Words carry weight—especially in schools. Educators have countless research studies that exhibit the power of teachers’ language on students’ effort and learning outcomes. As an example, the research of Carol Dweck shows that students who hear “You worked really hard on this” instead of “You’re so smart” show significant improvement on subsequent tasks and are more willing to tackle difficult challenges, while those praised for intelligence actually decline in performance. Geoffrey Cohen’s studies on wise criticism reinforce the power of words. In one study, students who received feedback that said, “I’m giving you this criticism because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them” were much more likely to revise and resubmit their essays and went on to achieve better long‑term outcomes.

Can the words teachers hear from school leaders, instructional coaches and peers provide an uplift and motivation? A blog post from Phoenix Perform reinforces that language can be a powerful lever for motivation, clarity and belonging—or a subtle source of stress, confusion or disengagement. The authors remind us that “language is the vehicle through which expectations, emotions and commitments are transmitted.” In my own work with instructional coaches and school leaders, I’ve often emphasized that what we say—and just as importantly, what we don’t say—can directly influence teacher growth, agency and energy. This post explores how our intentional language can empower our coachees, team members and staff, fostering a culture where trust, clarity and motivation thrive.

                   “Every conversation is a performance. Are you empowering or disempowering with your words?” – Phoenix Perform

The post from Phoenix Perform offers a helpful structure for building intentionality into our communication. It shares four dimensions of empowering language that provide a lens for leaders to reflect on and refine communication.

Capability Language: Highlighting potential and learning

As a coach or leader, use language that reinforces a belief in the teacher’s (or team’s) ability to rise to the challenge. This echoes Carol Dweck’s work—focusing on effort and possibility over fixed traits. Empowering language emphasizes what someone can learn or do, rather than focusing on limits or deficits. It helps people believe in their own capacity to grow. Co‑construction of next steps in coaching conversations communicates capacity building; the questions teacher and coach ask each other allow them to explore their own understandings. Reflecting on and responding to each other’s contributions creates alternatives.

Ownership Language: Encouraging responsibility without blame

Ownership language invites reflection and action. It helps people consider how their choices affect outcomes, rather than shifting blame or feeling helpless. Ownership‑oriented questions create space for agency. They gently guide a person to examine their practice without defensiveness—shifting the focus from external problems to internal choices. This fits a strategy that I suggest called “gripes to goals.”

Teacher’s gripe: Too many students don’t care about their grades. There is no way to motivate them to work. Failing them isn’t a threat.

Coach: You have a strong desire for your students to do well.

Teacher: Absolutely. They don’t see the cost to their future of the choices they are making now.

Coach: Grades, as a reward or threat, just don’t seem to communicate the message you want them to hear.

Teacher: It may actually be making things worse.

Coach: You see a need to find a different way to motivate your students – (Goal).

Growth Language: Turning setbacks into opportunities

Growth language frames mistakes or failures as learning moments. It fosters a culture of psychological safety, where trying, reflecting and adjusting are expected parts of the process. “What did you learn from trying that strategy? What might you adjust for next time?” This language aligns with the spirit of wise criticism—holding high standards while affirming belief in the teacher’s ability to grow. It isn’t winning or losing that produces the learning; it is the debriefing and analyzing of the process that produces knowledge that one can gain from. Teachers, mentors and coaches help us learn from our experience, win or lose.

Purpose Language: Connecting tasks to meaningful outcomes

Purpose language helps people see how their work contributes to something larger. It transforms routine tasks into intentional actions that align with shared goals. When educators see how their contributions matter, motivation rises. Purpose builds commitment. Coaching conversations, where the teacher’s agenda emerges and develops over time, increase understanding, build trust and promote vulnerability and risk‑taking. The teacher’s agenda includes the beliefs, values and thinking behind the teacher’s decision‑making. A general guideline I recommend is that a coach wants to know what the teacher is thinking before sharing what the coach is thinking.

In every hallway conversation, coaching session, PLC meeting or email, our words carry the potential to empower—or to unintentionally discourage. When we speak with intention—choosing language that communicates capability, fosters ownership, frames growth and connects to purpose—we don’t just support our colleagues; we strengthen the culture of our schools. Teachers, like students, thrive when they feel seen, believed in and connected to meaningful work. As leaders and coaches, we can build that sense of connection through the everyday language we use.

