Meaningful Use of Data for Data-Driven Instruction with Jessica Zimmerman, Ep. 170 Instructional Coaching with Ms. B

Meaningful Use of Data for Data-Driven Instruction with Jessica Zimmerman, Ep. 170 Buzzing with Ms. B: The Coaching Podcast

Chrissy Beltran  00:00

Spending time in classrooms is one of the most impactful ways we can support teachers and grow our schools. But all of that classroom work can result in tons of documentation that really goes nowhere. If you’ve got piles of sticky notes all over your desk and random collections of fonts and all of your apps, it’s time to consolidate Connect. hub.io is a platform created by coaches. For coaches. It’s designed to help you organize your notes as you meet with educators and get powerful data on your impact in their classrooms. You can also use this information to support their professional learning and growth. Connect hub.io includes great features to help you protect the coach teacher relationship. By providing different levels of account access for sharing only what you want with administrators. You can also customize reports to share specific kinds of information with your admin. This is such a great software for coaches. Check it out today at Connect hub.io to simplify your instructional coaching with a free trial.

Chrissy Beltran  00:56

As a literacy coach at an elementary school, I spent so much time trying to find the perfect supplemental resources for my teachers. That’s why I am so excited to share a special resource with you today. decodable texts are essential for students who are working on mastering phonics and primary grades especially, I have come across the sweetest decodable books that I love and my kindergarten daughter loves them to. They’re called Express readers. Each book has a complete storyline includes fun and funny characters like bug and duck. And the stories are engaging and increasing complexity over time as to the words and sentence structures on each page. Sticky words are identified in each book to help children with words they aren’t able to decode yet, or those with irregular spelling patterns. There’s a perfect resource for giving students at your school the practice they need and applying phonics skills, head to express readers.org and visit the Decodable Books page. There you can download a quick keys guide with teaching tips for each book, including teaching sticky word mapping, you can also get free sample decodable sent to your address, head to express readers.org If you’re building your phonics instruction, and you’re ready for some really great readers

Chrissy Beltran  02:11

you’re listening to buzzing with Miss 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  02:40

Hey, coach, and welcome to Episode 170, meaningful use of data with Jessica Zimmerman, we are moving into a brand new theme. And you know, I love my themes. We are starting a theme about data and assessments. And I want to do this because I get a lot of questions from coaches about how to make this meaningful with teachers. So that is why I’m going to invite a guest today to help me talk a little bit about looking at data and making it actually work for you. Because how many times have you sat in a data meeting, look at the data, talked about the data. And then you walked out and did literally nothing different moving forward, and you had no real application of all that time that you just spent talking about it. If your PLC data meetings are working like this, then this whole month is for you. We’re going to look at how we can collect data meaningfully what kinds of assessments we should be looking at. We collect so much assessment information about kids. Today, we’re actually gonna look at how data can guide our instruction. So my guest is Jessica Zimmerman. She’s actually the 2021 Milken Educator Award recipient. And she is a GT coordinator and instructional coach, who’s going to help us talk about how to use all this data that we’re collecting. So welcome to the podcast today. Jessica. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Chrissy. I’ve been a longtime fan. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Could you introduce yourself to our listeners talk a little bit about who you are, how you ended up where you are and what kind of work you focus on?

Jessica Zimmerman  04:14

Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Jessica Zimmerman. I’m an instructional coach in the Roosevelt school district in South Phoenix in Arizona. And I started in education. 2011 got my Master’s the same time I was teaching kindergarten. And I taught for years K 123 went all the way through, cycled up with some kids, which was really cool. And then I became a gifted resource teacher for a few years where I went around to the different schools in the district and supported gifted and talented students and it was in 2017, where the school that I am at currently Valley View. I had a principal Mr. McClellan. He said, hey, great opportunity. I have a coaching spot that’s opened up if you’d want to transition from your role of Sir

Jessica Zimmerman  05:00

Missing gifted students can you come on over. And at that time, I’ve had really great coaches, really sweet coaches, I’ve also had not so great coaches. So, in my mind, the role has always ever been a many hats not accessible. They were testing all the things. And so I was like, You know what, that’s just not a job that, uh, that appeals to me. And he said, Well, what would make it appeal to you? And I said, Well, you know, teachers are so stressed, they deserve someone that’s in their corner that’s going to advocate for them that’s going to support them. And, and he said, Well, why don’t you be that kind of coach, then he’s like, why don’t you, you know, be the coach that you didn’t have such a good point. So I became the coach that I, you know, didn’t have and transitioned full time into being an instructional coach is now six years ago. And

Jessica Zimmerman  05:55

now I’m a coach to my teachers that are like my, I call them my angel babies, they are my students. And so I treat them just as if they were kids in my classroom before I’m excited for them. That little when they do things and say things in meetings, I’m like, Oh, my gosh, you’re so cute. You did it. So proud of you. So it’s that same like that same nurturing that same rallying for them knowing that they can do it brought that into this role. So

Jessica Zimmerman  06:24

I’m really happy, he pushed me out of my comfort zone, to transition in the role because I, I love this work. I love supporting our teachers, because they just they deserve that level of support. You know, the fact that he said, How can we make this a role into one you want to have was great, because then you know, he supported you not doing all those other things, and instead really spending your time with teachers. So that was that’s an excellent.Yes, absolutely.

Chrissy Beltran  06:50

What kinds of data like we’re gonna get right in this data conversation, because it’s something I’m very interested in.

