When we enter a coaching conversation, we need to consider two layers. One is visible: the lesson design, the teacher’s actions, student participation, questions and responses, and evidence of learning. The other is less visible. It includes the teacher’s beliefs and assumptions, confidence and uncertainty, previous experiences, fears and concerns, values and intentions, sense of responsibility, and hopes for students – an “invisible thread.” -(Randi Brown)

Read Randi Brown’s article, “Supporting Teacher Growth Through Trusting Relationships”

Find Joellen Killion’s insights on Heavy Coaching in this previous blog.

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!

Podcast Transcript:

[00:00:00.340] – Steve [Intro]
Welcome to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast. As instructional coaches and school leaders, you are tasked with guiding continuous teacher growth to create student success. This podcast looks to support you with strategies from experienced guests, as well as my own insights that I’ve gathered over the years. I’m thrilled to have you with us. Thanks for tuning in.

[00:00:29.760] – Steve
What the Observation Doesn’t Show: Coaching the Invisible Behind the Visible. A classroom observation gives us access to what happened. Coaching requires curiosity about what sits behind what happened. When I provide training in coaching skills, I stress the importance of understanding the teacher’s agenda before an observation. The teacher’s agenda includes more than the instructional plan, the desired student learning behaviors, and the intended learning outcomes. It also includes the thinking and the person behind the plan. A teacher’s decisions may be influenced by what they believe about teaching and learning, what they value for their students, the confidence they have in themselves and in their learners, and experiences that have shaped their practice. Some of that thinking may be readily expressed. Some of it may emerge only as the teacher reflects and the coach keeps listening and finding out.

[00:01:46.520] – Steve
I describe my goal in a pre-observation conference this way: I want to be able to observe the lesson first through the teacher’s eyes before I observe it through my own. I may never see everything the teacher sees, but the more I understand what matters to the teacher and what has shaped their choices, the less likely I am to impose my own meaning on what I observed. Randi Brown reinforced that thinking for me in an Edutopia article titled, “Supporting Teacher Growth Through Trusting Relationships. She writes, “Every classroom is its own small ecosystem, and the teacher is at the center of that ecosystem. Their experiences, confidence, fears, values, heartbreaks, and sense of purpose quietly shape everything that grows within it. Students don’t simply respond to instruction. They respond to the human being leading the room.” That requires me as a coach to know something about the human being leading the room. Brown suggests that when we enter a coaching conversation, we consider 2 layers. One is visible. The lesson design, the teacher’s actions, student participation, questions and responses, and the evidence of learning. The other is less visible. It includes the teacher’s beliefs and assumptions, confidence and uncertainty, previous experiences, fears and concerns, values and intentions, sense of responsibility, and hopes for the student.

[00:03:46.090] – Steve
Brown calls this second layer the invisible thread. We observe the visible thread, but we coach at the intersection of the visible and the invisible. Consider an example. A coach observes a teacher asking questions designed to uncover what students recall from previous lessons. Understanding that’s going to be important for today’s learning. After only a few seconds of silence following a question, the teacher calls on a student. When the student hesitates, the teacher rephrases the question and then supplies much of the answer. This pattern occurs several times before the teacher introduces the new learning. The coach can accurately record each of those actions, but the observation alone does not reveal what is driving them. The teacher may be worried that students are confused. Silence may cause the teacher to feel that the lesson is unsuccessful. The teacher may be trying to protect students from embarrassment. Previous attempts at waiting may have led to disengagement. The teacher may doubt that students will respond without prompting, or the teacher may be feeling pressure to cover everything planned for the day’s lesson. The visible behavior is real, but the meaning is not self-evident. That meaning is unlikely to be uncovered by directly asking the teacher to explain their beliefs, fears, or past experiences.

[00:05:39.860] – Steve
The invisible thread tends to emerge more gradually in the stories that the teacher tells, the concerns that they repeat, the choices that they defend, the possibilities that energize them. And the risk they hesitate to take. The coach’s observation notes tell us what occurred. Listening to the teacher helps us explore why it occurred and what the teacher might want to do next. Observation produces evidence. Conversation produces meaning. Consider how a conversation might unfold following the observation in which the teacher gave students only 2 or 3 seconds to respond. The coach might begin: You asked me to pay attention to how students responded as you checked their understanding from the earlier lessons. What did you notice?

[00:06:45.650] – Teacher
They didn’t seem to remember very much. I had to keep prompting them and almost pull the answers out of them.

[00:06:52.990] – Steve
Their silence suggested to you that they weren’t recalling the earlier learning?

