Building Your Coaching Program: A Coaching Call with Amy Mather, Ep. 156 Instructional Coaching with Ms. B

Building Your Coaching Program: A Coaching Call with Amy Mather, Ep. 156 Buzzing with Ms. B: The Coaching Podcast

Chrissy Beltran  00:01

What’s your instructional coaching personality type? Have you ever wondered what superpowers make you a really strong coach? And what areas you could strengthen a little with a little direction? Well, now you can find out, I created the What’s your instructional coaching personality type quiz? To help you answer this very question. Just head to buzzing with mcafee.com/quiz with a capital Q to take the two minute quiz and get your coaching personality type sent right to your inbox. Even better, you’ll get a playlist of podcast episodes that are handpicked just for you to help you hone your superpowers and strengthen your areas of growth. I’m so excited to share this place with you. So don’t wait. Go to buzzing with Ms. b.com slash quiz with a capital Q and learn so much about your coaching fellow. 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 coach’s 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 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  01:48

Hey, coach, and welcome to episode 156. Thinking through a new coaching program, this is a coaching call with a coach in the field. I am so excited to have you join this call today I have a really great announcement. The first the startup course for instructional coaches is actually open and you can join it now you can get everything you need to start this year strong. And I’m actually going to walk the course, walk through the course with you in a Facebook group. So every day, you’ll see a little check in about how things are going. And you can share and get great ideas from other coaches who are doing the program too. So you can grab that at buzzing with Ms. b.com slash startup, it’s open, you can sign up today and then we’re going to start our live support in August cannot wait for you to see that. So definitely head over there today. Today on the podcast, you get to listen to a coaching call as I help a coach think through the coaching program she is establishing at her school. Starting a coaching role at a school that hasn’t had one can be a really big challenge for coaching, when you’ve never coached. It’s also a huge challenge. And whenever you haven’t been coached before, it’s really hard to envision what that could look like. It’s even difficult if you’re starting a coaching role at a school that has had a coach in the past. But it looks very different than what you are trying to do. So all of these are really big challenges to tackle. And today we’re going to talk to our coaching buddy in the field and figure out some things that she can do to make her coaching role work better this coming year, I cannot wait to welcome our friend to the podcast. So welcome Amy to the podcast. I am so glad that you’re able to join me today to talk about establishing yourself as a coach and your coaching program.

Amy Mather  03:30

Yeah, thanks for having me. So I’m Amy Mather. I’m an inclusion coach. So I’m a special education coach in a school district of about 4000 students and 50 special ed teachers. And I was hired last year. So this is my first year as a special education coach in a program that’s never been, I’m the initial write. So I’m building as we go. And it’s been a really great year. And there’s also been some things that I’ve learned along the way that I won’t probably include next year.

Chrissy Beltran  04:07

That I love that they’re already reflecting, you’re already thinking, okay, maybe I’m gonna not do that. And I think what, what else what an interesting role, as you know, campus coach, you know, I was responsible for coaching, including teachers as well. But I think it’s so beneficial to have someone who’s specifically in a special ed department to work with those teachers because you can really meet their needs on a level that a campus coach may not be able to

Amy Mather  04:32

write yeah, there’s a lot of idiosyncrasies that go along with special special education and teaching students with special needs and then also the professional side of things. When the students leave for the day. All of those responsibilities too.

Chrissy Beltran  04:47

Yeah, absolutely. They need it. They need a Sherpa for sure what’s been at that particular mountain. So what are your main challenges that you’re having as you are trying to get your program going, you know, establishing yourself In this role, working with teachers who have never maybe been coached ever, figuring out where you spend your time, where are you seeing the most struggle?

Amy Mather  05:08

Sure. Well, like many school districts across the nation, we have a lot of brand new educators or people who have not maybe are coming from a different profession to the world of education. And with that comes a lot of challenge not coming through a teacher prep program, or coming in maybe a different way to licensure, does kind of unfortunately, leave some holes that need to be filled by people, you know, PLCs, and people in the school districts in which people are working. So that has been one of my primary roles this year, and also probably one of the biggest struggles. Because as you are in practice, as a teacher, you sometimes forget about, oh, what’s the why behind that? Or here’s the, you know, the trial and error that I took to kind of get to this point, might not be there for some of our newest staff. So that so you’re

Chrissy Beltran  06:06

challenging working with with brand new brand brand new people. Now, are those people in inclusion roles? What roles are they serving?

