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.

Thomas McKenna, in his ASCD blog, Sensemaking in Science, describes how he, as a researcher, experienced firsthand what it means to pursue a question that genuinely puzzles you. He spent countless hours observing, collecting messy data, and wrestling with questions that had no clear answers. The process was iterative and uncertain. Initial observations led to new questions, different approaches, and unexpected results that challenged his assumptions.

“Real science isn’t about students confirming what they already know—it’s about making sense of what puzzles and intrigues them.”

                                                                                                      (Thomas McKenna)

McKenna identifies how science educators increasingly view learning as a process of sensemaking. Rather than beginning with explanations that students are expected to absorb, teachers create opportunities for students to encounter phenomena, ask questions, gather evidence, develop explanations, and revise their thinking.

If we believe students learn more deeply by making sense of what they encounter rather than simply receiving someone else’s explanation, shouldn’t the same be true for teachers?

Another statement from McKenna caused me to dig further into the similarities between science education and instructional coaching: “We didn’t give answers upfront. We positioned students as capable investigators with their own ideas worth exploring.” The goal is not simply for students to learn today’s science content, but to kindle the curiosity that fuels lifelong learning.

Effective coaches take a similar approach, positioning teachers as capable investigators with their own ideas worth exploring. Rather than providing answers upfront, coaches create opportunities for teachers to question, investigate, and construct their own understanding—habits that fuel career-long professional learning.

McKenna provides a list of ten ways to value wonder and create environments where curiosity thrives by shifting how we frame learning experiences and interact with student thinking. I pulled four that I believe have a direct carryover to effective coaching.

1. Start with phenomena, not explanations.

In science, McKenna encourages teachers to begin with something students observe that puzzles them and give them space to wonder before providing an explanation. Coaches can take a similar approach by helping teachers begin with what they observed rather than immediately interpreting what happened.

A coach might ask, “What did you notice?” “What did you see or hear from students?” “Was there anything that surprised you or puzzled you?” The coach can stay with the phenomenon before moving toward an explanation: “What else did you notice?” “How many students responded that way?” “When did you first see it happening?”

Only after the phenomenon has been described does the conversation move toward making sense of it: “What are you thinking might be happening?” “What are you wondering?”

Starting with the phenomenon keeps the coach from making sense of the classroom for the teacher. Instead, the coach creates the opportunity for the teacher to notice, wonder, and begin constructing an explanation.

2. Ask, “What does this remind you of?”

In science, McKenna suggests inviting students to connect new observations to experiences and understandings they already have. Coaches can do the same by helping teachers place what they are noticing into a broader context.

After a teacher describes what they observed, a coach might ask, “Have you seen students respond this way before?” “Does this remind you of anything you’ve noticed with this class or other groups?” “When have you seen students respond differently?” Those questions can help a teacher recognize patterns that might otherwise remain unnoticed. A teacher might say, “Now that I think about it, they tend to ask for help quickly whenever the task is open-ended. When the steps are clearly laid out, they work much more independently.”

The coach can then probe the connection: “What do you make of that difference?” “What might that tell you about what students are experiencing when the task is less structured?” Inviting teachers to connect current observations with previous experiences honors what they already know while also helping them examine that knowledge more closely. Sensemaking doesn’t begin from scratch; it builds from what the learner already knows, has experienced, and is beginning to notice.

3. Honor learners as experts.

McKenna encourages science teachers to recognize that students bring knowledge, experiences, perspectives, and different forms of expertise to an investigation. Instructional coaches can approach teachers in much the same way.

Teachers possess knowledge that a coach does not. They know their students, the history of the class, what they have previously tried, how individual students tend to respond, and what they were intending when they made particular instructional decisions. That knowledge becomes an important part of the sensemaking process.

A coach might ask, “What do you know about these students that might help us understand what we’re seeing?” “What have you already tried?” “What were you considering when you made that decision?”

Honoring the teacher as an expert doesn’t mean assuming that the teacher’s interpretation is necessarily correct—or that the coach has no expertise to contribute. It means approaching the conversation with the belief that the teacher possesses important knowledge that needs to be surfaced and explored. When coaches position teachers as capable investigators with expertise worth contributing, teachers are more likely to be active participants in making sense of teaching and learning rather than recipients of someone else’s analysis.

4. Make revision a normal part of learning.

McKenna reminds us that scientists revise their thinking as they encounter new evidence. The same should be true for teachers investigating teaching and learning. Sensemaking isn’t about arriving quickly at the right explanation. It is about developing a hypothesis, testing it against what happens, and being willing to revise that hypothesis as new evidence emerges.