[00:06:58.390] – Teacher
Yes. When no one answers, I assume either they don’t know or that my question wasn’t clear, and that’s why I rephrase it.

[00:07:07.240] – Steve
So when the students don’t respond, you’re feeling a responsibility to do something that gets the lesson moving again?

[00:07:16.230] – Teacher
I do. I’m conscious of how much I need to cover, and I don’t want the lesson to stall before we even get into the new material.

[00:07:25.610] – Steve
So waiting actually creates 2 concerns for you: that students may not understand and that you may not get to the new learning that you’ve got planned.

[00:07:36.130] – Teacher
Exactly.

[00:07:38.180] – Steve
Would you like to hear something that I noticed as you were waiting?

[00:07:42.780] – Teacher
Sure.

[00:07:44.370] – Steve
Most of your pauses were about 2 or 3 seconds. Twice I noticed students beginning to raise their hands just as you started rephrasing the questions. I’m wondering what you make of that.

[00:08:00.010] – Teacher
Hmm, perhaps I’m reading their silence too quickly. They may be thinking, and I’m interpreting it as not knowing.

[00:08:09.250] – Steve
Yeah, silence might mean that they don’t know, but it might also mean that they’re processing.

[00:08:16.660] – Teacher
Yes, and they may have learned that they don’t need to struggle very long because I’ll eventually give them enough of an answer.

[00:08:24.920] – Steve
So you’re wondering whether your efforts to keep the lesson moving might unintentionally be reducing the thinking students need to do.

[00:08:36.480] – Teacher
That’s uncomfortable to consider, but probably true. I’ve always felt that keeping the discussion moving was my responsibility.

[00:08:46.940] – Steve
Stepping back may require you to sit with some discomfort while students discover that you aren’t going to do the thinking for them.

[00:08:56.340] – Teacher
They may need to become comfortable with that discomfort too.

[00:09:01.510] – Steve
What might you want to try?

[00:09:04.290] – Teacher
Well, I could let the silence last longer. I might ask students to just jot down what they remembered or talk to a partner before responding. I could also tell them why I’m changing what I do.

[00:09:18.580] – Steve
What might I observe as you try that?

[00:09:22.650] – Teacher
Watch what the students do during the silence. Do they begin writing, look back at their materials, signal that they’re ready, or turn to a classmate and see whether more students contribute without me pulling the answers from them.

[00:09:39.100] – Steve
The invisible thread wasn’t apparent from the observation alone. The coach could see that the teacher usually waited only 2 or 3 seconds, frequently rephrased questions, and sometimes supplied the answers herself. The conversation revealed what the observation could not. The teacher was interpreting silence as confusion, felt responsible for maintaining the lesson’s momentum, and worried about covering the planned learning. As the conversation continued, the teacher began to question whether her efforts to help students might actually be reducing their responsibility for thinking. The coach didn’t diagnose that belief or confront the teacher with it. Careful listening, paraphrasing and relevant observation evidence allowed the teacher to uncover it herself. Trust is necessary for coaching to have an impact. At the same time, trust grows through experiences like this. When teachers experience the coach seeking to understand before responding. Joellen Killian’s distinction between light and heavy coaching provides an interesting lens for examining this conversation. Light coaching tends to focus on support, resources, encouragement, and assistance. Heavy coaching pushes more directly toward examining beliefs, assumptions, decisions, and their impact on student learning. The coach is supportive throughout this conversation, but the coaching becomes heavier when the teacher begins examining her belief about responsibility and the possible effect of her choices on students.

[00:11:53.950] – Steve
Support and challenge are not opposites. Support makes the challenge possible. The teacher’s willingness to examine an uncomfortable possibility is evidence of trust, and the coach’s response to that vulnerability can deepen the trust further. The decision is not whether light or heavy coaching is better. The decision is what will best support the teacher’s learning at this moment. An earlier question for the coach might be, what do I know, and what do I still need to find out about this teacher? That kind of knowing isn’t established in a single pre-conference or coaching cycle. It develops as the coach keeps finding out. Each conversation provides another opportunity to discover what the teacher values, what they are working toward, what concerns them, where they feel confident, where are they uncertain, and what they may be ready to question. Each time a teacher experiences a coach seeking to understand before responding, another piece of the invisible thread becomes visible and trust grows. A classroom observation gives us access to what happened. Knowing the teacher helps us explore what sits behind what happened and what might happen next. Observe what is visible. Stay curious about what is invisible. Coaching begins with knowing, and knowing begins and continues with finding out.