Amy Mather  06:16

There are so we have some brand new educators, or alternately licensed educators or alternate routes to licensure. I know district wide. So as special education instructors. Yeah.

Chrissy Beltran  06:31

And they have to they have some sort of special ed qualification.

Amy Mather  06:35

Yeah. So it might be like a quick program, you know, like a 12 month or a 1415 month, kind of you already have your bachelor’s degree and you’re able to access alternatively.

Chrissy Beltran  06:46

Yeah, okay. Yeah. So yeah, to me, I mean, alternative certification versus somebody who has nothing. And no experience, aside from whatever other works experience they have. To me, those are like wildly different, but they are similar in that classroom experience. If they’re doing a quick program, they did not have a lot of time to spend in the classroom. So they really don’t even know necessarily what that looks like, because they haven’t seen it done since they were students.

Amy Mather  07:11

Yeah, right. And goodness, hasn’t that changed? Yeah, it’s all good. But we can’t always rely on our own experience as a student as best practice.

Chrissy Beltran  07:23

Oh, for sure. No, I mean, you can’t use I’ve watched a dentist at work, but I could not feel someone’s cavity. No. And being a teacher, I think that people think it doesn’t take the same kind of skill, but it does, it takes a lot of skill that you don’t even see happening. And I think that that might be one of the struggles in working with these teachers is that they don’t even realize like you mentioned the thought process. They don’t realize what all is going into arriving at a level that students are actually going to benefit from. Yeah, yeah.

Amy Mather  07:55

And so with, with our newest educators, I spend a lot of time about okay, that’s a great like, I really appreciate hearing your anecdotal information. Now, where’s your evidence, whether that be Big E evidence that we can look at, you know, some sort of data wall that’s been built or little e evidence like, Okay, this is what I heard the students say, and this is what they demonstrated to me. Like, I need to show me that you know, that they’re learning or making steps in their progress. So that’s a ton of the conversation that’s been had this year.

Chrissy Beltran  08:31

Do they understand like a lesson cycle? And what that looks like? And what like, check for understanding? Do they have any of that framework?

Amy Mather  08:39

Yeah, and, you know, we hear, especially this area, and not even just this district, in Wisconsin is really, really strong on collaboration and being a PLC area. So people lean in and really do a great job of helping our new teachers learn that. And if they’re, you know, kind of struggling, I think most teams are excellent at supporting those people to help them along their journey. So, yeah.

Chrissy Beltran  09:10

So then what kinds of whenever you’re, you’re actually working with the teachers? What are the issues that you’re having that you’re like, I am not sure how to get through this piece? Where are you getting stuck as you’re working with these people?

Amy Mather  09:23

Yeah, sometimes. It’s, as I kind of had mentioned, it’s the evidence piece. Like, Well, okay, so if this is the skill that you’re working at, how can we collect great data on that, and, and helping without being the consultant because I, I would much rather have people come to their own ideas than maybe like, well, here, I do a time on task, or maybe we should do a latency or you know, something that I want, like, how could we and being super reflective and lead them there with that? also takes a whole lot of coaching mental power in a moment. And as a new coach, it’s hard to build, build that with good questioning and kind of that idea of leading them around to so that it’s their ownership and their idea, so that the buy in is so much better.

Chrissy Beltran  10:23

What’s difficult about that is they, they don’t know what they don’t know, probably. So they’re going, okay, she’s asking me this question. And I feel like I should know something that I don’t know. I’m like, Okay, let me think. Let me think, what have I seen? What have I seen people do? What did I see my colleague do? They did a thing. It was a thing was so quick. And they’re just like, are they just like grasping at straws? Sometimes?

Amy Mather  10:51

Almost panic. Yeah. Yeah.