A coach can help a teacher turn an initial interpretation into a hypothesis worth investigating. “What are you thinking might be happening?” “If that’s the case, what might you try?” “What would you expect students to do if your hypothesis is accurate?” “What evidence might cause you to revise your hypothesis?”

Making revision normal keeps coaching from becoming a search for the right answer. Instead, teacher learning becomes an ongoing process of developing hypotheses, gathering evidence, revising thinking, and generating new questions.

Perhaps one of the most important questions a coach can ask themselves is: Am I making sense of what happened for the teacher, or am I creating the conditions for the teacher to make sense of it?

Coaches certainly have expertise to contribute. There are times when sharing an observation, offering information, or suggesting a possibility can advance a teacher’s thinking. But if we move too quickly to our own interpretation or solution, we may unintentionally take away the very thinking that produces professional learning.

McKenna’s description of students as “capable investigators with their own ideas worth exploring” offers a powerful image for instructional coaching as well. When teachers are encouraged to notice closely, connect what they observe to what they already know, draw upon their expertise, develop hypotheses, and revise their thinking as new evidence emerges, coaching becomes more than a process for improving a lesson or solving a problem.

Coaching becomes an opportunity to strengthen teachers as curious, reflective investigators of teaching and learning.

If professional learning for educators is going to generate increased learning success for students, it needs to be an environment, not an event. Dr. Marisa Ramirez Stukey, co-author of, “Professional Learning Redefined: An Evidence-Based Guide,” shares key elements of effective professional learning and the necessary commitments needed from administrators, instructional coaches, and teachers.

Visit The Reading League website and get in touch with Dr. Stukey here.

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.

[00:00:29.800] – Steve
Professional learning: A Key Element of an Ecosystem for School Change. Today, our guest is Dr. Marisa Ramirez Stukey, the Chief Academic Officer for the Reading League and Content Editor for the Reading League Press. In these roles, she leads academic strategy, and professional learning initiatives while overseeing the development of high-quality content aligned with the science of reading to advance evidence-based literacy instruction nationwide. Marisa has served as a classroom teacher, instructional coach, higher education instructor, and consultant. She is nationally recognized as an expert in literacy, professional learning, and systems change, centering her work on designing professional learning systems that integrate the science of learning with effective reading instruction. She is also the co-author of, “Professional Learning Redefined: An Evidence-Based Guide.” Welcome, Marisa.

[00:01:46.180] – Dr. Stukey
Thank you, Steve. I’m so excited to spend some time with you.

[00:01:49.880] – Steve
Well, I appreciate you being here. When we had spoken prior to recording the podcast, you talked about an ecosystem that would support school change. Describe a little bit what you mean by an ecosystem.

[00:02:04.670] – Dr. Stukey
Yeah, I really use that framing very intentionally because I really want to push back on the idea that professional learning is an event. It’s really an environment that you have to design and sustain over time. And I think it’s because so much of the dominant model for so long has been doing PD to teachers, not building the conditions for teacher learning. And so when we talk about this idea of an ecosystem, it’s really talking about everything being interdependent, right? The content knowledge, the materials, the coaching structures, the opportunity for collaborative time, leadership alignment, like, all of those things really have to be working together. And when one of those things is missing or it’s being pulled in a different direction, the whole system struggles. And I think about that specifically like an ecosystem in that way.

[00:03:01.120] – Steve
It’s interesting because when you first described it, the first book that I wrote on coaching was on peer coaching. And I titled the book, “Quality Teaching in a Culture of Coaching” for the exact reason that I didn’t want coaching to be an event.

[00:03:20.920] – Steve
I didn’t want it to be an activity. And I just have been writing a blog based on a piece that was triggered by another author who was describing that he thought the problem we were having with coaching today was it was being seen as a program.

[00:03:39.170] – Dr. Stukey
Yep.

[00:03:40.060] – Steve
So it fits that same pattern.

[00:03:42.690] – Dr. Stukey
It really does. And I think about, you know, we’re finally moving into education talking about coherence, right? All the pieces coming together. And I think that maybe this is a turning point where we can get somewhere when we start thinking about each of these pieces being interdependent on one another.

[00:04:03.570] – Steve
So I continually propose that teacher learning is the key to increased student learning. And if you want to back that further up, school leadership learning,

[00:04:15.260] – Dr. Stukey
Absolutely.

[00:04:16.820] – Steve
So I wanted to hear your insights concerning what makes professional learning work. What are some of the critical elements that need to be there?