[00:13:57.270] – Steve
As you enter your next coaching observation and conference, consider how the invisible thread combines with the visual to maximize your understanding that guides your coaching support. Reach me at barkleypd.com with your questions or insights. Links to Killian’s and Brown’s articles are in the podcast lead-in. And as always, thanks for listening.

[00:14:26.770] – Steve [Outro]
Thanks for listening, folks. I’d love to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter or LinkedIn @SteveBarkley, or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs at barkleypd.com.

I am looking back to identify some of the writers, presenters, and ideas that have shaped my work. I realize that today, we have many educators who recently or currently are starting their coaching careers and may not have the information about some of the early work that led us to where we are today. In this blog I’ll examine Joellen Killion’s important insights on heavy coaching.

In a 2008 article titled, “Are You Coaching Heavy or Light?,” Joellen defined light coaching as coaches who were working to build and maintain relationships more than they were working to improve teaching and learning. I was working in the field at that time, and it was very common that folks starting a coaching position were providing a lot of “help” to teachers hoping to build relationships. Joellen noted that they provided demonstration lessons and shared curriculum materials, but the pressure was not on teachers to apply learning in their classrooms to increase student success.

Joellen then went on to describe heavy coaching as coaching that feels heavy to the teacher because of the weight of collective responsibility and commitment that the teacher is devoting to the success of every student.  Coaching brings that reflection to the teacher’s mind. It’s not the coach “being heavy.” Coaching heavy causes a teacher to feel on edge because they’re questioning their actions and their decisions, thinking about what they might do to have a greater impact on their students.

Joellen identified seven beliefs that could interfere with coaches coaching heavy.

• Coaches can believe that being accepted gives them more leverage to work with teachers. Joellen’s explanation was that working on being accepted could interfere with the most important thing; a focus on teaching and learning.  I found early on, that when coaches did light coaching to build relationships with teachers, by the time the relationship was built, the actions of the coach with the teachers had defined coaching as light coaching. Teachers were seeing their coach as a resource, in some cases, being seen as making the teacher’s job easier. Because the coach could find resources for me, it was easier for me to get it implemented in my classroom.
• The second belief Joellen shared was that being viewed as credible is essential to being a coach. While it’s true that credibility is important, she suggested that credibility emerges from the alignment of one’s actions with one’s words. When a coach can talk about the importance of student achievement and identify the student learning behaviors to generate that achievement and how the work that the coach is doing with the teacher gets students to do that work, you build your credibility.
• The third belief that could get in the way is defining that the work of coaches is to support teachers. It needs to be clearly presented by the administrator /coach partnership that the role of the coach is to be impacting student learning. The coach works backwards from the desired outcome of student learning to assist in providing the teacher with the changes that the teacher needs to implement to bring about that impact on student learning. So, as a teacher, I assess the value of my coach by seeing the impact that the coach’s work has on my learners.
• The fourth item that Joellen raised was that coaches can have a belief that teachers are resistant to change. She shared the importance of getting into teachers’ belief systems. If we do, we’ll find that, as I’ve certainly found in my work across these last 35 years, that the vast majority of teachers are truly interested in their students having the greatest learning success possible. So, any resistance that a teacher has to change is probably a resistance to change for the sake of change, or changing to implement a new program without getting to the core of identifying how that change will influence student learning production behaviors, and thus impact student learning outcomes.

“Coaching is about putting results of high-quality teaching and learning for students in the forefront and keeping that in our view at all times and holding ourselves accountable and responsible for both of those things.”  (Joellen Killion)

• The fifth belief was that coaches can’t impose on teachers since they have no supervisory responsibility. Coaches can’t impose through assigned authority. A coach is not going to “threaten” a teacher with an evaluation or negative feedback. I believe that the way coaches most strongly impact teachers from a heavy coaching standpoint is through the use of a mirror. It’s mirroring back to the teacher any incongruity that exists between what a teacher is stating he wants to make happen for his students and what is actually happening. A coach listening to a teacher exploring student work, student outcomes, student indicators compared to what she wanted as an outcome from the investment she made in a lesson, is guiding teacher reflection that can lead to vulnerability and change. A coach can then explore changes a teacher might make to get the students closer to the outcome that the teacher desired. I believe that has a much stronger impact on real teacher change than any evaluator can have. An evaluator’s impact is likely only to be present as long as the evaluator is present. A coach playing back a teacher’s own words to the teacher, creates a motivation that is present even when the coach isn’t.
• The 6th belief that Joellen identified was that helping teachers know about or learn how to implement new instructional strategies is the coach’s primary responsibility. The primary responsibility is to impact student learning outcomes. Any new instructional strategy you’re bringing to a teacher needs to identify an impact on students’ success.
• The last belief Joellen labeled that could interfere with coaches’ success was coaches believing that they’re not responsible for what teachers do. If I identify as a coach, that the real measure of my success is in the impact that I’ve had on student achievement in my school, I cannot get that change in student impact without a change in what teachers are doing. So, in effect, as a coach, I am going to be held accountable.