Chrissy Beltran  06:57

We see data being used badly, we see people not collecting data or not knowing what to do with it once they collect it. So what kinds of data do we like as a system? We know it’s gonna vary, but do we currently collect that we could be using better?

Jessica Zimmerman  07:12

Yeah, that’s a great question. So I think like data sometimes can be a really dirty word and education, because there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of like connotation behind it, we have a lot of people that have had a lot of different experiences with data. And so as coaches, it’s what we really ground ourselves in. But understanding that not all teachers have the same experience with data that we do. And so first is just understanding that there’s a lot of like, implicit bias with data. And, and so that’s, that’s the first thing to just kind of get out there that the data that we do collect, understanding that there’s a lot that comes with it, I’m gonna say that the data that we could be using better that I didn’t even really start doing as, as a data review with my teachers, until really the last few years was looking at student work. And so, so often, we want to look at that quantitative data, how many students are proficient, which students are making growth.

Jessica Zimmerman  08:15

And those are really great data points. But for systems thinking, those are for your admin level should be looking at that data consistently. It’s a good, like dipstick for your teachers to see are we making the progress that we need to, but it shouldn’t be where we are living as teachers, we should be living in looking at what students are doing. And so when we look at student work, it is like a quality versus quantity thing. It tells us what they can’t do. But the nice thing about student work is also tells us what they can do. And in education, we’re really deficit based thinkers, we look at what they can’t do, we try to fill the gaps. And in this case, when we’re looking at their work, we also get the sense of what they can do. And I think that’s wildly missing in a lot of the discussions about looking at student data.

Chrissy Beltran  09:02

Yeah, I agree. And what your I like what you’re saying about thinking about, we look at data for school wide decisions and for systemic issues within the school, but individual teachers have to be looking at individual kids, because that’s how they’re going to respond to the data is, is what do what is this child doing? What is that child doing? And we of course, make decisions about the majority of the kids need something we’re going to do that whole group, but we need to know our individual students, not just like a mass of our kids, you know, 75% Some people might be happy with that and depending on what that represents, but that’s a lot of kids who are needing something and that’s some some kids who are really doing well in that area. What does it mean? Like we just whenever we just look at percentages, and not people, we miss out on the meaning of the data and the whole point.

Jessica Zimmerman  09:51

Yeah, and the thing was student work too is our teacher spends so much of their time planning, they’re planning these amazing materials, these lessons all Have these things that they might have had to adapt a lot from the curriculum? And then we don’t spend any time looking at it. Yes. And so we’re looking at the wrong stuff we’re looking at. It’s not not saying that the other stuffs the wrong stuff. It’s just we’re looking at the other stuff. And not looking at this. And it’s yeah, it’s the it’s the balance of it. And so if we were to really say, Okay, we’re bringing in those piles of student work, that means that those worksheets that you’ve developed, that it took time for you to tear those lessons and adjust the complexity of those questions, and you’re very intentional about the questions that you asked for them to reach these levels of understanding, bring that, let’s look at that, let’s look at students and how they were able to respond to this prompt and and what you’ve done here. And it also validates teachers like okay, I’m putting the work in, and we’re looking at it. And then what really happens in those student work sessions, it takes the like, the dirty like I talked about the data being a dirty word, it takes the dirty data of it because it doesn’t feel so data, even though it totally is, right. It’s qualitative data. And we can still make it quantitative, we can still look at percentage of students that are that are progressing towards the mastery of the standard, but they still don’t quite get it, or what did all students know. And so we can really have some celebrations off of that, too. So it really like demystifies, this concept of data by really honing in on student work.

Chrissy Beltran  11:22

I absolutely agree. But in my my course, the confident literacy coach, one of the lessons is about how to get a PLC together and look at student work together. Because looking at student work is what really shaped the way that we we built our understanding of how we were impacting what students can do. And that having those conversations, looking at one piece of writing, and then everybody looking at their own writing, it elevated our conversation so much, because we’re all speaking in abstraction, if we are not looking at student work together, because what you say, Oh, my kids did well, my kids did not do well. What does that even mean?

Jessica Zimmerman  12:01

Totally. And I think as coaches, we aren’t trained to do that first, right? student work doesn’t come to us in the code in a lot of our coaching, professional development. It’s it’s usually the last thing discussed. Usually it is that that like tiered, looking at data of proficiency, mastery can’t standards, looking at common formative assessments. And so for coaches, were expected to support our teachers in really digging into student work, but we’re often not trained on the student work. So I think it’s fantastic that you’re building that capacity as a coach, because it’s not something that I think any coach would say, No, it’s not helpful to look at. But when have we really been trained, when have we had the time to really dig in student work to because we are, as that layer, looking at so many different data types that it is inundating to say, Okay, I’m going to now take a step into teacher shoes and look at data in this specific format, really drill down to the student level, so and then it really helps with the shared idea that these are our kids, we’re all looking at this data together, we’re all owning this data together. If you as a coach can’t speak to that student level data, it doesn’t make student teachers feel like you’re a part of the team that you’re sharing students. And so it just think it, it also can be a relationship builder, too.

Chrissy Beltran  13:24

Oh, totally. Yeah, we we get to know our people and our students, by by going through this process together, it’s so important for our PLCs to come together around that. So whenever you’re thinking about, about looking at the data that we have, what kinds of data have you collected, that may be different than what people already have access to? Because we have tons of, you know, summative data we look at and of course stuff we look at end of year stuff, we look at end of unit things, we may have common assessments that are that are done. What is something that you look at that is different than maybe what people are already looking at?