[00:04:28.810] – Dr. Stukey
Yeah, you know, it’s interesting because there is a decent body of research around this topic specifically. And we know pretty clearly that there are a set of criteria that research has shown that makes a difference in how teachers learn. One is content specificity, not general PD. So when we think about being very clear on how does what I am teaching you directly connect to the content that you’re learning. And so just as an example, a lot of times we have professional learning on things like culturally responsive instruction, really important. But what does culturally responsive instruction look like in reading? What does it look like in math? What does it look like in social studies? So being very, very clear on the content specificity is really important. Another piece that’s really interesting in the research is that time matters. Duration is a key component. Now, there is not clear evidence that, you know, 200 hours is what makes a difference, but we know that sustained learning over time and with opportunities for teachers to try, reflect, get feedback, and refine those practices is what is really essential. The research that is also really interesting is that we default as teachers back to the way we were taught.

[00:05:54.970] – Dr. Stukey
So, you know, we spent 13 years watching teachers teach us, and so changing our practice is really challenging. Changing for significant pieces of instruction is really challenging. So spending time getting feedback. Another really important piece that I think is often overlooked is the idea of alignment. So teachers’ professional learning has to be aligned with the other district initiatives, the other school initiatives that are going on. My favorite example of this is I was working in the early 2000s with the Florida Reading Initiative, which was really working very hard to bring evidence-based practices into the literacy classrooms. And I would be working through all of these different professional learning sessions and immediately the teachers would say, “Yeah, but our materials don’t do it that way. Our materials tell us to do it this way.” And so that was just a clear disconnect in alignment between what the teachers were learning and what I was trying to help them do and the materials that they had in their classrooms every day. And so those are some of the immediate critical components: duration, content specificity, alignment. And then in addition to that duration piece, it’s that it’s job-embedded.

[00:07:14.010] – Dr. Stukey
And that’s where your coaching, Steve – like, that’s where coaching comes in. It is an extension of professional learning.

[00:07:25.060] – Steve
So this question may be a repeat, so if so, help me modify it. But I wanted to look for critical shortcomings, and in my head was the lack of coaching, the lack of feedback, the lack of understanding that you’re probably going to do this wrong before you do it right. Would you reinforce those? And are there other things that you’d say are common shortcomings?

[00:07:55.340] – Dr. Stukey
I totally would. So I would 100% reinforce those, and I think we should talk about them a little bit more. But I think one of the biggest shortcomings that comes to mind is that oftentimes we treat professional learning as compliance rather than learning. Right? Check the box, move on. And we’re seeing it now as more and more states adopt science of reading legislation, right? So they adopt science of reading legislation, they mandate that teachers need to have some sort of science of reading professional learning. For many states, that’s a program like LETRS, or Texas built their own. And so teachers engage in that learning, but what happens next? How are we ensuring that that learning transfers into classroom practice? That’s where things are really missing. That’s a huge shortcoming is that we think that changing teacher knowledge will change practice. And really there’s a whole pathway between knowledge and practice, and that is often that implementation piece is really what’s missing. The other thing that I would say is a huge shortcoming is that we often ignore teachers’ prior knowledge, or we ignore their belief systems or existing mental models, especially in reading. We underestimate how personal teaching is.

[00:09:19.210] – Dr. Stukey
And so when we’re asking teachers to make a significant shift in their practice, we need to name some of those tensions, name some of those belief systems, and then work through trying to understand how new information can be added to that. I think oftentimes we just think, “Well, if we just tell people stuff, they’ll change their mind,” and that has yet to come true in almost anything I’ve seen in my career.

[00:09:49.090] – Steve
Telling doesn’t change belief.

[00:09:51.090] – Dr. Stukey
No, it doesn’t.

[00:09:52.140] – Steve
And if you don’t change belief, you don’t change practice.

[00:09:54.880] – Dr. Stukey
It really doesn’t. And I think it’s really interesting because research matters, but when we think about teachers, we almost have to change their hearts before we change their minds. And so I think that that is a piece that is often underestimated in terms of like, well, I told them to do something different. I don’t know why they’re not doing it. We haven’t really addressed the depth of content knowledge needed, but in addition to that, their belief system around what it means to teach, and it’s really important.

[00:10:30.150] – Steve
So are we dancing around the fidelity word here? [laughter]

[00:10:36.630] – Dr. Stukey
Fidelity, the F word in education. [laughter] You know, I so appreciate the idea of fidelity, but really what that comes down to is understanding how something is built. When we want teachers to have fidelity to a program, they need to be able to understand how the program’s built, why it works the way it works, and I think that’s a piece, again, we just kind of gloss over. I would argue that fidelity is really to our students. So fidelity is to our students, right? And so a program will never know what those students in front of you are giving you, what they need. However, programs are designed – well-designed programs have really important components that if you don’t understand the design, you could inadvertently pull it apart in ways that aren’t going to be beneficial for your students. So when we think about maintaining integrity to a program, that’s a word I prefer to use instead of fidelity, right? Maintaining the integrity of a program, but we have fidelity to our students, and that is a nuance that is often kind of missed in the overall conversation around professional learning.