When I first began to work in coaching, I would do a presentation and I’d have some educators in the audience come up to me and say, “Steve, I really like what you had to say, but couldn’t you find a word different than coaching?” I’d ask why, and they would say, “We already get too many athletic coaches getting into administration as it is, and we’re not sure we want you out there promoting that.” It’s really the word that comes out for me because if you think about a person coaching the basketball team at school, they can work with the team all week long but come Friday night during the game, they really need to sit on the bench and look over their shoulder and say to the crowd, how am I doing?

The crowd, in effect, evaluates the coach based on the performance of the people the person has provided coaching to. So, the effectiveness of an instructional coach is seen as the impact that she’s had on the teachers she is working with, which is only evident in the impact that that teacher has had on his or her students’ learning. When working as a coach increases the success of a teacher in achieving his or her goals with students, that teacher takes on a believability and a trust in both the coach and the teacher’s own ability. That increase in believability and trust will cause teachers to set ever increasing goals for their students, which causes them to set ever increasing goals and risk taking for themselves.

Joellen’s insights are continually worth reviewing. She joined me on a podcast around mental models for coaching which you can find here.

Looking back on my 35 years of working in the field of coaching, I am pulling some of the authors, beliefs, experiences, and insights that I believe form a foundation for those building their coaching practices. In this first episode, I’ve focused on Joellen Killion’s explanation of the importance of “coaching heavy.” She reminds us that results build relationships.

Listen to Joellen’s interview with Coach Better here.
Read Joellen’s article, “Are You Coaching Heavy or Light” here. 

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!

I spent the last week with administrators, instructional coaches, and teacher leaders from Bismarck Schools in North Dakota. I’ve been working with these educators during the last two years as they focus on their mission and vision.

Mission: All students will have the academic, social, and personal skills to be career, college, and community ready.

Vision: Together, we inspire a passion for learning, discovery and excellence.

As we explored the tasks of leaders in coaching teachers and facilitating professional learning , I asked them to examine some ideas expressed by Jacqui Murray in a blog post titled  7 Ways Common Core Will Change Your Classroom. Here is a summary of her changes number 6 and 7:

Life skills are emphasized across subject areas— and  An increase in rigor—

Accountability will be expected of students and teachers. Too often, passing a test was all the assessment that was expected. CCSS will look for more–transfer of knowledge (students must understand cause and effect, transfer knowledge from one subject area to another), evidence of learning, student as risk-taker, authenticity of lessons, vertical planning, learning with increasingly less scaffolding and prompting, and differentiated instruction so all learners get it.

The leaders considered the degree to which these changes were in place or needed to be initiated and extended. The conversation uncovered that all the changes that needed to occur in student performance also needed to occur as changes for teachers as well.

I suggested that if the sense of urgency was high, leaders would need to engage in what Joellen Killon has labeled as heavy coaching.

From a teacher’s perspective, coaching heavy feels heavy — in the sense of the weight of collective responsibility and commitment each teacher devotes to the success of every student. Coaching heavy causes them to feel on edge, questioning their actions and decisions.

Here is a mental model I have in mind as I work to make my facilitation or coaching “heavy.”

#1 Identify a commitment or belief that the teacher or team has to something of importance for students.

#2 Identify students whose performance/success falls short of what is acceptable to teacher’s or team’s commitment.

#3 Confirm the desire to so something.

#4 Examine ideas about “what we can do”.

#5 Get a commitment to action and assessment of the action’s effect.

Example: I was conducting a pre-conference with a middle school math teacher. She identified that her grade level team was focused on increasing reading skills across all content areas. She shared that she would provide an opportunity for students to read the math text as an introduction to the upcoming skill lesson and have them take notes identifying understanding and questions.

The teacher stated that reading in math was different from reading in other content areas (commitment/belief). I asked her how strong her students were at reading in math and she said some were strong. I asked, “If you had a continuum from 1-10 and we considered 9 strong, where would your students fall?”. She said some at 9, others at 6 and 4 and a few at 1. With another question she placed 4 students at 9, four at 1 and the rest split at 4 and 6 (student performance below teacher acceptance).