Jessica Zimmerman  14:00

I love because you said all the things that lead me to my answer. Oh, and end to end. So yeah.

Jessica Zimmerman  14:07

That’s right. I love that you said that. Because it’s the autopsy versus the diagnosis. Right? It’s too late. We’re looking at the end, it is too late. Yeah. And so I really I this is not popular opinion. But pre assessment is so important. pre assessment for a unit for a lesson for whatever it is, is so important because you can It’s like walking into the doctor, they’re not going to just say okay, this is what’s wrong with you right away. They assess you. And so so often we rely on Okay, the benchmark says, This percentile ranking. Well, what does that tell us doesn’t tell us how they’re measuring necessarily on this skill. Some assessments do some don’t. But saying okay, I’m going to develop an assessment based on this unit to see what students already know. Most of the time you have students that already know so if they already know or have mastery of the standard, you can compact curriculum, and I don’t see that happening, frankly only because it’s not something that’s taught in coursework in, in our master’s programs. It’s not taught to our coaches on how to compact curriculum. So if you have a student, for students that have really mastered that standard, and they show that 80% or higher on that skill, why do they need to be sent through the lesson? Again, they’re only going to bug everybody else because they’re bored or whatever else. So saying, Okay, this is an opportunity to extend and enrich for students that already that already have that, that mastery of the standards. So that’s PLC, question four, which is skipped all the time. We’re gonna talk about that later, too, because it’s just vastly under utilized to support our students. And then the other piece is, we get to save time, because you already know where students are starting off, you don’t have to spend the additional time to over scaffold if you only have a small group of students that really need those scaffolds. So you get to make your little piles, the ones that know it, the ones that almost no, it maybe you might need a few different categories of that, depending on how far those those skills are. And then the ones that are almost there. And then the stress of the teacher really, I know it’s like, but it’s another test. Yes, but that test tells you exactly what to do next. And so I don’t see teachers giving the pre assessments like they like they could be because of the feeling of hots another test, I don’t want to test them if they haven’t been given it before. Well, with our standards are built, so many are recycled, and they’re skills that build upon each other from year to year. So your kids might be coming to you with some of those with some of those skills. And so again, it’s the assets based thinking, what do they already come with, that I can use to leverage to make my instruction even better to actually take down the time and my instructional planning, because I already know where all of them are.

Chrissy Beltran  16:48

Yeah, I think that’s a really good idea. The it is it is another assessment, but it’s not like sometimes what we get hung up on, it’s like, oh, another test and just but and it does take time. But it actually will save you time to help because it’s gonna help you focus on what’s essential, and for who, and it’s also not another test in the in the way that kids are not going to be punished for anything, there’s no penalty for not having the knowledge at the beginning of a unit, you just kind of want to know what’s going on. You want to get to know your kids in that specific context. Yeah. So literally, as we’re trying to work with teachers in using this data and other forms of data that you find relevant, how can a coach ensure that teachers actually have the knowledge that they need to be effective in this way?

Jessica Zimmerman  17:35

Yeah. So this really kind of comes down to I don’t know, if you’ve ever read the book drive by Daniel Pink, you have to first determine your your teachers drive, what motivates them, and then also, their skill versus their will. And so how I break that down, I know, it’s, it’s published somewhere. And I don’t know where specifically this is published, but people are kind of in four quadrants of learning that can do can’t do will do and won’t do, right, and your will dues and your can dues. They need coaching and training. They need that support, you can motivate them, right? So there’s a lot of those things, if I’m working with my can dues and will dues, it’s a much different conversation. Really, it’s supporting them with reflective guiding questions. It’s that being that thought partner, and then on the other end of the side, you have your can’t do and won’t do is so my can’t do us. It’s building their capacity and training them because they’re missing those skills, and really understanding what to do with this data, what to even look at what are next steps. And then you know, we kind of get into the mindset of your won’t do your ones that can’t do and won’t do you kind of get into is this a good fit for you because you you kind of have to at the end of the day, use this data for your kids to make growth for them. And so once I kind of determine is this a skill or a will thing, I have to also look at the if the data is dateable. And what I call like dateable data is like the data that you want to keep looking at you want to keep exploring, kind of like yes, and the sexy term for data. But like is this is this data is something that we want to continue to talk about. Because so often, your teachers might have those preconceived notions of this data already. And so if you are saying, let’s dig into this data, and they don’t find it valuable, you’ve already lost them before you’ve sat down at that table. And so digging in together after uncovering those, those implicit bias against the data, and then supporting them with new learning. So often, we just expect teachers to know and while I loved I love that we know that teachers have some sort of capacity, you have to see where they are at too. And so it starts with your own pre assessment by having those conversations with them. If you’re leading all of it, you’re not listening And so by you asking the questions that are intentionally getting teachers to talk about data, you’re going to get to see what they bring to the table in terms of their background, and really digging into data to inform their instruction. And then, outside of that, giving them time to then do something with that data. So often we sit at a table, and then they walk away with the biggest to do list. Or like, okay, now I have to ABC and D, from everything we just talked about this table. And that is exhausting, because there’s not enough hours in the day for teachers. And so however you can, within that PLT, within that time that you have within within the coaching, meeting with that with in whatever structure, you have to support your teacher build in that planning time, whether that’s your co planning, whether that’s you taking it on and modeling for them, because they don’t have the skill set yet. Whatever, maybe it’s mentoring through and talking through some of the mindsets that they are needing to kind of get over the hump to be able to really work with this data. But assuming that your teachers either don’t know or know, is a very dangerous, slippery slope, because it doesn’t honor them as as professionals, and it just gets in your way. So just like you would precess your kids, you want to pre assess your teachers and then meet them where they are.

