. And what I do with that is I work with leaders, instructional leaders on campuses, such as instructional coaches, principals or curriculum directors to help untangle, messy hard to reach visions and instructional goals, and help them cast a convincing vision to their staff and then script critical moves so they can actually make sustainable change happen. So that’s what I do as an impact coach and consultant. And I really focus on teams and working with teams to help them accomplish the instructional goals and vision that the principal or the instructional leader is casting, because teams is where it’s at. That’s where we make the greatest impact.

Chrissy Beltran  03:35

You know, I’m so glad you brought that up. Because, you know, we’re talking today about PLCs. And it’s a real area of need that many coaches have. And the issue is that if our coaching is only we’re only hitting individual people here and there when they want to work with us, then we are not making that systemic change across the school. Right? Absolutely. That’s where we’re falling short of impacting our whole school system. So I would love to hear from you a little bit about what is a true PLC because people have sat through a lot of things that are called PLCs. And it is not a PLC. So what is a true PLC? What does it look like? And can you give us a little background on that?

Casey Watts  04:12

Yeah. So it’s really interesting that you talk about that I have met with so many teams where when we get to the reality of things I’ve been able to share with them, you know, this is kind of like our district dysfunctioning. I’m not talking about the district I’m in now, but just in general, some districts can be like this, where it’s like we’re funded functioning as this ant hill that’s been kicked over, and everyone is spread out and working of their own accord, which we know is exactly the opposite of a PLC, which is a professional learning community. And so I like to say that a true PLC is a community of professionals who collaborate around problems of practice and alive student data, they set goals and continually cycle through really deep discussion. Oops, my phone fell really deep discussion and discussion around instructional practices that move every student forward all students forward. And here’s the best part that I think we often miss out on with professional learning communities. This is the piece that I think keeps us from having true PLCs. And that is a joy, and fulfillment that comes from collaborating within a professional learning community. And think about how often you hear people like I heard an assistant principal recently, talking about professional learning communities, they’ve been thinking about moving in that direction, they’ve been thinking about going to correct training. And he said, that term just gives me a little bit of hesitation, because I’ve had horror stories behind it. And I’m like, Ooh, a lot of people have horror stories behind PLCs. But that just means that they haven’t had mastery experiences that allow them to have joy and fulfillment, as they meet with other professionals, and not only support students, but grow themselves as learners. You know,

Chrissy Beltran  06:23

yeah, if people are not getting something out of those people feel that they are not walking away, better prepared to do their job feeling good about their progress, the preparation, that they just got, answering some of their questions, solving some of their problems, if they’re not walking away with something that benefits them. PLCs are not serving their purpose. Right. So like, whenever we first learned about PLCs, I can remember, you know, we read the book, it was the same year, we were doing like fish philosophy, this was back in the olden days. And it was very focused on Okay, let’s learn about storming and norming. And conforming and performing. And let’s read this article about that. Yeah, you just had a PLC, and we’re like, we just read an article and talked about what PLCs would be like someday, if we actually did them, but we’re not doing them. We’re just talking about PLC, we’re not doing right. And then after that, our administrator decided that our that teachers were not reading the newsletter. And so the newsletter that went out over the weekend for the following Monday, he would then read on Tuesday, during our, our PLCs, he would read us the newsletter, The Bulletin, and we’re like, this is a great use of our time, right. So as a teacher, that was my experience with PLC, and that was not and I knew it could be better. And I had a great team that worked together outside of our sanction field. But the actual time that we spent together that was for that purpose was not being used for that purpose. Obviously, the coach, my experience is very different. But as a teacher, that’s what I walked into coaching with. So right, what are some of the things that your PLCs do together that actually serve teachers?