[00:12:01.720] – Steve
So I’m going to try a phrase with you that I’ve been using a little bit, and you need to know I’m very, very open to you pushing back and telling me I’m going down the wrong track. Okay?

[00:12:13.460] – Dr. Stukey
Okay.

[00:12:14.890] – Steve
But I’ve tried to describe that I think when we bring in a new program and the instructional approach that we’re asking teachers to use is different, that we have to engage the teacher as a partner in – I’m going to actually say testing out a hypothesis. In other words, I’m suggesting our school district invested a lot of money in a hypothesis. They have no guarantee that this new program is going to work. They have a high belief. I mean, they’ve done a good ton of research. They’ve got evidence. But if a teacher thinks it’s not working with this particular student, and I go back to the teacher’s commitment and belief in their students. So if we could make the teacher a partner in assisting us in gathering evidence, and so that means the teacher has to have integrity to the program in order to collect the right evidence.

[00:13:21.780] – Dr. Stukey
Exactly.

[00:13:22.550] – Steve
But letting the teacher know they’re in a partner and we’re anxious to hear their feedback.

[00:13:27.460] – Dr. Stukey
I think what you’re hitting on is such a missing part. Almost everything happens to teachers, not with teachers. And it’s a real conundrum because the teachers are the ones with the most amount of knowledge. I love the idea of them being partners in this initial work. I think what also happens, just to kind of extend your metaphor, is that we don’t allow these hypotheses time to unfold.

[00:14:01.230] – Steve
For sure.

[00:14:01.560] – Dr. Stukey
We are so quick to abandon a program without having the opportunity to understand its implementation. And then teachers have whiplash, right? Like, now I’ve got something different and you want me to do something different because we’re not partnering with them in that way. So I really appreciate that metaphor. I think we should keep going with that.

[00:14:23.700] – Steve
I think sometimes they’re abandoned before they’ve been implemented.

[00:14:27.060] – Dr. Stukey
100%.

[00:14:28.710] – Steve
Years ago, I was working with a system that they were 3 years into a new science initiative, looking at science being taught in a more hands-on discovery approach. And they went and they bought all the materials for it. And they were, you know, say it wasn’t producing the results. Well, didn’t take a lot of observations for me to find that there were many classrooms I was in where all the materials were there, but the way the teacher was delivering instruction hadn’t changed at all.

[00:15:05.190] – Dr. Stukey
So exactly.

[00:15:06.710] – Steve
They’re deciding the program’s not working. And in fact, it hasn’t been implemented.

[00:15:12.310] – Dr. Stukey
Exactly. And that’s why I appreciate the word integrity to the program. Right? Like, we can’t say it hasn’t worked when we haven’t even tried.

[00:15:21.030] – Steve
Yeah.

[00:15:21.440] – Dr. Stukey
So, yeah.

[00:15:22.980] – Steve
So I wanted to think about the critical commitments that different groups of people have. And I think we’ve kind of been labeling some of them, but if professional learning is going to produce student – if professional learning for adults is going to produce new learning for students, what kind of commitment do we need from administrators? What kind of commitment from instructional coaches and teacher leaders? And what kind of commitment from the teachers themselves?

[00:15:52.030] – Dr. Stukey
Yeah, I really want to start with the administrators and the leadership because I think that we’ve done a lot of work, again, to teachers without really thinking about the conditions that are necessary for learning, and that is really where the leadership comes in. So number one, protecting time for professional learning. It has to be there, and you actually have to protect it. It cannot be the first thing that gets cut because the bus schedule changed or lunch changed. And I will just go on that continual scheduling piece. The master schedule indicates all the priorities, and leaders are in charge of the master schedule. And so the number of districts I’ve been in or schools I’ve been in where the master schedule is driven by logistics like lunch and buses, and then intervention time, reading block time is shifted as a result. Nope, leaders, we got to step up into something different there. In addition to that, you got to be in the room. You have to be the lead learner modeling a learning stance. It’s not just about being in the room for compliance. It’s about actively participating in the professional learning that your teachers are learning about.