Chrissy Beltran  21:19

So for those teachers, who can’t you talk about providing that support through learning, right, we’re gonna learn about how it works, I’m gonna model from things and is that the approach that you take with those teachers?

Jessica Zimmerman  21:30

Yeah, so what I will kind of do is I’ll get a general gist of my PLT for the most part, I have really collaborative PLTS. And if I have one person, it’s really strong in something else. It’s amazing how the other person is really strong. And the other thing and they’re really Ying, ying and yang, I’ve had teachers that have worked together from anywhere from like eight to 20 years. So they are very succinct here at my school with my PLT teams. And it’s really it’s really nice. And I do have some that aren’t as succinct, succinct and, and that’s where my coaching and coming in on that one on one element to support those teachers to help build their capacity comes into play. So if it can’t be done during the PLC, it can happen during coaching session, it can happen when I come model or come do some collaborative co teaching or planning. So really the supporting teachers in making sure that they are successful with that data, it happens at all times of the day in all different ways. But usually, PD is not the place that I tackle that I don’t tackle it a whole group, because so often I can’t address the needs of all the teachers and where they are. So I really do intentionally make that something that I can do within appeal T or if I can do one on one, or if I have a group of teachers that have a particular need, offering that professional development for that specific need. So very intentional about the time that you do take with teachers because they have so little to give.

Chrissy Beltran  23:05

Yes. And if you’re meeting in a group setting, and you have some people who are going to need some additional assistance with something, it’s a good idea, like you’re saying to say, You know what, why don’t I come by tomorrow and we can take a look at it together. We’ll look at Gesture your class because you don’t want five other people sitting there going. Alright, I guess we’ll just hang out until that’s done because they don’t have the time for that. Yeah, absolutely. How do you address the ones who won’t? What does that look like?

Jessica Zimmerman  23:30

So first, hoping that you have a really good relationship. It’s really uncovering the why so why not? I had a teacher that said, Oh, I don’t like pre assessment. Okay, tell me more. What was what’s the reason why you don’t? Well, and then she went into a big story about her last coach. When she used pre assessment, she made her enter the grades of those students, and that was the grades that were entered into their gradebook. And so she didn’t feel it was fair. And so there was a lot that kind of was uncovered. And I said, Okay, definitely not best practice, they shouldn’t be penalized for what they don’t already know. No, don’t enter it this you have, you know, this is a chance to see who who does have it. And then yeah, you can say, hey, you’re you’re a three buddy, good job, you know, and standards based planning. And so, so I had to uncover that. So the won’t was really because of the bad experience that she had had before. And I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t ask, so often we see the Crossed arms and the person slips and we go, I’m not you know, that’s a crucial conversation that maybe not willing to have or not ready to have but if you don’t have it, it will come out like a bottle of soda that shaken up and you just untwist it just a little bit and you hear the hiss and that hiss is going to happen all year long. Unscrew the bottle, you know and just say okay, let’s get this out now. You just really have to address it. So my mindset, babes. I have a few of them and and sometimes it’s just really drilling into this is where we’re going to do and I do also preface it with like, Hey, we’re talking about data on Thursday, do you need anything from me. And so sometimes I can iron it out before they even sit down at my table. Sometimes if I haven’t, and they sit down on my table, I can already see oh, they’re coming in with, with the armor. And so if I can, you know, dismantle that and demystify the data and just kind of also let them feel heard about whatever previous experience that they’ve had, the PLT is going to be that much more successful.

Chrissy Beltran  25:32

I love that. I think preemptively having those conversations is so important. And yeah, it really paves the way for conversation that is going to be more purposeful and effective instead of everybody else being afraid they’re gonna tick somebody off because that is also what happens like you feel it? Well, they also feel it right, the all the other teachers are like, Oh, Mr. Jones really doesn’t want to do this. And it’s just like, icky feeling that pervades a room.

Jessica Zimmerman  25:57

Oh, my gosh, and, and we know those PLTS and our teachers know those BLTs. So anything you can do as a coach to make the space that that’s not gonna fly. And and it’s hard, because it’s not always something that is within your control. But if you have really strong norms, if you set those collective commitments at the beginning of the year of, of we’re going to look at data, and we’re going to find the data that’s meaningful. And you can really lay that groundwork, then, hopefully, that and a few individual conversations can lend that time to really be used to look at data mindfully. Mm hmm.

Chrissy Beltran  26:38

Yes, I love that tip. So whenever you’re thinking about this team coming together to look at data, what does that like a really great session look like to you?

Jessica Zimmerman  26:48

Okay, so like five years ago, Jessica would have been like, no one yelled at each other. Yay. Thank you for your honesty. Yeah. So like, really, and I why I say that is because a coach in their coaching journey might not be where I am now. Right? I have some coaching friends that are just like, I got out of PLTS. And no one yelled at each other. And they talked nice about kids. And it was really great. Someone said, Well, this was good data. And so I wanted to address that, like you’re successful, PLT can kind of start there. And that’s okay, if that’s where you are in implementation,

Chrissy Beltran  27:25

You have to get any of that stuff. You just have to work through it. It doesn’t. You don’t get to the good stuff, if you don’t work through the icky stuff, is been my experience anyway, you just have to go and try and get it on the calendar and do it and do it badly. And then over time, you can make it better, but you can’t make it better if you don’t do it badly.