Chrissy Beltran  10:55

Like, it reminds me a little bit of whenever the teacher is, I’m sure you’ve seen it in classrooms, where the teacher goes, we’re going to learn about polygons, who knows what a polygon is. Right. And the kids are, like, if I knew what a polygon was, you probably wouldn’t be teaching a unit about polygon, like, I don’t know. And so sometimes we’re asking questions for people to be reflective, which is a great practice that coaching is so important. And you’re right, that the buy in is better when they arrive at it. But they’re like, I don’t have a frame of reference. So I don’t know where to go. So then we might need like, they if they understand a little bit about checks or understanding, with you understand a little bit about what tools or callings are using, bringing in some of those tools that they could use, and saying, Okay, these are two different options. These are two things that we’re looking at that we could use to collect evidence and see if the students can do the things that you’re asking them to do, we can use this model or this model, based on what you’re working with. And the kids that you have, which do you think would work better. So we’re still putting them in the driver’s seat, but we’re putting it on like a, like a go kart course, give you a little limited options. They can’t go everywhere in the world, right? We’re just giving them bumpers. And we say these are the choices that we have. And maybe they have another idea too. That’s great. And you can say if you have any other ideas, I would love to hear that input. But but if you’re if you’re unsure, why don’t we take a look at these and see which one you think might work best for your kids? Because some people can cognitively say, you know, I don’t even know, can you tell me? Some people can’t they can’t even do that. They just go I guess I should know this. I don’t know it, I don’t know what to say. And they do panic. Yeah. And that,

Amy Mather  12:27

of course, helps them to build their own set of go twos, as well, and maybe serves as a launching point for their next step.

Chrissy Beltran  12:37

Yes, once they have something in their toolbox, then maybe they can start to notice the kinds of things are there in that toolbox. And they’re gonna go, oh, oh, maybe I could do this, oh, I could have them write like a little structure paragraph, or I could have them do like a sword. And they could I can just provide, they can start to build it. If you’re really focused on that one thing over time, and you’re focused on adding tools into that toolbox of evidence, student evidence, then we can they can we can build that capacity to get started. And then they can add to it. And you can even say, between maybe now and the next time I’m going to meet with you. I don’t know how long that time is because I know you serve different schools. But between now and then maybe you can find one that one of your colleagues is used for you can find something online that you’d like to share, and we could try it out.

Amy Mather  13:20

Right? I like that. Having a back pocket kind of strategy to say, well, here are some things that we could consider. And having, you know, that choice, I think could be really, really powerful. Because you’re absolutely right. If we don’t have a frame of reference, how could I possibly know?

Chrissy Beltran  13:41

Yeah, yeah. And we so we’re trying to stick to like the coaching rulebook, which is you ask the questions, but it’s, I mean, it’s reminds me of like, they would show, you know, psychologists on movies, and all they ask is questions the person’s like, I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t know what I should have told my mother. Like, they just, they’re just kind of stuck. And so we have to build the toolbox, especially with those people who have very limited experience. And so kind of differentiating how you’re working with your teachers is something to consider, because you have some that are brand new, and then you have some that are more experienced, and they do have their own toolbox.

Amy Mather  14:13

Right? Yeah. And in special education, you know, every year, every month even can look so vastly different. And so kind of like dredging up some of those things that maybe I haven’t had to utilize or some of the strategies that they might need a little dusting to be able to get put back into place. So just the makeup against changes so frequently, and yeah, our skills do too.

Chrissy Beltran  14:43

Yes, that’s right. And that’s that’s a good point. So like an experienced teacher may go you know what I used to do that I haven’t done in years, right that why did I stop doing that? We all do that right? What if I stop doing that? What because we tried something else, right? But then you go there was value in that I could do that. Again, so the the conversations can look very different. And you just kind of have to know, the teacher that you’re speaking with and what they’re bringing to the table so that you can either add to that, or you can go back to it. And you can always add to what somebody has. But But it’s good switching through that, that consulting and coaching, we kind of start out with a little consulting, hey, let me build your background knowledge. Let me help you learn a little bit about this. And then we’ll move into like, let’s like some more of coaching, like how do you think this would go? What would happen? If we did this? What do you think the benefits could be? How would you like to try it out? Those kinds of questions.