Casey Watts  08:00

So it’s funny that you say that, because you’re right, we have so many different perspectives of PLC, like, I think so many people like depending on your experience, and depending on if they ever come around the common definition together, or collective goal together, then we have all of these different experiences. And some of those are like, Oh, well, we meet with PLCs, or we do PLCs to check off a to do list or to have planning meetings or to plan our field trips. You know, it’s everything that PLCs were never meant to be. So a PLC does more than that. They do more than just checking things off a to do list. And I would say that the thing that they do most a true PLC is ask the right questions. So yes, PLCs. They analyze data. They consider varied instructional practices, they conduct peer observations, they venture into learning walks and discuss those debrief. But a true and great PLC will always and forever come back to questions and the right kind of questions. And it’s not always you know, you have the traditional PLC questions that we learn about and we try to implement and that could come from the force or it could come from like PLC plus by Corwin. But it’s so much more than that, too. And, you know, if we think about those core questions, like and I always resort to PLC plus questions, but it’s like, where are we going? Where are we now? How do we move learning forward? What did we learn today and then that plus one is, who benefited and who did not? If you can ground yourself in those questions, but then also do the deep collaborative work that we know people are capable of if given the opportunity, then a true p See has this autonomy and freedom to explore their practices and student learning with other questions, you know, like, we can look at what’s happening within our conversation. And I have the autonomy and trust and freedom to ask a question to push back on somebody’s thinking, or to ask the question to probe further. And so often, and you may, you may have similar experiences or different experiences. But we get into the habit of those four questions. But it doesn’t go any farther than the four questions like, we address those four questions at a surface level. And I will say like, that kind of reminds me of the topic I’ve been focused so much on lately, which is faux collaboration, that is surface level, almost to say fake collaboration, because there’s no depth to it. And there’s no depth to it, because we haven’t built habits of trust, and we haven’t built habits of having Crucial Conversations. In fact, and I just want to put a little plug here and share some really exciting news. I am in the process of writing a book all about fo collaboration with my dear friend Alyssa Crabtree, and it is all about why we experience fo collaboration and how to build habits to move into true collaboration instead, and PLCs have to have those collaboration skills in order to be effective and to gain those mastery experiences. I just kind of like word vomited on you right there. No,

Chrissy Beltran  11:37

that was perfect. No, you’re right. And, and I think that I, I think that what I’m hearing is one of the shifts that people need to make as many people refer to PLC as the meeting. Yes, that makes sense. It’s peeled right day, and the meeting happens on that day. But the PLC is the team. And as I’m hearing you talk about this, I’m realizing how often we’re referring to PLC as the tasks that get done during the session, rather than the people working together. The PLC is the team working together. And so they can do lots of different things. And it doesn’t always happen on Tuesday at nine o’clock. Right? It can happen anytime during the week, because they become a collaborative entity.

Casey Watts  12:22

Yes, yes. 100%. It’s interesting. Today, I was listening to a podcast and I cannot even remember what it was. And it was not related to education. But the speaker said something to the effect of efficiency or efficiency is in your think she used the word processes. Efficiency is in your processes. Effectiveness, effectiveness is in your people. And that stood out to me with teams because how often do we resort back to just process process process? But we forget the people part

Chrissy Beltran  12:58

of it. Yeah, yeah. That what they bring to the table is what actually means you’re getting something good out of your PLC, like they’re producing things together and creating good work and thinking. Yeah, so as coaches are trying to build PLCs, from scratch, like let’s say that everybody’s been in their own little bubble, which happens a lot. Everybody’s been fairly autonomous, at the school, and so they all do their own thing when they want to do it. Maybe they have a curriculum, maybe they don’t, maybe they follow it, maybe they don’t. So everybody’s kind of on their own. And a coach is trying to say, Okay, we’re going to come together as a team, we’re going to start benefiting from the fact that we do work at the same school together. What kinds of challenges do coaches face as they’re doing that? Because a lot of coaches are in this position right now. Yeah.

Casey Watts  13:45

There can be so many challenges, and there can be so many different challenges, too. I think one of the talent challenges for coaches specifically is there’s not clarity around who is the facilitator? And sometimes a principal will designate the coach as the facilitator. But sometimes they don’t, and they say we just want you to join PLCs well, then you have to decide like, okay, who’s leading this thing. But then the problem becomes that sometimes if the coach is the facilitator, the PLC is no longer I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily a PLC. It is more of a delegated meeting where coaches coming in, and they are leading the meeting instead of facilitating it. And then if let’s say that the instructional coach wasn’t there, that PLC should be able to function of its own accord, like they should have practiced and gained so many habits of a true PLC that it’s happening, like you said, not just in a meeting that you’ve designated, but it’s happening outside of that too. So I think that’s a challenge too, is like deciding who is The facilitator, if the coach is designated as a facilitator, at what point does the coach release those reins, so that teachers can then become facilitators. So that can be really challenging. And I think it’s challenging when people haven’t been trained in the process. And they don’t understand what the protocols are for PLCs. And kind of what that said, and we talked about this earlier, people jump into PLCs. And the work of PLC is without having first defined what we all mean collectively by professional learning communities. So and when we don’t do that everyone comes in with their own previous experiences. And like we said, those can be negative experiences, or people have different definitions. Like I think a PLC is we’re coming into put some things on this lesson plan today. So the lack of common definitions and common language is always a challenge. And this is not going to be a surprise, time, time is always a challenge. Like, there’s just not enough of it. But you know, Christy, you kind of made me think about something when you said this earlier, like, if our PLCs are functioning as true PLCs it’s happening, not just in one time period, not just one date in time and place, but it’s happening always. So in this is really, really hard. But if we could shift thinking, like shift the mindsets of teachers to understanding that, then we would be able to use that time really, really efficiently and effectively. So that we feel like we have more of it. You know, like we’re using all of those little pockets of time when we’re collaborating outside of the meeting. So I don’t know if you have experienced that before, like everyone says, we just need more time. We don’t have enough of it. It’s just a hard thing.