Jessica Zimmerman  27:42

Yeah, absolutely. And I wish I would have known that at the beginning of my coaching journey, because I felt so much pressure to be you know, of course, you want to be the best coach and you want to be so effective in your PLT structures. You also want to I think, for me, as a new coach, I was really into like being the expert, because I wanted them to respect me, you know, I’m younger coming in to veteran teachers. They’ve been doing this for a long time, right? Like, I wasn’t even born and they were teaching it, they were teaching already. And so you have to have some humility. And so it took me some time to learn that humility and to realize that, really, I, I was coming at it the wrong way. When I was starting out, I was trying to be the expert, I was trying to have all the answers I was trying to be, you know, the the glue. And so what I’ve transitioned in my in my mindset is really just been into supporting my teachers efficacy. And it being not led but facilitated. And so how I’ve gotten to get there is through first respecting our teachers capacity. They they’ve done this before you’re not their first rodeo, they’re not showing up with an exception of your new teachers first year ready, you know, spongy and ready to learn from you.

Jessica Zimmerman  28:59

You you have some people that have some experience so you can recognize and hopefully honor that they’re coming to you with data that they do want to look at that they have been looking at. I call it like shower thoughts, right? It’s like dang, Alex still doesn’t know how to regroup. How do I how do I fix that, like teachers are always having those type of moments where they’re thinking about their students and what to do next, based on different types of data that they’re collecting. And so what I did was I just recently had a PLC with my teachers where I gave them a scenario right? And this is probably a common one they laughed at it because they’ve done it to me before but it’s like you come into a PLT you hear we’re going to talk about data you roll your eyes you look at the benchmark reports you already know what students are proficient and who aren’t. And then you look at the standards that they’re struggling with you need time to make a plan and to look at what next steps would look like in the same PLT you look at CFA data and you have a lot of feelings.

Jessica Zimmerman  30:00

about the validity of that specific CFA, and you sit and wonder why this data, you ask yourself, What if we could look at data that is meaningful to me as a teacher, and the next steps I need to take in my classroom for my students to learn? And when I gave them that scenario, my teachers felt like, yeah, yeah, exactly. Why do I have to go and talk about this data? And that’s not the data I want to talk about. And those weren’t the questions I would want to be asked. So what I did was, hey, what questions would you want to be asked? What questions would you ask as a PLC? And so they were asking questions like, what data? Are we looking at? What’s the purpose of this data? What assessments can we make that actually align the curriculum with the standards and assessment? What depth of knowledge is this data measuring what subgroups for tiered instruction number emerged from this data? And I’m sorry, really good questions that are honestly better than what my brain could have come up with. And so we had our special area team, so our core arts developing questions specific to their content. So everyone that was developing questions in this PLT felt like, wow, so I get permission to look at the data that I want to look at. And what’s funny is a lot of these questions were questions that I would have wanted them to get to anyways, it’s kind of like when you generate rules with your class, right? You’re like you have your rules in your brain. And then you make the rules. And you’re like, Okay, respect is in there. Got it. Right. Like they’re asking all the right questions.

Jessica Zimmerman  31:21

But really empowering them to to set the stage for the agenda to decide this is what we want to look at.

Jessica Zimmerman  31:29

That already is going to give you the buy in. And then when I did do a follow up with my teachers of transitioning this into Jessica led to you lead, what support would you need? Because that needs to be the next thing. If you’re going to shift any sort of like, adjustment in systems. The question needs to be what support do you need? So I asked preset questions. Do you need an agenda? Do you need a facilitator? Do you need a moderator? Do you need someone to support with norms? Do you need a note taker? Do you need what what do you need? And so the team’s really emerged, a lot of them said we just really need help with the agenda was sending it out with reminding us what data we need to bring based on what questions we have set for that data PLT.

Jessica Zimmerman  32:15

So really, the effective PLT looks like your teachers having ownership. And so it’s scary, just as a teacher in the classroom, it’s scary to relinquish the control, because you’re worried it’s gonna be in coaching world crickets and everyone’s staring at you.

Jessica Zimmerman  32:30

But if you can invest them in the process, like, for example, these are the things that we’re planning this year, for next year. They already have in their mind, they’re gonna have months to think about, okay, we’re leaving the data PLT. Cool. I’ve already made my peace with it. I’m ready. You know, I told them, I’ll bring you snacks. It’s fine. Like we can do this. And so and so I feel like that’s the piece to really empower your teams where it, it can be effective, because they’re the ones really in charge.

Chrissy Beltran  32:59

Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s really great. Asking having them generate those questions are really great activity to use. And then you come back to those questions, regardless of what data you’re looking at. Those are things that we need to understand. And I’m also really glad you mentioned the validity of the assessment, because I can remember getting assessments from the district level that teachers were required, required to give and the Moment Like This is terrible. It’s this. Can we not use this? I can actually remember, one of the questions was so bad. Before we have the copies made, I just taped over it with a different question that had the same correct answer choice. And then whenever we looked at our data we looked at we I mean, I mean, that was sneaky, but I wasn’t what was the point of giving children? A crummy assessment?