Amy Mather  15:35

Thanks. So another big piece of my position that I’m really interested in trying to figure out a little bit more is, how do I evaluate my own teaching? And how can I make sure that what I am doing is impactful, and not just impactful for the educator, but impactful for students? And so it’s easier when you’re in a classroom, and you can see those results more often more frequently, you have that kind of like, okay, yeah, this is? Well, as a coach, I’ve noticed this year that it’s like, Okay, so I’ve like, put out all of these, you know, little satellites. And I know that it’s going, how do I know that it’s going? Well?

Chrissy Beltran  16:30

That’s such a good question. And the actual topic, for me, and on the podcast, the theme that I’m doing is your coaching impact, we’re talking about how to analyze where your time goes, how to measure things, how to really evaluate and reflect. And so there are several episodes you could dig into there that might be helpful. And I think but I think you asked a really good question, which is, how do we evaluate our coaching work, not just on the effect of the teacher, which is, of course, obviously, so important, but also on the students. And it’s tricky, because it’s filtered through the teacher by the time it gets to the kids. So we don’t know, what we did versus what the teacher would have done. Because that, you know, parallel universe is, you know, we’re not in it anymore, right? We’ve, we’ve gone off on a different direction, because we did provide support to the teacher. So we can’t really compare what it would have been, but we can certainly look at student growth. And so if you have some way to collect data, you’re talking about evidence, right? You’re collecting evidence you’re asking the teacher to do so if you have some way to collect data on students, you can look at that and know that you had a hand in it, you don’t always know what percentage of it is. Yeah. But if you have, you know, common formative assessments that your teachers are using, and you can track the specific students that your teachers are working with, that you’re kind of supporting them through and note the growth over time, you can still, I mean, not take complete ownership over it, but you can understand that you had an influence in that. Does that make sense?

Amy Mather  17:57

Yeah, I appreciate how, you know, it’s like filtered through, right, that’s, that’s my brain works really well with those visuals. So think,

Chrissy Beltran  18:06

okay, good. Do you have do your teachers collect the data regularly, and like recorded somewhere that you could use that to see how students are progressing?

Amy Mather  18:14

Okay, yeah, yeah. And, you know, different different teachers have different needs. So it wouldn’t be like something I could do district wide, but it would be definitely helpful to see that in small pockets. how that’s working? Yeah,

Chrissy Beltran  18:29

yeah. So it’s kind of like little pilot programs that you’re like, you mentioned satellites, right, every, every individual group is like, let’s see how this works. Here. Let’s see how this works here. And what’s nice is, after you have that student data and that growth measure, you can say, Okay, this worked really well for these kids. So if I see the opportunity, where this might might might be a good step to take in the classroom, I can offer it knowing that it was successful for students, that when the teacher tried these things, it made a big difference. You can also get reflections from teachers, like surveys from teachers about about your, your impact on their teaching, something I started doing or my end of year workshops, were at the end of the school year, we go through in a small like a small cadre type setting. And we look at you know, we get feedback from teachers in the survey, we talked to the administrators that are you know, relevant to your coaching work. And then we take all of that kind of dig through it, try to understand what it means for our own coaching work, make some reflections and then use it to establish our coaching program for the next year. And so that has been that’s helpful to teach to coaches who are like I don’t, I got all this information, but then how do I take it and form a better program next year? Right? So this year is like piloting this program? Right? It’s it’s a new season, the first season in existence. And then next year, you want to say okay, this is what went really well. This are some things that I’m going to take out how am I going to build my program even better knowing what happened this year?

Amy Mather  19:54

Yeah. Yeah, no, I think that that reflection is really, really important. Good getting that feedback from others, I think, through a survey of some sort would also be really interesting. Because sometimes the things that I feel like maybe weren’t impactful for people really turned out to be helpful. And so that’s, that’s a good kind of barometer on how things are going and what things to do more of or maybe even ease back on and support it with good with good data.