Chrissy Beltran  17:06

Oh, for sure. I think that and so he’ll PLC like the actual, the way that teams work together, the kinds of things that we did together looks different, depending on where our teams were at that time. But there were some things we did do consistently, we did plan together, because our teachers had no comfort level with the curriculum. They were starting brand new things, they were trying to do new practices. And so getting some alignment set up was important because everybody had their own little silo. So it was one of the things we did together regularly. We also looked at data together. And then over time, we spent a lot of time getting people into each other’s classrooms. And him having conversations about that. And I found that so meaningful. It was one of my favorite things whenever we could set up a teacher to visit somebody else. And that was where we really, really had that true PLC, where teachers were supporting each other beyond our meetings, it was asked about what are we doing here? Whenever Christy is leading or like overtime, like you said, I tried to hand that off to different teachers, because it did take some some time to establish it well enough that other teachers were prepared to step in and say I feel comfortable doing this, right. But But yeah, for sure, once we got beyond the four walls of that room where we were meeting to look at data and planning and things like that. That is where we started to see more powerful PLCs because we were using our time in different ways, instead of just looking at the constraints of that 45 minutes or that 90 minutes that we had.

Casey Watts  18:35

Exactly, yeah. And you know, it sounds like you were able to, and I think this is so important. Bite off just small pieces at a time. Because your people we’re not ready for a full fledged PLC. And that’s, you know, we have to understand that this is not a jump in and just do it because PLC is not a thing. It is a complete way of being.

Chrissy Beltran  19:04

The first year I was a coach, you know, this was 10 years ago. It was the second year of my event administrator on that campus. And so the first year, she said, You know what we did? We made a habit of meeting together once a week. That’s what we did. And we looked at data. And that’s all we did that first year, we made a habit we got used to being in the room together. We got used to looking at numbers together, we got used to having some conversations, and that change alone was like call the union people I mean, they were freaking out. So that was a big it felt like it was like a small bite and it felt like Thanksgiving dinner. Yeah, right. Right. And the next year they’re like, we’re gonna look at data and we’re gonna plan and people again, we’re like, it was just very stressful. So even things that might not seem like a huge deal to the coach or to the facilitator can feel really big to the teachers because they are like imagine you’re dealing with people who are I always stress to 100%, you change one thing, and it’s like, oh, my gosh, everything is different now. And it’s very stressful. And I’m not criticizing, I’m saying that is the reality of teaching right now. They’re stressed to the max. So any change can feel very, very big.

Casey Watts  20:16

Right? You’re absolutely right. Yeah. And, to your point to like, you have to have, if you’re thinking about this kind of change, because truly, if you’re jumping into the work of PLCs, it is a change, that is a change. Even if you’re not seeing it as a change, it is a change. And because it’s outside of the norm of what they are accustomed to. And you absolutely have to have support and backing from administrators. So not only are you thinking about the change for teachers, but you’re thinking about, okay, how, what is the change for the administrator? How am I going to lead up in this situation, and prepare them for this change, but also help them to prepare teachers for this change? Because that can be a make or break situation, too, like, the way they delineate information and the way they vision cast and present teachers? Who makes all the difference in the world? Mm hmm.

Chrissy Beltran  21:16

Yeah, the issue that we often have is, is it’s like, okay, you know, what everybody’s doing their own thing, we got a lot of issues here, we need to come together, we need to align, we need to make this work as teachers are going to start meaning together, and it’s punitive. And it’s scary. And the big shift that’s happening, there isn’t so much, okay, I have to take one conference period, or I have to take one after school time, whatever it is, it’s not so much those minutes, although that is a big piece of it, is that, oh, I can’t just do whatever I was doing on my own anymore. I can’t do the whole close your door and do what’s best for kids, which I just have a real problem with that. Because if you always close your door, how do you know what’s best? No, you know, everything you’re done learning, like, that’s shocking to me. So that has always bothered me, even as a teacher, I saw a lot of that our administrator was very much like everybody deserves autonomy. That’s not really true. And also, autonomy is the best for every I mean, as as a teacher, I’ve benefited from working with other people. And I was pretty good what I did after a while. So I think that getting teachers to understand this big change that they’re going through is a huge component of initiating the PLC process, right. So how can coaches involve teachers in initiating PLC, so this is a process they actually believe in and want to be part of Yeah.