[00:17:13.570] – Dr. Stukey
How are you supposed to evaluate them if you don’t even know what practices it is that you are wanting to promote? So that’s another really important one. I think the other thing is really shifting from monitoring the compliance to monitoring the impact. So it’s not just about are they doing the thing, are we seeing a difference in our student data? If yes, why? Let’s do more of that. If not, why? Let’s do less of that. Really, let’s think through that together. And then I think finally for leaders, one of the biggest pieces is this idea of is psychological safety, right? Teachers have to feel like it’s okay to try some new practices, to not be very good at it, to struggle, and to come back with questions. If, if the culture in your building does not allow for that, then how are we really going to change practice? And so I think administrators, leaders, really set the tone for the learning environment. And in the book, I use the word lead learner. You have to be the lead learner to really show what’s necessary. I think if we go to coaching, the coaches in the building, the teacher leaders, those coaches are the connective tissue of this ecosystem.

[00:18:37.100] – Dr. Stukey
They live between a learning event and the classroom practicality. The coaches are the ones who actually know the students too. But they have to know the content deeply, and then they have to be able to help adults translate that content into the practice that matters in that particular context in their school. I think for coaches, the best coaching is more of a question than it is a statement. It’s building the capacity of the teachers we work with, not fixing them in some way. And so when I think about coaching and the habits of mind that coaches and teacher leaders need to have, what they’re doing is they’re normalizing the learning, right? Consistency, coaching cycles. They’re normalizing, hey, I tried this and then here’s what I noticed when I did it. That carries a different weight than coming from administrators. And so coaches really are – connective tissue is my favorite word to use there.

[00:19:48.430] – Steve
Does reflection fit there?

[00:19:50.750] – Dr. Stukey
100% reflection fits there.

[00:19:55.750] – Steve
Yeah. The coaches, the connective tissue is keeping the teacher engaged in the reflection on what he or she’s doing and noticing.

[00:20:05.750] – Dr. Stukey
Right. And I think that that is the piece where it’s like the teacher-student interaction, right? The coaching is helping really reflect on that because when we think about going back to integrity to the curriculum, fidelity, whatever that may be, the bottom line is how are my students responding and how am I taking that in and making shifts and changes as a result? And I think that’s the whole deal with teachers too, is that teachers have to show up as active learners in this, right? Like, we’ve had a lot of bad professional development done to us as teachers. I mean, you can see it when people start to walk in the room with their body language. And there was a recent EdWeek study that when teachers were asked how much professional learning did they feel like they need in a year, and the majority of the answers was zero, right? Like, they’re feeling like they haven’t done this. I mean, they have – this isn’t going to make a difference. And so we have to show them that professional learning is worth engaging in and that it is connected and it’s not going away. I think that’s one of the biggest things we hear so often is like, I’ll just wait for the pendulum them to swing the other way and I can just keep doing what I’m doing.

[00:21:19.490] – Dr. Stukey
And so teachers being active learners and teachers also giving honest feedback about what’s working and what’s not. That’s why I really loved your analogy here to being partners in testing out this hypothesis. It is necessary to hear teacher feedback. It’s not complaining. It’s not a nuisance. It is necessary to understand what it is that needs to shift and what additional support is needed.

[00:21:47.820] – Steve
It hits for me why the word professional. It’s what makes professional learning is I’m not telling you, you’re gonna have to figure this out. I mean, I’m giving you information. I may be giving you research. I may be giving you examples.

[00:22:07.630] – Dr. Stukey
Right.

[00:22:08.210] – Steve
But it’s not a recipe. It’s not for you to carry it out. It’s for you to go forward to learn from it.

[00:22:18.900] – Dr. Stukey
Right. You know, the literature calls those things conceptual inputs, right? Like, so what am I taking in that then I need to be able to see, again, to your hypothesis analogy, how this interacts with my students in my environment, in my unique context? And that’s not to say that, like, every child learns differently. We’re pretty much wired similarly. However, the unique context that our classroom brings, that our school environment brings, that are the cultures that are in there, those matter, and they make a difference in how instruction meets our kids.

[00:23:02.320] – Steve
I use an example of it. If you take everything you know about teaching and learning and you put it inside of a balloon, the outside of the balloon represents the areas for further study. So in effect, every time you get new professional learning, if it stuck something into the balloon or you went off to a conference or you read a piece of research and you put it inside the balloon, it really opened up the areas for you to go next.

[00:23:32.480] – Dr. Stukey
Absolutely.

[00:23:33.600] – Steve
I think we act sometimes as if it closes down, that the new learning closes down and now you’re more focused and got a direction. Instead, the new learning should be expanding you out, deeper thinking, stronger reflection.

[00:23:47.200] – Dr. Stukey
Well, that’s a way of thinking about it’s a starting line, not a finish line.