Chrissy Beltran  20:28

Yes, yeah, it’s good to have like this. It’s not just my intuition, because sometimes we are way off, like you said, we think that teachers are responding in one way or because we all kind of, we look at teachers, and we picture our own brains in their heads. And so we’re like, I know, this would help me, this would not help me. And everybody’s different. So it doesn’t always pan out the way that you expect, because everybody is interpreting things through their own experience.

Amy Mather  20:54

Yeah, no, that’s right. That’s right. And, you know, at this season of the year, you know, in this late, late part of the year, everyone is kind of doing all of the wrap up things. And there is a lot of natural reflection in planning, also for how things will go in general in general, and special education classrooms for next year. So it’s a really logical time to, to do it.

Chrissy Beltran  21:19

It is yeah. Just based on on the experience that you’ve had. So far, you mentioned that there were some things you’re going to pull back from, do you want to talk a little bit, we can look at a little bit about some of the things that you want to make sure that you do next year, as you’re establishing your program for the second year, are some things that you wanted to take out? Yeah.

Amy Mather  21:37

So I think now, after one year in, I’ve kind of, I’ve kind of developed my own wings, right? I’ve kind of gotten over that whole imposter syndrome, like what am I doing? And maybe I’m not the right person for this job that kind of, Oh, man. You’ve gotten a little bit over that hump and still question quite regularly, you know, my own skill set? And how can I make this better? So as we kind of look at our our coaching program, some things that I’ve been really focused on this year, are those planning conversations like, Okay, let’s get this moving. Let’s plan this out. Let’s, you know, what are we? What are our hunches? What are our thoughts, what could come you know, all of those kinds of things super exciting and planning. And what I’ve really fallen on is the, the reflective conversations after the fact. And I think that’s just because once we’re done with that planning, and we’ve implemented, now we’re planning something new. So that kind of train is moving on. And so I need to be more intentional about circling back. And like, really looking at, okay, we planned this, you implemented or we implemented together, and let’s be really, really deep dive into how things went, what we might tweak will, we need to do the same thing again. And so parking time for that reflective and really keeping to where going, this is part of what we do in a little bit stronger way. So that’s something that is really on top of my list to improve for next year is more of the reflection,

Chrissy Beltran  23:26

if I can completely understand that because you’re right, once the train gets going, you’re like, excited, you’re going to work on the next thing, right. But part of those planning steps can be the reflection on the previous work, because that can inform the next steps planning that you’re doing. So kind of making a spot for it. And, and even sharing with teachers, if you have sometimes like a little format, that they know what, what is what is to be expected in your work together. That can help keep you accountable a little bit. And then having like your notes and all of your work in that structured format, so that you’re like, well, here’s a big empty box where we’re going to write what we reflect. Maybe I didn’t do that, you know?

Amy Mather  24:05

And a lot of you know, so many of the pieces of the forms that I’ve used, have all of that bear and it’s in Yeah, it just as we go and plan and do. And then it’s like, Okay, now we need to go and plan to do and then we’re just never quite closed that day, right? And the previous work.

Chrissy Beltran  24:23

I wonder how and I was just talking to my brother about this the other day, he’s actually a high school, Social Studies teacher and a baseball coach. And he was talking about teams and PLCs and how we communicate in schools. And we were talking about technology and how helpful technology is sometimes for those reflective conversations because you don’t always have the time because you’re like, well, we gotta get ready for our next work together. So he was saying isn’t going to be so much better if we just move so many of these conversations to you know, like, Slack or any other tool that allows these ongoing conversations where you can input resources, even he said, have like a Google Doc, which I agree, an ongoing Google Doc, where you have those reflective questions in there, and you plug them in, and then teachers can maybe think about them before you meet. So they have an idea, they could even make notes on it. Or you could never meet in person about that, if it’s impossible, sometimes it’s impossible. And it is just is right in reality. So if you don’t have the opportunity to meet in person, you can, you know, you can communicate through that Google Doc, and they can write their responses, and you can give some feedback on some things. And that’s a way to engage in that reflective thinking in an ongoing way. Because it can be an ongoing tool that you use, not just like, Okay, we finished our cycle. Now we’re going to reflect, you can use it at any point.