Jessica Zimmerman  33:45

Yeah, absolutely. And, and that’s the, that’s what makes a good coach, right? Being a conscious consumer, you can’t. And that’s how you also protect your teachers on your campus, not everything. These publishers and most people that are creating these things, they’re creating things with like this, like, maybe sometimes general, average elusive kid in mind. So that’s the first thing to note. They are not adjusting based on student needs, and especially the kids that you have that have diverse needs in your classroom. And then the second thing is, people make these things and people make mistake. And so we have to look at it and say, am I behind this? And if it’s not, that’s where we ask the question, Can I do something that I am behind? What is within my circle of influence? What is within my control? Because I do allow them to vent? Yes, you’re right. It’s that assessment was really crazy. That was not something we want to put children through because that would have made them feel really bad taking that. But in that same case, what can we make that we can collect that data with you because so often, they’ll get stuck in just they’re angry, they’re angry that this is their reality, and that they are made to implement this perfect Other thing, and that’s where you as a coach coming in with your multiple roles and one of those roles being cheerleader and then advocate, advocate, when it’s not the thing that is best for kids or best for your teachers.

Chrissy Beltran  35:12

And the person who, like you said says, okay, so what can we do? You’re right. It’s awful. What can we do? Like, we’re not going to change that right this minute. What can we do with what we can change? Yeah, I think that’s, that’s an important part of any conversation that you have with teams, because teens can get really stuck in like, they say venting. And I’ve mentioned this before on the podcast, I’ve read that like, scientifically, we medically we know that venting is supposed to be short. Once it goes beyond a certain point, now you’re just making yourself angrier, and everybody else is also getting angrier. And so you don’t you’re not actually like event opens up for a minute, and then it closes. Yeah. It lets out a little steam and then it moves on. It doesn’t continue to like spew you know, this is not a volcanic eruption. I mean, it’s supposed to be short. So yeah, it’s, it’s, we, if we allow it to take over everything, then we don’t help anybody. And we don’t fix the problem, either.

Jessica Zimmerman  36:08

Yeah. And as a new coach, it’s really hard to determine how to do that. And so building those protocols in advance, knowing that you’re going to have the event and then clarifying what is meant mean, that means unbridled, go for it for a minute, you have one full minute yet about, you know what I mean? But I love that, that, you know, that illustration of it opens, it closes, because we do have to continue on for the work because they they talk about it themselves. We don’t have the time, right, this is valuable time. And so let’s let’s make the most out of this time, right?

Chrissy Beltran  36:43

In the moment, you feel like I have to get all this out. But then after the meeting passes, you’re like, Well, I’m still in the same place. I was 45 minutes ago, you know, and I’m just angrier about it. So yeah, we have to facilitate because we can be a little bit on the outside of that. And we can kind of see where it’s headed. Yeah. So you talked about, I really think was so important about having a planning component during these data sessions that we are like, Okay, this is a data we looked at, this is how we are understanding it. So now what are we going to do? Because if we’re not planning, then it’s pointless. It’s just like a million things swimming in your head. But you don’t walk back to your classroom prepared for anything? Yeah. How can we actually use the data that we’re looking at to impact our instruction? And, you know, really change the way that we’re meeting students need?

Jessica Zimmerman  37:28

 Yeah. So I think the first thing that I I want to bring in is there’s there’s data that’s done at the district level, there’s data that’s done at the school level, there’s the classroom level data, I would say, one piece is to really look at how you can use data systemically. So that’s the first thing How can I build in whatever data that we’re collecting across grade levels or across content areas? How can I build a system for it, because if you can build a system for it, you’re going to take the pressure off of your teachers have a finding an assessment, looking at next steps for that data, because if you can streamline this is assess, this is the assessment we’re going to use. And these are the next steps we’re going to do for these kids. If they have shown that they are in ABC need, then you can say this is just across the board what we do and make it a practice that takes the planning off of your teacher shoulders, because there’s your supporting really that like MTSS process, like at a at a more global level. And so when we first started as a coach, I had teachers using all sorts of different screeners. And so then streamlining, okay, let’s, let’s pick the one because they’re all eventually coming up to you anyways, kinder is gonna go to first, like, you’re all going to need to have some sort of streamline data. And we do have like a walk to read or what we call our wind time, what I need time. And so during that time really supporting the collection of data that would be done in that tier two, tier three format within a classroom, but supporting that, that level of, of collecting data so that teachers aren’t responsible for collecting every single bit of data that then goes into MTSS, or child’s study team or whatever. And then within that intervention plan, so you have your intervention plan for the school, right. And that’s something that we do have a program that we use. And within the program that we use, it provides us with a placement we know exactly where to put kids, we know exactly the amount of units or mastery tests they have to grow by the end of the year in order to be out of remediation for reading, for example. But we also have a plan for prevention. And that’s never talked about. It’s the intervention and then upper vention. What are we going to do for the students to accelerate their learning that they’ve already mastered those skills? And so having the plans for attentional extension extension and enrichment for our students that have already mastered and kind of gotten out of that intervention cycle. Because when we call it intervention, I think what we do is we focus on a chunk of the kids. Well, that’s, that’s only a portion of your kids. And sometimes the bigger portion just depends on how far the kiddos are behind and with the COVID. Earning loss. Yeah, we have more students in that chunk of intervention. But we also have students that are not. And so what are we going to do to make sure that every kid when they go to school, they deserve to learn something new every day. And that’s your kid that can’t read. And that’s your kid and kinder reading Harry Potter, like, all those kids deserve to learn something new every single day. And so really, it’s allowing also the teachers to plan together to plan with you taking time to identify what are the needs of the students obtaining the knowledge, again, not assuming that teachers just know what to do, okay, your kids can’t read now, what this is, these are research based structures, strategies, activities, materials that we’re going to do, giving them the time to develop by applying their practice, and then that reflection coming back, and, and making sure that we’re hitting all those questions of the PLC for questions that we live. We live in those in our PLTS. Talking about what do they do when they get it when they don’t get it, and then coming back and then sharing out with our teams, what worked, what didn’t work. And I think that’s the most important part is allowing teachers to work together in that like peer observation capacity. Because so often, your your teachers that are doing it every single day, right, they are the ones teaching it, and their CO partner they taught it to and then so saying, Hey, Mike, my kids got it. What How’d your kids do? What did you do? And then comparing those strategies, having those discussions?