Casey Watts  22:34

So that the first most beneficial thing that coaches can do is gauge teachers, current mindsets, their beliefs, their attitudes, when it comes to PLCs. And they can do this in a variety of ways. They can do feedback meetings, which would just be like one on one or in groups and just get feedback. And I’m gonna say this without responding to the feedback. And we have the tendency when we do feedback meetings of any kind, or, you know, oh, my gosh, Christina, or St. Claire. Who, what is the name that I’m thinking of that? I’m blanking on? Sherry St. Claire?

Chrissy Beltran  23:17

Oh, sure. Yeah, actually, she’s gonna be on this podcast. Yeah, goodness,

Casey Watts  23:21

completely slipped my mind. She talks a lot about listening tours, and it is very much you’re just listening to them. But we have the tendency, especially if it’s a feedback meeting, and they’re giving feedback, we want to justify or we want to push back or, you know, it’s just natural to do that, but you were just listening to gauge understanding. And that can even begin just simple passerby conversations to gauge people’s perceptions, and their current reality about a PLC. So I think that is the first most beneficial step. And then the second most beneficial thing they can do to involve teachers is to and I kind of mentioned this earlier, but develop and cast a collective vision and definition for PLCs. If they can be a part of crafting what they want, and expect from a professional learning community, then they in and they own the working definition, then like you said earlier, they’re going to feel a sense of purpose and belonging within that PLC and we know that that is what builds capacity. And it builds a positive culture is that is when people feel that they belong and that they are an essential part of something. So those would be the primary two things that I would suggest doing to involve teachers in in having an effective or beginning and effective PLC.

Chrissy Beltran  24:55

Yeah, I love those. I’m, I’m a huge proponent of getting feedback from teachers and I liked that idea. have just listening and not justifying, because we do we try to explain, Well, this is why they did it that way, or will actually the intention was this, and then that they are not going to tell you anything anymore, because you’re not really just accepting that regardless of what the intention was, or what was supposed to happen, or maybe they didn’t follow the rules in there. The reason that happened, it wasn’t it didn’t work, something didn’t work, or something didn’t feel good about the process. So it’s good to hear where they’re coming from, so that you can kind of proactively set up a system in which those kinds of concerns are addressed, hopefully, yeah, in the way you structure it. And yes, kinda

Casey Watts  25:34

like a no, go ahead.

Chrissy Beltran  25:36

No, no, go ahead,

Casey Watts  25:37

tell me I was, it’s too cold, like, two things that are happening when you sit back and you just listen is, number one, you are showing your empathetic side and compassion for them and their responses. And number two, you are showing that you value what they have to say about the topic at hand, with no judgement at all. And think about what that does for you as a coach as you move forward. And what it does for you, in your individual interactions and in your group interactions with them. makes such a huge difference.

Chrissy Beltran  26:14

So you mentioned also creating this shared vision of what appeared like a definition sort of, of what PLC would be? And can you talk a little bit about a process you might use to do that? And then do norms fit into that? Are they a piece of that? Or do you do that separately?

Casey Watts  26:31

That would I would probably do that separately. So the vision casting if you if the process would be, and let’s just say right now is a great time to think about like, we’re in the month of April. So we’re getting close to the end of the school year. And the next school year will begin obviously in August. And so let’s say that you are in this time of the year, this would be a great opportunity for an instructional coach or leadership team, to Well, first of all instructional coach and leadership team first to decide what is it that we hope for our teachers and our students in the year to come, and then to do the listening tours or feedback meetings towards the end of the year. And that way, when you start the year, you have all of this data that you can transparently show to teachers and staff saying, These are the things that you said, you believe about PLC and the things that you said you would hope for from a PLC. With that in mind, so let’s say it’s in service, and you are doing some team development, and you’re thinking about launching PLCs. You can begin by saying we believe that PLC is our beneficial and highly effective. Here’s what the research says because we do want to pull in that research piece of things. Absolutely. Here’s what the research says, Here’s what the the Webster tech finition is or the core one definition definition is for PLC. With that in mind, what are you thinking based on all the things that you hope for with your professional learning community? What are some things we could include with this definition that would make it our working definition for PLCs. So that’s what I would do first, and even set a timeline with them, to help them see those little pieces that they’re going to chew off to be able to become a true highly functioning PLC. And if they can see that, if they can see it’s the process and they can see the benefit. And they’re a part of that working definition, oh my gosh, they are going to buy into it, most of them. And then I would and then I would at that first meeting set norms. And I’m of the opinion that norms need to be set with each separate learning community. And, and I’m also kind of have the opinion that norms can can vary and change depending on the kind of work that the team is doing. And it’s so funny how people respond to norms because I have met with multiple teams, both in my my day job as an instructional specialist, but also as a consultant, where I’ve said, Okay, before we start with our learning today, what are some norms you feel like we need to hold to, to make this work productive and, and a safe space for us? Crickets, people don’t understand what norms are. So that is like, a word that you have to develop an understanding common definition around itself. Um, so so they really have to be intentionally set with PLCs. And with each one, and it really has to align with the work the kind of work that you’re doing. So, yeah,