Amy Mather  25:42

Yeah, in a more genuine way.

Chrissy Beltran  25:45

Right? To? Yes, because we do have reflective thoughts, like you said, on go, it’s even during the lesson, we’re like, Oh, I’m not gonna do that. Oh, that didn’t or Hey, look. And sometimes we don’t take have the moment to share those things, you know, right. And so that could be one way to, to kind of fit it in in a meaningful way.

Amy Mather  26:08

Yeah, for sure. I appreciate that. Especially because time is so is so darn limited, it’s really difficult to make all of those things happen. And while you were talking, I also was thinking it something triggered, and maybe it was something you said outright, but bringing that reflection on the previous to the start of the new could be kind of like a sandwich. Yeah. Like, we’re gonna slap that right on top. And okay, what big things? Can we pull from that and put into our next plan?

Chrissy Beltran  26:40

Exactly. It’s kind of like when you’re planning a new unit, and you look back at your data from the previous instruction, it’s the same thing because we don’t have the hard data will be you could actually include hard data as part of your like student data as part of your reflection. But it was also their own observational data. How did you think it went? What did you see? How are you students reacting? So that yeah, plugging that in as at the beginning of the next place, could be a great way to make sure it happens, and that it serves an authentic purpose, because you’re immediately going to take those slots, and use them in planning your next lessons.

Amy Mather  27:11

Yeah, yeah. No, I think that that’s a really great suggestion. Great.

Chrissy Beltran  27:16

Um, do you have any other kinds of things that you do to support your teachers, you’ve talked about the coaching cycle, what other kinds of things make up your program that you’re going to try to continue to do next year?

Amy Mather  27:28

Sure. So. So in our state, we have a requirement as part of the IEP process to do the effects of the disk, you know, really, you know, obviously, the present level of performance, but then that drives really how does the student’s disability impact them in the classroom? What are the effects that you wouldn’t notice and observe in the classroom, and then do a root cause analysis of those effects to come out with some disability related needs, that will be addressed through the entire IEP? And so we’ve done a lot of work around the process and making that collaborative with the entire school team, talking about effects and how might the whole group kind of work together on some of those impacts. And that’s been a really fantastic process that I’ve been able to pilot in little pockets, a couple of places around the district, and it’s kind of taken off, people are now feeling like they can do that on their own. Without my kind of guidance and assistance through that process. I developed the template that kind of goes with that, so that there was something and then I’m now I’ve seen different tweaks around and so like, it’s, it has legs, which is great. People are doing it, and feel and finding the value in in that process. Not only is it you know, something that’s required, but we understand that how valuable and important it is for our students grow with. So that’s been a really, really great thing. So now that that’s been kind of piloted and tweaked, we’re able, we’re going to be able to take that district wide next year, which is really exciting for me. And I think it will really change outcomes for students. So yeah, that’s cool. Yeah, yeah. So that has been a big, big focus. And then I’m continuing to put out different instructional strategies through either newsletters or like mini PD videos that I send out to staff members, even, you know, strategies that are really, they might feel a little elementary or really super engaging, or a lot of our middle school and our high school students because it feels like play. And so finding different ways to include some of those opportunities for upper extremes has have been really great problem solving. But that’s also part of what I do so and then we’re just taking a ton of time to look at those making sure that we’re building a strong instructional playbook. For our heaviest, you know, our most important our heaviest hitting strategies, and how those can look in different places throughout the district. So those, those are some of the big, big pieces right now.

Chrissy Beltran  30:26

I love that. You could even collect feedback from the people that you’ve piloted this this program that you mentioned, and that you know, where they talk and collaborate. And you could get feedback from them on that before you plan out how it’s going to look for the following year, because there may be some adjustments or, or even just things that you want to make sure that you really double down on or include as you roll it out to everybody else.