Jessica Zimmerman  41:59

Were we so often expect our teachers to have these sidewalk conversations? And they do they have the sidewalk conversations of? And I’m teaching fractions? Oh, my gosh, they just bombed that unit test? Well, what are you going to do? Well, I’m going to do this, and they’re having all these really rich discussions. But giving them the time to have those discussions in your PLTS. Having them giving them the time to then, okay, you said they bombed it, let’s look at how can we coach this together. And so the the data really needs to include the planning piece, and a good amount of planning, where your teachers aren’t just expected to walk out of this meeting and go do something with it, you really need to have an intentional planning session planned with your teachers. Okay, now that we talked about this data, let’s set up a time to plan to then implement our next steps for this data.

Chrissy Beltran  42:49

Excellent. Yeah, I think we do sort of expect teachers, many times systems are not set up in place in order to actually support teachers in collaborating around these ideas. And we come up with these much better ideas, whenever we’re sitting, talking to each other from all these different perspectives and see what’s been done and what hasn’t been done. And, and just kind of sharing the thinking, you know, had groupthink, you know, so helpful. So what are some of the systems that you have in place that really support your teachers and being effective about because we talked about like common assessments and, and looking at these assessments and figuring out how they’re going to use the information? What do you have in place that helps teachers do all of these things around data?

Jessica Zimmerman  43:29

So one thing that we did just this year, really thinking about the concept of making the right thing, the right thing. And we do that by focusing on few. And so we have our PLT topics that are predetermined, and we cycle through those topics. And so we have our PLT specific to our data that we’re looking at, and then teachers decide what data that is. We have our PLTS that are specific to unpacking the learning targets, from the standards from the essential standards that were chosen, aligning those with curriculum resources. We have the ones on the tier two system or when are walked to read time looking at that data, not just time to look at the data, but enter the data and then discuss Oh, wow, I’m noticing from this formative or summative at the end of the week, the students didn’t master what do I do now. And so cycling through when I gave my teachers the end of the year PLT cycle survey that I that I do for anytime that my poor teachers are doing surveys all the time, because I want their voice I want to hear what they think about the structures that we have in place. They said we really liked that we had four things, and we’re focusing on those four things. And those four things came every single month. We knew it was pre calendar it it was pre structured. And so then they had the time to dig in because they knew exactly what to expect. And then something to do When you’re when you’re making it the right data getting those Teacher Teacher pieces of input, you also want to see are you going to make sure that teachers are walking away with something. And so I don’t know about you, my PLTS are like 35 minutes. So it’s like this golden 35 minutes of magic that I have to make happen every single week. And so, my new Coach Self, I was like, we’re gonna look at this, this and this, and the teachers left feeling like, oh, my gosh, yeah, we looked at everything, but my brain is broken. And so determining what’s the one thing you want your teachers to walk away from, from this penalty. And so sometimes it’s just time to reflect, just giving them the time to reflect. So our our PLT the month before, one of them was just reflecting on the strategy that we did, and looking at the data, and they had a choice board on how they wanted to reflect and how they wanted to share that with that reflection with the team. And one of my teachers said, it was really nice, just to get the time to reflect, I don’t have that time to reflect with my peers about data. And so it’s kind of like the the really, really go, when is it the go slow to go fast kind of thing? Yeah, like in order for us to really build our momentum as like a really strong PLT. It’s okay to walk away with one PLT with your teachers reflected today. It feels small, it feels like they it’s not a lot, but it truly is. And especially the more you know, about like adult learning theory and how reflection is so anchored in, in what we do as adults next in like application, making the time for that reflection is really important. So I’d say the system’s being there are also the protocols that you put in place. And just being like I said, the right stuff.

Chrissy Beltran  46:58

Yeah, like that idea of having there’s reflection time, but it’s focused on something specific. So we’re going to reflect on how this one thing went, we planned we were going to try this out, how did it go? And then we can look at student work or have response or whatever it is that that we are going to use to kind of process? How, what effect did this have on our kids? Because having focused means you’re actually going to support thinking about that one thing instead of like, it’s how was reading going? That’s a lot. How is science going, that’s just like too much. And you’re not going to you’re not going to actually accomplish much, because everybody’s going to take that in a different direction. And they’re going to start talking about the big systemic stuff instead of this one thing. Right. So narrowing down that foot, which has its place at a certain time, you know, but if that’s not the point, to address the systemic issues, and figure out how you can change the system at your school. If the point is to reflect on something specific, we need to narrow it down very specifically.