I asked which group she would like to select as a focus for our coaching. She said. “Those at 1”(desire to do something). I asked how the students would respond to her reading and note taking assignment and she suggested that the 1’s would likely fake read. She then added that perhaps she would give them “sticky notes” to use to create some accountability. I asked how confident she was that they knew how to read with the purpose of understanding and note taking. As she responded, ”not very”, she added that she would work with the four students in a group as the rest of the class worked on the reading assignment independently (what we can do).

The conference concluded with the teacher selecting to have the “reading lesson” observed for coaching and a follow up observation scheduled to watch the four students as they read in a later lesson (action and assessment).

Learning Companion is the phrase my Turkish colleague, Kayhan Karli, uses to describe peer coaching. Kayhan is the Director General of ÖĞRETMEN AKADEMİSİ VAKFI, a foundation that has now provided training to over 70,000 Turkish teachers who historically had received very limited professional development. Kayhan shared that he uses the metaphor of ” Life is a learning journey and you always need trusted, equal learning companions for this life long journey.” So teachers bring their companions into their classrooms.

YOLDAS is the Turkish term for Companion. Kayhan created a mnemonic with a word for each letter from YOLDAS that captures critical points for coaches (companions) to remember as they apply the training that he has provided.

Y stands for contracting for the journey

O  stands for positive phrasing always

L  stands for active listening

D  stands for  inquire deeply with powerful questions

A  stands for action plan for the journey

S  stands for  summarize and check for related environments

Here are some of my thoughts regarding Kayhan’s key components…..

Contracting–  I have often described the pre-conference as agreeing to a contract. The coach and teacher agree upon the focus of the observation, the data that would be gathered, the role that the coach should play in the observation and post conference. Trust is built when the coach honors the contract.

Positive Phrasing Always– positive phrasing sets the environment that encourages the teacher’s willingness to be vulnerable and hence gain the most from coaching. I often illustrate that athletic coaches are trained to use positive phrasing in tense situations.  An effective football coach will say “hold the ball tightly rather than don’t fumble.”   Instructional coaches focus teachers on the student behaviors they DO want and how the teacher might adjust or change to get the desired behavior.

Active Listening—  While questioning is a critical verbal sill for coaches, it is listening that identifies the “question” that should be asked. After trainees observe a conference that I model, they often ask for the list of questions to use or they noted my questions and then find they aren’t effective in their practice conference. The questions emerge from the conversation. Allowing oneself to really listen and not be planning the next question is a key understanding.

Inquire Deeply with Powerful Questions– In Joellen Killlion’s writing on Heavy Coaching, she illustrates that questions cause teachers to examine their beliefs and practice. When teacher practice or student results are incongruent with a teacher’s beliefs, disequilibrium sets the stage for change and growth. Now the coach can be a partner (companion) in supporting the teacher’s desired change in practice. I get my greatest reinforcement when a teacher pauses during a conference and says to me,” That’s a really good question.”

Action Plan for the Journey– In the post conference the opportunity exist for the teacher to think through next steps. A coach’s questions can guide this exploration. Sometimes this means another observation by the coach to gather additional information from newly raised questions. It could mean a modeling from the coach or observing another teacher for understanding a new strategy. The next step may be the coach repeating an observation to see if an idea (change) that emerged from conferencing creates the desired change in what student do.

Summarize and Check for Related Environments– Often the follow up (action) from a post conference will involve some action on the coach’s part as well as the teachers. It might mean assisting with gathering certain information or connecting the teacher with a resource. I find that confirming intentions … setting the expectations that the partners have of each other… sets the stage for building relationship. “So your plan is to have students note their ideas on white boards before sharing in talk with their partners to see if this increases the involvement of the more reluctant participants and you’d like me to observe a future lesson paying particular attention to the students we identified from today’s observation.” Getting an affirmative response, the coach asks, “When would you want to do that follow up observation?”. Note this is what I describe as the post conference turning into a pre-conference. Kayhan suggests that before taking action the teacher examines how the action fits into their environment. How does the action fit into school philosophy, administrative guidelines? What implications do I see the action having for me as well as my students? This is the spot where I apply the prediction question, “What’s the worst case scenario along with the best?”.

Thanks Kayhan for providing another structure for guiding collegial support. We do all need companions!

Click here to read Kayhan’s blog.