Amy Mather  30:48

Yeah, yeah. So lots of summer work will happen. Yeah. To have that ready to go for the fall, but absolutely, including those people who have been through the process, and their feedback is so important to make sure that it’s truly beneficial and worth everyone’s time because it’s such a valuable commodity,

Chrissy Beltran  31:09

right? Yeah. And you’re right, whenever we waste time is like the cardinal sin of teaching, because we just don’t have enough of it. So you cannot waste the teachers time. What are some of the methods that you’ve used to get the strategies out? You mentioned newsletters, and videos and light and like, like pop up PD throughout the year?

Amy Mather  31:26

Yeah. Different places around, have a reverse request for assistance. So that’s been a fun way to kind of find different people who might not be on my newsletter, or different things that might be regular ed staff, or some of our multilingual staff, those kinds of other teaching positions. So that’s been a good way to kind of share out information as well. We are very fortunate, we have an early release, once per month, where we’re able to kind of get together with either like Java, like groups, or kind of mixed groups and share out some important things and different options for teacher learning for and for staff learning. So that’s been another way that we’ve been fortunate to get that together. And then we are doing a summer institute, where it’s completely voluntary, to come a couple of days in the summer, and we’re going to work on some instructional strategies in reading and math and in writing, or for all teachers. So there’s a lot of value in thinking about some of these different strategies and skills that we’re building not just for our students with disabilities, but for all learners, we know that it’s if it’s good, if it’s good sound instructions, good sound instruction for everyone.

Chrissy Beltran  32:57

Yes, I think that’s, that’s fantastic. The early release days are such a great time. We used to do Java likes as well. And and it is interesting to see people from different schools because you get stuck in your own little bubble. You know, how you do things?

Amy Mather  33:11

Yeah, so I’m, I’m always looking for different ways to reach people and my favorite things to do or put in the subject line, this is going to take you three minutes. In five minutes. I promise I won’t bite those kinds of things. I love looking at the views, just you know that. Sometimes I feel like oh, man, I don’t know if this is going to hit and like you look at the number of times it’s been viewed. It’s like, okay, maybe it has. It’s important. I felt like it was It

Chrissy Beltran  33:42

wasn’t sure. Right. That’s great. Is there an opportunity for people to share about how those things went?

Amy Mather  33:50

Well, okay. So give me some idea.

Chrissy Beltran  33:55

I mean, they can look like a lot of different things. But if you are sending things out, it can be kind of really great, actually, to see how people tried it out, you know, and so there are different ways to do it. And they’ll just kind of like ramble here, I guess until I share a few but even offering an incentive to for people to share or highlighting somebody, like let’s say that you send out a video, and somebody tries it in their classroom, and they’re like, oh, this was really cool. You can say, hey, to anybody who tried out this strategy, if you would like to share this with your colleagues have an extra like, then you can lift up that teacher and be like, hey, they use this in a real life classroom. It’s not just me saying it. And no, you’re not that far removed. But people very quickly are like, no, no, no. So it can be helpful to be like this teacher tried it out. Would you like to share a little bit about how it went and the artifacts that you have? And then see about how they you know, is that catches on even more so because sometimes another teacher sharing something just comes with that credibility, that classroom? You know, credibility question, Fred. I love Yes. So I think that that’s one way that you can do it is to highlight those teachers. Another way is like we talked a little bit about using technology, even having, like a Flipgrid, or something where I think now they just call it flip. Right? Where you have like, you put something out in the world, and then people can respond to it with a little video, they could take a picture of a student artifact, or any other I don’t know what kind of technology like have you use for your district. But sometimes there are tools are really already embedded where teachers could share those kinds of things, those pictures with each other? Yeah,

Amy Mather  35:32

that’s great. Thank you.