Empowering language isn’t about being nice—it’s about being intentional. And in schools, intentional language can be a quiet but powerful lever for teacher growth, collective efficacy and better outcomes for students.

Feedback doesn’t create learning by itself—learning happens when students reflect on, act upon, and integrate feedback into their work.  Teachers don’t cause student achievement. Students do. Our role as educators is to design environments, tasks, and relationships that enable students to produce the learning behaviors that generate achievement. One of those critical learning behaviors is knowing how and being willing to use feedback.

Instructional coaches and coaching leaders are supporting teachers to build opportunities for students to profit from feedback, they should be looking to create the same opportunities for their feedback to be profitable for teachers.

Watch the “Austin’s Butterfly” video here.

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

Podcast Transcript:

[00:00:00.000] – 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.

[00:00:30.000] – Steve
Students and teachers maximizing the value of feedback. Consider this as a key to drive our thinking about feedback. Feedback doesn’t create learning by itself. Learning happens when students reflect on, act upon, and integrate feedback into their work. That matches the constant message that I frequently share, that teachers don’t cause student achievement, students do. Our role as educators is to design environments, tasks, and relationships that enable students to produce learning behaviors that generate achievement. One of those critical learning behaviors is knowing how and being willing to use feedback. In a podcast conversation that I had with Tom Shimmer, he identified that feedback is both simple and complex. Here are his thoughts.

[00:01:47.580] – Tom Schimmer
Feedback is monumental. Feedback gets almost unanimous support in the academic literature in terms of that’s how you raise student achievement. That’s how you increase learning. So learning increases through feedback. But the challenge we all face is that feedback is both simple and complex. It’s simple because we know feedback works. It’s complex because there is no absolute answer to the question of what works with feedback. Everything about feedback is context dependent and nuanced. So what works in one classroom may not work in another classroom or another school. So when we provide feedback to students, there are some fundamentals that we can follow. But one of the most The one of the most important things you can do is you can watch how your students respond to your feedback routine. So rather than chasing the perfect strategy, the goal would be to chase the perfect response, because feedback can only be called effective if it elicits a productive response from the recipient. So no matter what you do in feedback, if your students don’t take your feedback and don’t use it to advance their learning, you can’t call it effective. So I’ll often tell teachers, a teacher actually can’t say, I give my students effective feedback, but they ignore it.

[00:03:04.950] – Tom Schimmer
That’s not…So people will say, well, that is true. See, what you can say is, I give my students feedback and they ignore it. That you can say, but you can’t call it effective because to be called effective, it must trigger a learning response, right? That’s the point. So does it elicit more learning? Are you triggering more learning? Are you focused on feedback that is longitudinally applicable. Often, Steve, when I talk about feedback, I’ll say something very flippant, but it’s not flippant, but it sounds flippant. When you say to a group of teachers, make sure your feedback focuses on learning. And then everybody looks at me like, oh, great idea, Tom. Never thought of that in my 25 years of teaching or whatever. But here’s my point. The research on feedback is nuanced, and I’ll try to be brief with this, but the research on feedback is nuanced to the point where you could provide effective feedback to a student that helps them improve acutely on performing on a particular task, but it doesn’t impact their long term learning because you’re focused more on the immediate task. So when you change the task, the feedback is not transferable.

[00:04:20.020] – Tom Schimmer
So a quick example, if we were talking about making an argument, formulating an argument, argumentative writing, and the first task I asked you to do was write a a letter to the editor of a local newspaper or some local issue that you wanted to argue in favor or against or something like that, and we did that, and I provided you feedback on your letter. Now, the next time I ask you to formulate an argument, it might be an argument iterative essay. The feedback on your letter, the structure of your letter, et cetera, is not transferable to an essay. But if my feedback on the first task was focused on your ability to formulate an argument, make a claim, support it with details, acknowledge the counterclaim, all of those things, that feedback is transferable. And that’s how you can actually, in some cases, not improve the short term task, but actually have an impact on their long term learning. And that’s what we should be focused on is how do we impact their long term learning? So that’s what I mean. It sounds flippant to say focus on learning, but there is method to that madness, which means we have to have an eye on this is like a long game.