Jessica Zimmerman  47:52

Yeah, and we were gonna have also our content specific teachers or call like our silos, right? Our silos, the ones that are on their own. Sometimes it’s really hard to have that that collaboration, because you’re all talking about content. And it’s hard. But it is a mindset shift to talk about. We’re not teaching reading, we’re teaching kids reading, right? We’re not teaching science, we’re, we’re teaching scientists and so like, a lot of these things, is understanding that, yeah, we are. So save the content, specific discussions for coaching, right? Especially if you’re, if you’re coming into this and saying I only have 35 minutes, what do I do? How do I still honor my teachers content? Because they work hard to become an expert in what they do. They spend countless hours they’ve spent all this time effort resource into becoming this content specialist.

Jessica Zimmerman  48:43

And sometimes they’re asked to, okay, we’ll take off that content hat and just focus on reading and I see their their eyes Twitch, and they’re like, No, I am a content specialist. And it’s so fun, because it is it is but because you are only one person in a team of five that are meeting all at the same time, saving those content talks and making the space for them in coaching. So that when you are talking at the table, talking about needs can be cross disciplines, right? They can be interdisciplinary, talking about needs talking about student scaffolds talking about those strategies, they can very often be interwoven across content areas, and for people that share students discussing that streamlining of of approach where we’re all going to be doing the same thing so that we can support our students is really, really powerful and brings your team together.

Chrissy Beltran  49:39

Yes, that was great. Thank you so much for everything that you’ve shared, about how we can use data to really support our teachers in growing and finding ways to meet their students needs and really coming together as a team to do this. Thank you.

Chrissy Beltran  49:54

I get now to ask my favorite question, which is what is your favorite thing right now? So it could be anything it’s just a fun question It can be the product, a TV show or book, anything that you are loving.

Jessica Zimmerman  50:05

I love that well right now. So I don’t know if this is unique to me or if this is just like every coach or neuro spicy person, I don’t know. But I’m like in 500 different books, right? So I’m like 500 different books. And so my current book right now is dare to lead by Brene. Brown. It’s so good. And she just gives so many little things, little, little mantras that I bring into not just like my work, but but my home life too. So it’s it really easy read. So I don’t know, I always kind of get into what’s my hyper fixation right now in terms of reading? And so she’s, she’s mine at the moment.

Chrissy Beltran  50:45

Yeah, I love that is it was it on TED last of the season that he referred to Brene. Brown, I think it was really cute. So there’s a lot of good stuff in there. I’ve read a few of her books, and they are really impactful. And just kind of helped me think differently about the way that we interact with others. So I love it.

Jessica Zimmerman  51:01

Yeah, and especially in your role as a coach, that vulnerability piece, understanding that vulnerability is not weakness, and then she really has you lean into crucial conversations and how being unclear is unkind. And so so so I don’t know if it was like, necessarily written as a coaching book, but it is so applicable to the coaching role. And so it feels like, feels like therapy to a lot of inner inner thinking, which, which is really good. But, um, but yeah, so what one of the many books that I’m, you know, few chapters in Nice?

Chrissy Beltran  51:37

Well, how can people find you online, if they are interested in learning more?

Jessica Zimmerman  51:42

So I mean, I do have an Instagram, it’s coached with Jess, and then I haven’t done anything fancy in the way of websites or anything, but you know, they can always reach me email coach with just consulting@gmail.com. And, and I support new coaches, too, in terms of just like having a buddy and talking. I have a lot of like, coaching friends that were like, What do I do? And honestly, when I first started out as a coach, I’m not even saying this because it’s you. But like, I downloaded your coaching binder, I don’t your your coaching binder on Teachers Pay Teachers, and I was like, What do I what am I even doing? And I like downloaded that, and that saved me and my first few years, so I need you to know that. But like, I think just having the the community and having another coach to talk to, which is what like this, this tribe that you’ve really built is really important. And just an informal way to sort of like, Hey, I’ve, I’ve experienced that. How do I get out of that, like, you know, really frustrating PLC, that’s just not that’s riddled with fixed mindset, you know, so that’s kind of what I would offer just that, that informal, organic, authentic support. Because we already have so many, so many resources that are emerging for coaching. But still, it’s still a untapped world, there’s still so much more that as coaches in building our capacity and being ready for supporting our teachers, and like probably one of the hardest times to ever be a teacher. So it’s so important to have all of those things and just to have a tribe.

Chrissy Beltran  53:23

Yes, I completely agree with that. Thank you so much. I’m sure people are going to check you out. And I really appreciate you being here today. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Chrissy Beltran  53:34

I love Jessica’s take on data and how it’s authentic and actually supportive of teachers thinking differently about teaching is the most important thing we can do is support their thinking in these ways. So that was great information. Next week, we’re digging into formative assessment with Steve Ventura, I cannot wait to chat with him about how we can plan and use formative assessments to shape our kids learning experience. So that is coming up next week in Episode 171. In the meantime, if you’re looking for a way to have different kinds of data conversations with your teachers, head to buzzing with MS b.com slash episode 170 and scroll down, you can grab a free data bookmark that will give you some questions you can talk about and they’re all different kinds of questions that might give you a more realistic and meaningful approach to data. So definitely grab that and until next week, happy coaching

Chrissy Beltran  54:35

Thank you for listening to buzzing with Miss bee the coaching podcast. Want more coaching ideas? Check me out at buzzing with Miss b.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!