[00:23:51.850] – Steve
Yeah, I think that’s what it is.

[00:23:55.230] – Dr. Stukey
Yeah.

[00:23:56.260] – Steve
So talk a little bit about how you put all this together in your organization’s work with literacy.

[00:24:01.800] – Dr. Stukey
Yeah. So, you know, the Reading League is 10 years old now. So they’re really a toddler in the world of organizations. But what’s so interesting is when we started, we really were in a place of people didn’t know. They just didn’t know the research. They didn’t have any kind of knowledge base. And so we worked originally as really just knowledge brokers, right? Let’s help make the research accessible to teachers, make sure that they understand what we know about reading instruction over the past 50 years. What’s shifted now is more people know, but what’s missing is the actualization of that research. And so what we’re really working very hard on now in the professional learning that we support districts and school with is implementation. Okay, if you know this and these are the materials you have and these are, this is what we’re seeing out of student data, how do we put those pieces together in a systematic way? And we’re doing that both at a school level, but more importantly at a district level and at a state level to really help support coherence over time. We also have the Reading League Compass, which is our main resource on our website, which is just completely filled with resources for every different kind of stakeholder group, right?

[00:25:27.160] – Dr. Stukey
If you are a school leader, if you are a parent advocate, if you are a curriculum decision maker, here’s where we’re distilling the research and giving you tools to help ensure that that ecosystem we talked about at the beginning, that support is there all the way around, not one and done. The other big thing that we’re working on is trying to really work with educator preparation programs. We want to stem the tide kind of at its part. We want to shift the instruction and reach teachers before they even get in the classroom to ensure that they are being trained immediately with what we know is going to make a difference in classroom practice. And then finally, the TRL Press and our TRL Journal. These are the ways that we keep practitioners connected to the research. The journal is just, it is exactly what I would have wanted as a reading nerd first grade teacher when I was teaching, right? It helps really actualize the research in ways that are very practical, and I think that’s a big missing piece is that accessibility. And so the Reading League is really working to develop those ecosystems across the country and honestly across the world.

[00:26:53.580] – Dr. Stukey
We’re starting to see more and more international folks come and join the things that we’re doing. We had a gentleman join us from Kenya at 3:00 AM Kenya time for one of our webinars. I have to just like really give him a shout out for his dedication there. But those are the things that we’ve been doing, and our professional learning really works to actualize the research, just like we’ve talked about today.

[00:27:21.860] – Steve
So, what’s the best way for people to access those available resources and touch base with you?

[00:27:28.180] – Dr. Stukey
All right, number one, go to thereadingleague.org. That is our main website, and from there you can navigate to the Compass. That is chock-full of resources there. You can also learn more about our professional learning and reach out to us as well. My book, “Professional Learning Redefined,” that’s available through Corwin Press. It goes a lot deeper in some of what we’ve talked about today, but you can find that book there, and you can find me on LinkedIn, and TRL has a really strong presence there. So definitely engage. I am here to help and support you and would love to hear from you.

[00:28:07.240] – Steve
So as we close out in the quick coming days here. Yeah, teachers are going to be walking into schools maybe a couple days ahead of the kids.

[00:28:18.070] – Dr. Stukey
Yep.

[00:28:18.870] – Steve
Some of them will have had professional learning workshops during the summer.

[00:28:24.570] – Dr. Stukey
Yep.

[00:28:25.210] – Steve
Some will have them the day before the kids come.

[00:28:30.510] – Dr. Stukey
Oh, they love that, right? Like, just lock me in my classroom? Stop talking to me! [laughter]

[00:28:37.330] – Steve
[laughter] So I just wondered if you had any closing words on what we ought to keep in mind as we look to the startup of a new year for teachers.

[00:28:49.280] – Dr. Stukey
Yep. So I’m going to repeat one thing I already said. Summer professional learning is a starting line, not a finish line. Full stop. And I think the question I’d be asking every leader right now is, what structures do you have in place a space for teachers to apply what they’ve learned and get support in those first weeks of school? If the answer is we’re hoping they remember it and we’re hoping they try it, nope, that’s a gap. And that’s where those coaches and teacher leaders and collaborative teams really come in. They are the reentry points. They keep that learning alive when the formal session is over. So I want to just say, professional learning isn’t something that just happened to you during the summer. It’s what we do all year. And leaders, it’s your job to really check in and not just check off what’s been done.

[00:29:42.220] – Steve
Thank you. I was looking forward to this conversation, and it actually surpassed even what I was looking forward to. I just love interacting with you. I hope we can get to do it again sometime.