[00:05:27.060] – Tom Schimmer
We want to impact their long term memory or their long term learning so that how they formulate because the third activity might be a debate. Now, what do I do? I’m not even writing anything. It’s a debate format. So how is that feedback transferable? It’s one of the most important nuances that we have to remind ourselves about feedback. So simple, we know feedback works. Complex because we have to pay close attention to how our students respond, and that will tell us whether or not our feedback was effective.

[00:05:55.020] – Steve
At the start of a school year or a new course, teachers preparing students to maximize the value of feedback they receive can have a valuable impact on extending student learning. Consider the question, what do students need to know and believe about my feedback? And how will I communicate that message to my students? Students need to believe that feedback is about growth, not judgment. It’s not about being right or wrong. It’s about finding the next step forward. That means exploring a growth mindset. It’s a belief that mastery is going to happen, perhaps, not yet. Students need to trust the source. They need to trust that their teacher or their peer or their parent wants them to succeed and improve. In other In other words, the provider of the feedback is my coach, and that coach is invested in my success and believes that I will succeed. Students need to know how to act upon feedback. Students don’t automatically know what to do with a comment like, add more detail, or, check your reasoning. Teachers must model how to revise work, self assess and ask clarifying questions. An effective feedback culture is built on trust, collaboration, and safety.

[00:07:42.160] – Steve
Students need to feel safe sharing work that isn’t finished yet. They need to see mistakes as opportunities for growth, not as failures. They need to learn how to give and receive peer feedback. Ron Berger provides three straightforward guidelines to providing a critique. Listen in on his description.

[00:08:10.500] – Ron Berger
I used to have about 10 rules for critique, but nobody could remember them. Finally, after using 10 forgettable rules for 10 years or whatever, I got critique on my presentations and on my work, which was good, sharp, smart critique that enabled me to cut that down to the three most important things: be kind, be specific, be helpful. There are certainly other pointers you could give someone. Use “I” statement, start with a positive before you use critical things, ask things as a question rather than a definitive statement. There’s lots of guidelines that used to be part of my 10. But now when I walk into a kindergarten, kids will say, oh, I know you. You’re the kind, specific, helpful guy. We use those rules. People really do remember those rules. It’s very simple. But to see them in practice, imagine, Michelle, that you’re in a ballet class as a kid or as an adult, and you’re in a position. The teacher is going to walk by you, put her hand gently on your shoulder and say, Michelle, your shoulders are just right. That’s exactly right. It’s being kind. But look at your back leg. Do you see, if you could move that back leg just a little bit more to get yourself in a line here, think of how different that’s going to be.

[00:09:36.080] – Ron Berger
Now, try that. See how different that is? Okay, concentrate on that next time you take that position. Then she walks on to the next person. Then you think, I felt good about that. She was complementary, but I know exactly what I was doing wrong. It was specific and helpful. The next time I’m in that position, I’m going to be just right here. That’s the model in my mind. Can we be kind, specific, and helpful all the time and giving each other pointers, which allow us to make those small adjustments to get better.

[00:10:05.720] – Steve
Years back, Ron Berger created a great video example of feedback that is kind, specific, and helpful. He shares several iterative pictures by a first grader named Austin, working on a drawing of a tiger butterfly. Different elementary students that are seated with Ron practice deciding the feedback they would give Austin after each of his iterations. Ron shares the feedback then that Austin received and shows Austin’s next drawing. Students are amazed at Austin’s progress and awed by his completed project, as I was, and so are many adults who see the video for the first time. If you haven’t seen that clip, you can find it by simply searching, “Austin’s Butterfly,” but I’ll also put the link in the podcast lead-in. The Austin’s Butterfly video was made many years back, but teachers are still finding it a great way to explore giving and receiving feedback. Listen into this short conversation from Becky Carlson in a virtual workshop from Learning Pioneers as she shares how she uses the video with her elementary students. And then, Trevor McKenzie extends sharing how he uses it with older students.