Chrissy Beltran  29:52

you know, I would say if I was a teacher, and you were approaching me with that, and you said, what norms should we set? I wouldn’t say a word, because I’ve never seen anybody He else actually use norms properly. Does that make sense? Any team that I have been on, we have norms on the wall? Maybe we even wrote them together? Or maybe we didn’t. And they were told to us in a cute acronym or something. And I never see the facilitator say anything to bring people back to the norms when they are not being followed. Do you know what I mean? So to me as a participant, yes, I’m like, like, I, as a teacher, I was like, norms are done. Like that was honestly my feeling about norm. As a coach, I have used them and said, you know, because we want to honor people’s time and get everybody out on time, let come back to the topic that we’re, you know, I use them as a way to guide because we talk about how are we going to hold each other accountable for these networks? Right, what are we going to do? But if that’s not in place, right, you’re kind of left with this magical poster that does nothing, right. It’s like wallpaper,

Casey Watts  30:54

yeah. sits there? It does your right. And it becomes this experience that they have with norms, that they’re going to lock into their brain. And in the future, when they hear norms again, well, guess what? My only experience with that is what I’ve been given, and it’s a negative one, or it’s just not useful at all. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think like, the key to, to having norms mean something is to refer to them continuously. But like you said, not just reading the norms, because that’s pointless, pointless. But imagine how much more impactful it is, if you have teachers consider the work at hand, and then say, review, because your norms could stay the same for several for a long period of time. You know, like, let’s say, you’re working on this one specific thing with your PLC for a period of time. But if we had them, review them privately, and then say, in a moment, we’re going to share out and discuss what norms you feel like you’re gonna have to lean into as we do this work. And I’ve done this recently, and it is powerful, how the norms came back up again, in the midst of our work, because people had intentionally reflected at around them at the beginning of the meeting. And they’re bringing them up. And that’s what you want. You want people in the midst of meeting with them to say, Okay, we said, we had to trust the process, I’m really gonna have to lean into trusting the process right now. Because here’s what I’m thinking.

Chrissy Beltran  32:30

Yeah, it’s a good point. Yeah. If you’re looking specifically at data, for example, and one of your norms is something about how we’re not going to go, I don’t know, I don’t have a language right now. But something like, you know, we’re not going to go off in her ring, the parents, you know, for 20 minutes. And that’s, that may come up again, that somebody can go, you know, remember, we talked about how we were not going to do a lot of blaming during this conversation. And I feel like we’re doing some of that. So maybe we need to come back to, you know, looking at the data in productive ways,

Casey Watts  32:58

right? Yep. You’re absolutely right. And that kind of makes me think too about faux collaboration, like, if people can’t have those conversations, you are not effectively collaborating. Because you haven’t built an environment where there’s enough trust to be able to have those conversations.

Chrissy Beltran  33:17

Mm hmm. Absolutely. And that is the big challenge of PLCs. Long term, really, I believe, especially as grade levels change, as people come in and out as people get more comfortable with each other that can look very different. And so that kind of brings me to my next question that I’m wondering about, which is, what would you consider the coach’s role to be during like, not just during PLC, obviously, as a community, but PLC, like specific meetings, or you know, what, what is the coach’s role during those times? Because we talked about norms a little bit, we talked a little bit about, you know, people working together, it can be stressful. So what does the coach do in those moments? And what how do they interact with teachers.

Casey Watts  33:57

I mean, our our goal is coaches during those times where PLCs, or meeting really should be to model facilitate in and I think, to slowly remove scaffolds so that the PLCs can function well without our presence. And with that said, I’m going to go back to questioning, questioning is the best thing that a coach can do. And we want to model great questioning so that other people are catching on to that and making it a habit to ask deep, critical questions about the work that we’re doing. So I’d say just model facilitate, slowly remove scaffolds model facilitate slowly remove scaffolds.