[00:29:56.040] – Dr. Stukey
Oh, without a doubt. Thank you for having me, Steve. I so appreciate it.

[00:30:01.000] – 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.

It’s rather clear to most people that to be an effective coach one needs an appropriate mindset for investing in the growth of others and a set of listening and verbal skills for coaching conferencing. Less often considered are the mindsets and skills needed to gain from coaching input. We might label it as one’s coachability. Robyn Vierra, the Teaching and Learning Coordinator at the American School in New Delhi, shares her experiences with being coached. Consider your coachability as you hear Robyn’s story.

Email Robyn: rvierra@aes.ac.in

Find the Instructional Coaching Micro-Credential Program here.

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

Podcast Transcript:

[00:00:00.100] – 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.

[00:00:28.970] – Steve
A model of coachability. I’m excited to introduce listeners to today’s podcast guest, Robyn Vierra. She is currently Teaching and Learning Coordinator at the American Embassy School in New Delhi, where she leads professional growth and facilitates effective teaching and learning across the high school. She was previously the Director of Global Education at Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she designed and implemented school-wide initiatives for global learning. I connected with Robyn a few years back when she participated in my Micro Credential Instructional Coaching program, and she and I connected monthly on coaching calls. After the program, Robyn has continued with personalized coaching Zooms and has constantly presented what I would label as a true model of coachability. I often describe a coach’s role as being a thinking partner with a coachee. I leave every coaching session with Robyn with issues to ponder myself.

[00:01:43.180] – Steve
And I frequently send her a note a day or two later as new insights occur for me. Consider your coachability as you hear Robyn’s story. Robyn, thanks so much for joining me today.

[00:01:58.200] – Robyn
Thanks, Steve. I’m honored.

[00:02:00.240] – Steve
It’s great to have you. I’m wondering if we could start with your participation in the online modules that we explored on our initial Zoom calls. What are some of the insights about coaching that emerged for you during that time?

[00:02:18.660] – Robyn
Yeah, I think during that time when I was looking back at my notes from the very beginning of the courses and the most impactful thing that I realized was you sort of drew this continuum in my mind of evaluation and then cognitive coaching being on the very other side. And then with that continuum, you also have a continuum of ownership. So you talked about how evaluation, the evaluator’s taking ownership of the learning, whereas on the other side of the continuum, the coachee is taking ownership of the learning. And that sort of blew my mind. I talk a lot about student ownership and a lot of how do we shift the cognitive load to students and having them own their learning? And it hadn’t occurred to me how we can do the same for adult learners.

[00:03:12.060] – Steve
Well, in your role, you have some supervision responsibilities as well as some coaching responsibilities, or is responsibilities not desires? [laughter]

[00:03:26.760] – Robyn
[laughter] That’s fair.

[00:03:29.570] – Steve
So that continuum kind of looks at playing out how you decide which of those roles you’re stepping into and when you’re stepping into it.

[00:03:43.690] – Robyn
Yeah, and I think you said this, but I’m going to say it myself now, is that the majority of our teachers don’t need supervision. And though my role is supervisory, coaching is probably the best in to growing teachers. And we know that supervision and evaluation don’t result in teacher growth primarily. And so the more I could lean towards the coaching side and making it a reflective conversation, I think that would benefit the students in their classrooms.

[00:04:18.610] – Steve
So as you finish that microcredential coursework, what was your thinking that led you to put out a request for you and I to continue our ongoing partnership?

[00:04:35.030] – Robyn
Yeah, I’d had some background in coaching. I used to supervise new teachers to the profession and oversee their credentialing. And so I felt like I was kind of good at it. And then I realized that I was just really great at giving good ideas for how they could improve their instructional practice. And the faculty I work with now are great teachers. They’ve been teaching and doing this for a really long time, and that’s why they were hired. And that approach is not the best approach with them. And so I wanted to develop my skill set for how to work with expert adults and how to make sure that they feel supported and that they’re growing and that they could own their development.

[00:05:24.140] – Steve
Well, when I describe your coachability, it jumps out at me because you enter each coaching session that you and I have had ready to report on experiences that you’ve had from the previous session. And you’re ready with insights or questions to explore in the conversation that we’re ready to have. Could you describe your process that you go through between our calls?

[00:05:57.760] – Robyn
Yeah, I think I’ve told you this before, but what I love about the courses and our monthly meetings is that it’s never one and done. And something we know about professional development is its impact isn’t that strong because it’s one and done. And so this model of us meeting every month has allowed me to reflect and question and practice and then do some learning. Reflect, practice and then do some more learning. And so just knowing that in a month we were gonna have another conversation was always really helpful to me. And I have a little Post-it by my desk that as things came up for me that I wanted to talk through, or I wasn’t sure on my thinking about, I’d just jot them on the Post-it, and sort of, over the course of the month, sort of building the agenda for things that we could talk about. Or, I had a conversation that didn’t land where I thought it was going to land, or where perhaps I was thinking it could land, and I needed a thought partner on those.