Chrissy Beltran  35:34

Sure. Yeah, it’s the more we can get teachers like trying things out, but then talking about it, then that creates, like you talked about that what gives it legs right is whenever teachers taken on, they have the ownership, and then they can share about it. And it can be really hard, like you mentioned, to find the time to do it. In the busy schedules that teachers and coaches have, especially the traveling coach, you’re not present on every campus all the time, right, you’re rotating these schools. So getting them to talk and, you know, maybe even you say, Okay, for the next job, like we’re gonna bring a sample of how this wins. You know, I mean, that’s more That sounds more like a requirement. So maybe that’s farther down the road, but, or you can say, which one would you like, we shared seven different things today, in the three hour session we had try one out, and then you know, take a picture and send it to whatever or upload it to this drive. Or, like, we used to do Google Drive things where people would just drop things in, and like a shared drive for everybody in third grade or whatever. Or you if you do have like a Slack channel or like, I’m trying to think of another service where people message each other back and forth. And they can add pictures and stuff. That’s another place where you have like a job like thread where everybody can share how that strategy went and just put a picture of it or comment if they would like to. Oh, I like that. Alright, great. Is there anything else that you’d like to talk about?

Amy Mather  36:58

Oh, my head is really full with. I don’t have a list over on this.

Chrissy Beltran  37:08

Yeah, you could look at your list. That’s fine. There’s anything else?

Amy Mather  37:12

Um, you know, something that was that one of your podcast episodes that I just want to like lift up was the words that we use and how they influenced teachers. And that has been something that I’ve listened to now a couple of times. And it’s, I really appreciate. And it’s been very, very helpful tool. As I kind of think about my framing and how being careful and cautious it’s been it. That’s been really helpful to me. So I wanted to lift that. Oh, well,

Chrissy Beltran  37:45

thank you. That’s funny, because as you’ve been speaking, you know, Jessica Vance was my guest for that episode. And you actually the way that you speak actually reminds me a lot of Jessica and I was thinking about that before, whenever you were talking. And then that’s actually who the guests was on that episode. Oh, yeah. All right. Well, if the if that’s pretty much wrapping up, I hope that you’re able to try out some of these things. I would love to hear how they go. If you you know, try something out. You want to share it with me, I would love to hear about it. But I hope that that gives you some things that you can think about for next year and maybe get a little more. I know that sounds like you’ve done so much the theory, you’ve gotten a really great start. And then you can just continue to build that program with your teachers.

Amy Mather  38:27

Yeah, I’m so excited to be in this role and to be able to do some of these things, because it’s, it is really, really impactful, for sure.

Chrissy Beltran  38:36

Yes. All right. Thank you.

Amy Mather  38:38

Thank you.

Chrissy Beltran  38:41

Well, that was our coaching call with Amy Mather. And I’m so glad that she joined us today because she has a really unique perspective. And she’s been doing a lot of thinking about her coaching program already. Clearly lots of reflection going on there. which is no surprise, because she’s a fan of, of Jessica Vance’s work right? On that episode, so it makes total sense. But I am so glad that we had her on today to talk about how, you know, sometimes we can focus in and really get more mileage out of those things that we’ve already established and grow that coaching program a little bit by narrowing our focus. So that was a great conversation. And I’m really glad that he joined us today. Next week, we are starting a new series about how we can help our school move through making big changes. So we spent a good time this season talking about mindset back at the beginning of season four, like in episodes 132 and 133. They were very focused on teacher mindset and coaching. Now, we’re gonna figure out how to use this understanding that we have with mindset to support our teachers and learning and applying new things whenever they are like school initiatives, right? That’s bad words, right? But they’re not really bad words. It’s just that’s just the perspective you will have might have on them. So we are going to get into that in the next episode 1/3 157 And from now till then what you can do to continue to establish your coaching program is to grab the new coach’s playbook. It’s okay if you’ve been coaching for a year or two. This will still give you valuable tools to help you establish a program that you want your coaching to look like this year. So you can go to buzzing with Ms. b.com slash new coach and grab a workbook that also includes some podcast episodes and it’ll guide you through which ones to listen to in which order and then a workbook to help you make plans using the information that you learned. If you love the podcast, but you’re overwhelmed with lots of stuff and you don’t know where to start. And if you need kind of some guide to help you sort through the information this document is for you. I think you’re gonna love it. So that’s buzzing with Ms. b.com slash new coach and until next week, happy coaching

Chrissy Beltran  40:47

Thank you for listening to buzzing with Miss B the coaching podcast. What more coaching ideas check me out at buzzing with Ms. 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!