Chrissy Beltran  34:43

Yeah, I like that. I like that because I think it’s realistic. It’s not really realistic to jump into meeting with teachers and teams that have not ever worked together and just expect somebody’s going to take the lead. And that is like that isn’t always a concern. I’ve seen it happen many times where somebody doesn’t take the lead or the person who does is that de facto sort of, quote leader, that everybody’s just like, Fine, just let her talk, whatever, you know, and it’s just not really effective at all.

Casey Watts  35:09

Right? So do you

Chrissy Beltran  35:11

have a process that you recommend for initiating PLCs? If they have not been set up at all, like a step by step approach or something like that? Yeah.

Casey Watts  35:21

Well, I will say that I highly suggest if someone is just beginning PLCs, or they’re starting from scratch, to check out my free Markopolos share cast, I share four tips for resetting PLCs, or completely starting from scratch, and they can find that at bit.ly/plc. Reset. And, you know, I felt like we’ve talked about kind of a process for starting that already in this podcast, because one of the things that we know we have to do is collectively have an understanding of our vision for our campus with the leadership team, that’s got to come first and foremost. But then vision casting and scripting critical moves for our teachers. So they understand this is what we’re working toward, collectively, this is the definition that we’ve set, here are the small moves we’re going to make over time to build a true PLC. And then eventually, you might get to a point where you’re like, you know what, we are ready for something like solution tree training, or we’re ready to jump into the work of PLC plus book. But I don’t believe that people are quite ready for that. If they haven’t done the groundwork. First.

Chrissy Beltran  36:38

You kind of have to try something and see how it goes and see what happens, what your people need, where you’re doing, okay, where you might want to grow. And then you can do a little more learning to write those areas. Yeah.

Casey Watts  36:50

And you know, you talked earlier about some things that you did in the beginning with your teams. And lesson planning was a part of that. But can’t you have great discussions about lesson planning? Like you Oh, yeah, appeal, right, you can have a professional learning community talk about so many things with so much more depth and meaning than we give credit for after. So like your first agenda topics could should absolutely be around, like what is comfortable for them. And it should be around things that are common, like common problems of practice, not necessarily even that they are struggling with in the moment, but of all time, like, I know, always and forever, people are going to struggle with kids who don’t care. can’t that be an easy topic to begin with? You know, so there are there once PLCs are actually established, established, then you can start digging into the hard, deep data work and conversations, but you had they have to be established first.

Chrissy Beltran  38:00

Yeah, that’s I mean, yeah, PLCs. But we’re planning together, that was actually really challenging for my teachers, they did not have a common language, I did not have a common language with them. And they did not have one with each other. There had been a lot of turnover. They were all doing their own things. Some people were like, I seriously don’t know what to do. And I can remember an early planning peel fee. Very early, like the second one, probably. And one teacher took over the conversation with so many complaints that she just was spiraling. And none of us knew what to do. I didn’t know what to do, how to have not seen anybody do that in that setting before. That was just not the way my team had operated before. So it was like, Oh, my Okay, yeah. And she just kind of lost it. And nothing was nothing was good to help her come back. And at the end of that session, one of my new teachers went and told her, she told me this later, she said, I wouldn’t told her look, I know this is hard. And I know you’re having a hard time. I need to know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m doing. I need those lessons. I need the plan. I need to walk out knowing what I’m going to do next week, because I’m a newbie, and that’s what’s helping me right now. So we can’t do that anymore. And I was so amazed that she was so impressed, because that’s what she needed in that moment. And so I feel like planning was such a challenge. And it took us a couple of years really to get good at it. Planning together because we developed a common language. And it opened up so many doors to learning new practices, having conversations about why some things work. And some things don’t talk about why do we do this anymore? Should we think about that? Again? Let’s look at our structures. Is that is that the way we want to spend our time do we need to change our schedule? It was like the door to teaching conversations about teaching and learning. And then we connected it to our data. We connected it to PD and new strategies. So that one task that might think small was like the foundation for so much that we did together.

Casey Watts  39:57

Yeah. Okay. So there are two things I want to say About this number one, what you just said about time is so important for us to remember. Because we want things to work well from the get go. But it takes so much time. And you just said two years. And and I’m talking like two years, three years. Yep. Four years. I mean, and it’s, it’s hard because you have so much turnover in the education system. So time, give, give yourself, give yourself the grace and give yourself the time. And count the small wins. I mean, as minimal as they might be count the small wins, and also know that people are not going to reach out to you as an instructional coach, and brag, brag, brag and say we’re so grateful. It’s just not going to happen as commonly as it does as a classroom teacher. And it’s not going to happen in the amount of time that you want it to happen. So they need time to be able to see like where we’ve come from. And in recognize that change before they can see what you’ve been trying to do. And I wouldn’t tell you the other thing that I was thinking, but I already forgot what it was a little tangent with that. So maybe it’ll come up that

Chrissy Beltran  41:26

coaches already have PLCs going and they’re looking at their PLC is going I just don’t feel good about these teams. They’re not really working well together. Maybe they have some phone collaboration going on, which I’d love for you to talk a little bit about more about that. How can we troubleshoot PLCs that are already in existence, but I mean, they’ve worked together, but what is not working well.