[00:11:41.840] – Becky Carlson
I wanted to pick up on as well in the chat, Fiona sharing about using Austin’s Butterfly that you created, Ron, with students. I’ve done that with four, five, six-year-olds. As soon as I discovered it, I was like, oh, this has got so much rich language in it. Let’s watch it with the children and pick out that language exactly like you shared. And watching that twice in a school year has the most immense impact if the children are ready to pick out that language and you use it and refer to it because it’s such a great model of kind, specific critique. So yes, picking out that language and Austin’s Butterfly is such a great resource for that. And children love it because it’s children. People just like me doing this. I can do it, too. And then obviously that the finished product of seeing how much that butterfly is improved is hugely motivating to children. I could do that, too. So I think for the piece of what made reflection and feedback really meaningful for my young students, watching Austin’s Butterfly twice and unpicking it and using that language. We had a display that we put above our whiteboard that said Superpower Learners Say.

[00:12:56.760] – Becky Carlson
And that was exactly what you were both describing. It was picking out learning English language for learning that the children were saying and then saying, why is this powerful and what impact could it have? And it’s in their words. And again, like you were saying, Ron, because they were young children. They were always really… They just had a real way with words. So it came up with something you’d never expect them to have… You wouldn’t have come up with it as an adult, but it was in their speak, so it was more powerful. Those were some of my thoughts around that. I don’t know if there’s anything you want to come back with before we go to the next question.

[00:13:29.040] – Trevor McKenzie
Yeah, let me just quickly insert my high school voice here, so forgive me, but everything you’re referencing, Becky, with younger learners, let’s just say learners, high school kids as well, Austin’s Butterfly with the Younger Years class, we just showed that to students in Mesa, Arizona, as a provocation to get them ready for language that’s kind, specific, and helpful. And so we often look at practices and inquiry and feedback and these student-centered protocols as great at the younger years, great at all years, aren’t they? Great at all years. So I just wanted to insert But if you’re in a different context, Austin’s Butterfly is a provocation, fantastic for all years.

[00:14:07.940] – Steve
As instructional coaches and coaching leaders are supporting teachers to build opportunities for students to profit from feedback, they should also be looking at how they create the same opportunities for their feedback to be profitable for teachers. Several years back, I was keynoting a conference on the topic of coaching. Ron Berger had keynoted that conference the previous day with the focus on feedback being kind, specific, and helpful. Fortunately, I was able to attend his presentation, and the next day, I built into my coaching presentation how kind, specific, and helpful were effective coaching strategies. Kindness is present when a coach invest in knowing a teacher and communicating a belief in the importance of the teacher’s work and a belief in the teacher’s ability to achieve success with students. Specific feedback is critical to teachers’ opportunities to reflect on student learning production behaviors. What a coach saw and heard rather than any conclusion the coach draws from observing, is the value of a teacher having an extra set of eyes and ears in the classroom. The coaches and teacher’s specific observations can lead to co-construction constructive meaning. Helpful, for me, means empowering. I tend to avoid the words, “helping a teacher” unless the teacher uses the term first in requesting help from me.

[00:16:02.400] – Steve
See, I find that a helper can be construed as someone being a level above the person that’s being helped. What makes coaching helpful is that it is future-focused. The experience takes the teacher and their students closer to the goal. Here are some questions to reflect upon as this school year begins. For teachers: How do I prepare students to use the feedback that I’ve provided? What routines, modeling, or conversations set students up to act upon feedback? What beliefs do I want students to have about feedback? How do I communicate that feedback is caring, safe, and focused on growth and not judgmental? For coaches and instructional leaders: You might be asking yourselves, how do I model the same feedback practices that I encourage teachers to implement? Do I invite feedback on my own coaching or my leadership? In other words, how coachable am I? When I give teachers feedback, do I make space for them to process and respond? In other words, is feedback a dialog? For everyone to consider: What would change in our school culture if every feedback conversation between students, teachers, and leaders was guided by these three questions posed by Hattie and Timberley.

[00:17:56.900] – Steve
Where am I going? In other words, clarity on the goal. How am I going? What’s the current progress? And where to next? Are the action steps identified? I hope this podcast has generated some reflection on the possibilities for enhancing the value of feedback. Because feedback is simple and complex. I’d appreciate any feedback you might share about this podcast, especially feedback that is kind, specific, and helpful. As always, thanks for listening in. You can reach me at barclaypd.com.

[00:18:48.320] – Steve [Outro]
Thanks for listening, folks. I’d love to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter or LinkedIn at Steve Barkley, or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs at barclaypd.com.