Casey Watts  41:48

And I guess this is so dependent on what exactly it is that they’re struggling with. But I will say this, it is in my opinion, 100%, okay, to push, pause, and take time to reset. Because what we do instead is we just allow stagnant, or I would say even like toxic PLCs to continue. This never ending cycle of being completely lame. And that means that it could be that you’re pushing pause, and you’re giving some time for feedback meetings, you’re giving time for listening tours, you’re giving time for crucial conversations. And I know that can be really challenging. But if you have set norms intentionally and you’ve adhered to them, then you’re able to have the Crucial Conversations, if you’re not able to have the Crucial Conversations, you know, you need to revisit norms again, and set them intentionally. So I think it really depends on like, what exactly is the issue, and you have to be able to target the issue. And that’s why listening tours and feedback meetings are so important, because you may have one perspective of what the problem is. But teachers may have a very different perspective of that. Yeah, love. Pause.

Chrissy Beltran  43:10

I really love that idea. And like you said, you’re not pausing to pause, you’re not just saying, oh, we’ll take a break, and then it’ll be fine. We’ll come back together in a month. No, you’re you’re pausing to say, Okay, let’s figure out what’s going on. So that we can create a plan to make a different sort of structure when we come back.

Casey Watts  43:29

Yes, absolutely. And that’s where I’m when we have to be trained, but we have to be okay with being transparent, saying, hey, PLCs are not working for us. And at the same time, we know how beneficial they should and could be. So let’s, let’s think for a moment about what’s going on, like you said, so.

Chrissy Beltran  43:48

And I think that that would be really great to have some ongoing feedback with teachers every so often so that you can even just like a survey or something short, that they can tell you, if it’s working for them, are they walking away with something that is improving their instruction? Are they walking away with something that is supporting their management or whatever it is that they’re working on? Because if they’re not, then you’re wasting somebody’s time. And to me, that’s like the cardinal sin of teaching, do not waste teachers time, they hardly have to start with,

Casey Watts  44:18

right. And you know, kind of thinking about this foe collaboration, if they were truly collaborating, and they felt fulfilled. And in the moments of collaboration, then they’re going to walk away and not having recognized that they that they’ve spent this time they’re going to want more of it, like oh my gosh, more time with my professional learning community so we can collaborate together. But so often we we have this idea that where two or more people are gathered, collaboration is naturally happening. But that that is not ever necessarily the case. Because even though we are adults, and we’ve moved into the working world rolled. We haven’t developed a, we haven’t developed the skills to be able to collaborate well, it takes us practicing, having skills modeled. And those those mastery experiences being celebrated for us to collaborate well. And I think we, when we see PLCs, together, we have this assumption that, Oh, it’s this whole group of people together. They’ve been productive. Surely, they’re, they’re collaborative, or we’ve got this whole team together, they get along, surely they’re collaborative. But people getting along, and getting things done is not the equivalent of collaboration, collaboration, and a true PLC is when people are fulfilled, and you’re collectively moving the entire organization forward. Not just students, but teachers as well as learners.

Chrissy Beltran  45:57

Yeah, one time we got a new teacher in our grade level from a different grade, I taught fourth grade, and we got a second grade teacher. And she said, Okay, well, when are we going to plan together? And we said, oh, well, we usually plan on this day. And, you know, we each bring some ideas. And, you know, that’s kind of how we go about it. She said, Okay. And she sat through our planning. And afterwards, she said, You know, I still don’t feel like I know what I’m doing on Monday. And we said, Well, how did you use to plan with your grade level? And she said, well, one person would say, I plan for reading everybody open your notebook on Monday, this is what you’re going to do. Tuesday, this is what you’re going to do Wednesday, so everybody would just tell each other what to do. And then they would just go Okay, great. And then they would all go do that. And it was so there was no dialogue, there was no challenging, there was no conversation at all. It was just very directive, like, Okay, this is my job. So I’m going to tell you what to do. Now, you told me what to do for math. It was not collaborative in any way. And the way we did it wasn’t perfect, either. But we did at least talk about the thing,

Casey Watts  46:52

right? Yeah, that is the like, ultimate picture of faux collaboration. And I guarantee Chrissy, if you had asked her, does your team collaborate? Well, yes, she would say Oh, absolutely,

Chrissy Beltran  47:04

yes. Because they knew what to do when they walked out of that room. They were all preparing. Yeah, but it didn’t challenge anybody’s thinking at all. Not whatsoever. No, no, it’s interesting. Yeah. Interesting. Thank you so much for sharing all this. Casey, there’s been some really great information. And I think it’s going to help people kind of rethink the way their PLCs are working.

Casey Watts  47:24

So thank you. Yeah, absolutely. For sure.

Chrissy Beltran  47:27

I do have my favorite questions that I get to ask and I get to ask every guest. So I want to know, what is your favorite thing right now. And it can be anything a book, TV show, podcast, whatever, anything you love.

Casey Watts  47:40

Okay, I have too many things. There are too many things that I just love. My very favorite thing that I highly encourage people to do is front front porch sitting. And I do have to say sit in like s i t t i n apostrophe, because I’m from East Texas. So I do a lot of front porch sitting in and I drink coffee. And I just do all of my dreaming and playing with my dog there. And my front porch is where all of my deepest reflections happen. And all of my best ideas come from. That’s my very favorite thing. And I can spend hours just sitting there. It’s phenomenal.

Chrissy Beltran  48:20

I love that. We do the same but in the backyard because my front yard faces the afternoon sun and I am in West Texas. And the afternoon fun is I mean, you’re basically like, on the sun, so so you’re just melting in the street. Also, we don’t have grass in front yards here, it’s very rare because it’s so expensive to water and maintain. So we have landscaping rocks, which the heat just bakes off of these landscaping rocks in the front yard in the afternoon because I face the wrong direction. But in the back yard, I get shade in the afternoon. And that is where that’s where I take my kids and let them play and I sit there if they let me and, and read and do all kinds of wonderful things in my backyard. So I totally agree being outside is one of the best ways just to like reset your brain. Sometimes you get stuck with all the stuff in the clutter and things on the wall. And we’re like animals and we should be outside more often. So I love it. Yeah,

Casey Watts  49:19

you know, I think to myself, when I’m sitting out there, if I go inside, I have to face the laundry that’s sitting on the couch and the dishes in the sink. So I’m just gonna stay out here for a little bit longer pretend

Chrissy Beltran  49:31

like it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist on your in your backyard or in your front yard. Yeah, exactly. So where can people find you online to learn more about this idea?

Casey Watts  49:40

Yeah, okay. So I am kind of on all the platforms. I will say I am mostly on Spotify and YouTube. You can find me at catching up with Casey caught podcast on Spotify or iTunes. And I also have catching up with Casey stream on YouTube because I do live sessions every Sunday. And then of course, you can find me on like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. And then I highly encourage people to go to my website catchingupwithcasey.com, where they can find out more about all of those places and some different things that I can do to partner with them as instructional leaders.

Chrissy Beltran  50:16

That is awesome. Thank you so much for sharing all that. And for being here today, Casey.

Casey Watts  50:20

Yeah, thanks for having me. This was great.

Chrissy Beltran  50:23

So much great stuff from that conversation with Casey, I loved it. I do want to share with you a download that you can grab if you’re trying to figure out what to talk about with your teams with your PLCs. So you can grab that at buzzing with b.com slash episode 161. Its appeal fee discussion, dice, little dice, you print it out, you fold it up, you glue it together, and then you can use it to have conversations with teachers. It’s a fun way to get them started to talk talking if they are not sure how to go about that. It’s an easy structure to use. So grab that today at buzzing with Miss b.com slash episode 161 Scroll down to the bottom of that posting, you can get it next week in Episode 162. We’re looking at one way we can grow teachers collaboration and use our PLCs effectively, we’re going to talk about instructional rounds, we’ll talk about what rounds are, how to ease teachers into them and make them meaningful, and why they’re a great use of your time. And my course the confident literacy coach is actually opening up and I want to make sure that if you need support with coaching PLCs that you grab that course it’s opening up in just a couple of weeks. So go to confident literacy coach.com So you will be notified when it opens up. module six is all about conducting PLCs how to work with different personalities in your PLC that make sure everybody has the opportunity to collaborate, how to set norms together. And then I have modules specifically about planning together looking at data and looking at student work we ask the big questions and figure out the big ideas together in PLC so definitely go to confident literacy coach.com so you can know when that course opens up. Until next week, happy coaching

Chrissy Beltran  52:08

Thank you for listening to buzzing with Miss B the coaching podcast. Want more coaching ideas? Check me out at buzzingwithmsb.com and on Instagram at buzzing with Miss B. If you love the show, share it with a coach who would love it too. Or leave me a review on iTunes. It’s free and it helps others find this show. Happy coaching!