Early into the virtual learning move last spring I was hearing from teachers that they were having more short observations/visits to their instruction from principals than when everyone was at school. Most teachers shared that they appreciated the encouraging responses they received. I sensed that principals felt a need to cheerlead as teachers tackled new instructional practices with a trial-and-error process.

As time has proceeded many administrators are finding a need to be more formal in these observations with some required to create a formal evaluation. I am working with some schools that have been virtual since March and do not predict a return to physical classrooms in the near future. One central office administrator recently shared that teacher pushback to administrators’ comments from virtual walk-throughs was surfacing. In this blog, I am sharing insights from some thinking I’ve done in preparation for coaching administrators and instructional coaches in similar circumstances.

Last spring had many schools pull back on requirements related to student assessments and grades as well as teacher evaluation. Consider these comments from an education week article Should Schools Be Giving so many Failing Grades This Year.

“When the coronavirus shuttered nearly all of the nation’s public schools in March, most districts quickly moved into triage, instituting “pass/fail” arrangements or allowing students’ completed work over the final weeks of the semester to boost, but not lower, their final marks. Few officials at that time felt that the pandemic would continue into the 2020-21 school year. But as the crisis continued and school began in the fall, most districts reverted to their old grading systems, in part because of the infrastructure that depends on those grades: Senior transcripts need to be prepared for college admissions. Grades determine access to specialized middle school programs, magnet schools, and sports scholarships. Old grading problems worsen during the pandemic.”

I think we can make a similar statement for the supervision/evaluation of teacher practices. Old problems can worsen in the current virtual, hybrid, and social distance classroom settings.

I have never been a promoter of giving teachers feedback in written form following walk-throughs. No matter how strongly a supervisor feels that the feedback is non-evaluative and coaching focused, without the teacher’s engagement in a conversation, it is interpreted as evaluation. The perfect example came from the central office administrator who described the teacher’s pushback to the virtual walkthroughs with this example, “Please, no more I’m wonderings.” Most written “I am wonderings,” as well as spoken, are interpreted as the provider thinking there is a better practice than what they observed.

The following statements on feedback illustrate the problem: “It doesn’t matter how much authority or power a feedback giver has; the receivers are in control of what they do and don’t let in, how they make sense of what they are hearing, and whether they choose to change” (Stone and Heen).

“Feedback without goal setting, without a conversation about what might be an alternative way of thinking and behaving, is just information. Feedback is less helpful, even damaging, if it is just an exercise in getting something off one’s chest” (Campbell and van Nieuwerburgh).

I have historically proposed that the purpose of walk-throughs should be to educate the leadership team of a school about what is occurring in the teaching and learning process. This information should guide leadership decisions about leadership behaviors. I have suggested that those supervising administrators might ask them, “What patterns are emerging from your walk-through observations and how are you thinking that impacts your actions?”

Joellen Killion states that we should shift our focus from feedback-as-product to feedback-as-process (The Feedback Process: Transforming Feedback for Professional Learning). For me, the easiest way to structure my coaching use of feedback is seeing myself as a learner alongside the teacher. Killion uses the term learning partner and proposes a focus on the construction of knowledge by talking less, listening more, and asking powerful questions.

It’s obvious that working as a learning partner requires more time than emailing notes after a walk-through. My thoughts are to hold the feedback until you make the time/process for it to be meaningful. You will be modeling what teachers should be considering about feedback to students.

“Just 19 percent of teachers say they should be evaluated (with associated consequences and/or rewards) during the winter/spring of 2021. Many district leaders disagree 52 percent say teacher evaluations should continue as usual. But only 38 percent of principals support evaluating teachers this school year.” 

– Education Week

This was the title of a blog I found written by Steve Keating, Selling Skills Manager with Toro Company.  In keeping with my experience, if I spend 10 minutes on Twitter I’ll learn something new and/or find a resource I can use. Stranded in an airport with delayed flights I went to Twitter and found someone sending me to Steve’s blog.  I also follow Steve on Twitter @LeadToday.

As I read Keating’s blog, How Coachable Are You? –November 30, 2012, it struck me that this would be a great topic for the start of a faculty meeting or PLC session….a great topic for an instructional coach to facilitate.