[00:07:09.130] – Steve
Yeah. The reflection part is a critical part of learning. And without coaching being present for a lot of teachers, very often, it’s difficult to find the opportunity for that reflection. I mean, that reflection is really what coaching creates for the for the teacher.

[00:07:34.050] – Robyn
And again, we know this for students, right? Hattie talks about metacognition having some of the highest effect sizes. And sometimes we don’t have the space in schools to do some of that important reflection with teachers. And that matters.

[00:07:53.110] – Steve
Would you share some of the insights that you’ve gained about coaching and your coaching skills and your approach to coaching over the time that we’ve been able to work together?

[00:08:06.620] – Robyn
One, it’s a super important skill. I have a doctorate in educational leadership and never had a coaching class. And when you think about one of the leader’s most important jobs being—

[00:08:19.240] – Steve
Wow.

[00:08:19.340] – Robyn
Helping the people they’re with and they work for, it is sort of striking. I heard you say, “Wow.” [laughter] It is sort of striking. You may believe that, but you don’t necessarily have the skills to do that. And so developing those skills has been really, really important for me. And questions matter. The questions show intent and questions show just the way I’ve learned to design – the questions I ask has been incredibly helpful for me. And the last thing I want to do is direct a conversation in a way that a teacher feels defensive or disempowered, right? Those are the enemy of learning. And so having a little more tools in my tool belt to avoid some of those traps of supervision when it’s not needed and lean into some of those tools that can really support students’ learning. And I’ll say that teachers have loved it. The feedback has been great. I am doing my end-of-the-year meetings right now, and it’s been really sweet to have conversations. They’re like, well, remember last year we talked about how we could have more consolidation for students? And this year, I’m seeing it, and I see it in my data, and I’m seeing student— like, my data’s gone from a 3 to a 5 in this area.

[00:09:46.180] – Robyn
And so It’s been really great to see that people crave it. And I mean, I obviously crave it too because I sign up to talk to you every month. So to having a space to reflect and improve practice is something that we all want, right? Autonomy, mastery, purpose. Building our own mastery is something that is motivating for adults.

[00:10:13.090] – Steve
I wanna come back to another piece there, but since you kind of touched on this, you had mentioned that your 360 feedback occurred at your school and you got some positive feedback on the use of your coaching skills. Share that with us?

[00:10:36.490] – Robyn
Yeah, it came out loud and clear that people appreciated the reflective conversations that supported students and supported them as professionals. And I think one quote was around like a mentor mindset, having – exuding really high expectations with high support. And to me, that was the ultimate compliment because that is what I seek to do, right? We all are shooting for this level of greatness and we need support to get there. And I clearly – I ask for your support every month in being even better than I can be.

[00:11:17.730] – Steve
So as I was listening to you, a word that was coming through my head considering your approach to your coachability and what you build into your coaching of your staff is the word vulnerability.

[00:11:39.660] – Robyn
Mm-hmm.

[00:11:40.660] – Steve
Could you respond to that a little?

[00:11:43.060] – Robyn
Yeah, when you’re with a coach, you have to be vulnerable, right? When you’re defensive, that’s because it doesn’t feel safe to be vulnerable. And so I work really hard to create a space for teachers to feel vulnerable and possibly by being vulnerable myself and knowing that I don’t have all the answers and that we’re sort of in this sort of exploration together about how we can best serve students. Because if that was simple, whoo, like, but it’s not. It’s complex. And it takes teamwork to sort through the complexities of student learning. And so it is a vulnerable process for me as a leader, as well as for a teacher, I would say.

[00:12:37.660] – Steve
I’m seeing that that’s an important piece for you to model in your coaching of teachers, is your vulnerability, being able to lay out, I’m not expected to have the answers here. I’m looking to work this out with you. I would share with teachers sometimes in my coaching, I don’t know if the idea we’re talking about here will work or not, but I’ll make you one promise. If it doesn’t, I won’t leave you. So this doesn’t have to work. It’s something we can try. And then we can be back to the drawing board to figure out what did we learn from the experiment. I’m just now reading a piece from Harvard Business Review on super teams. And the first thing it identified is something that super teams do, is they experiment more than other teams do. So they’re quick to form a hypothesis, come up with an experiment, and run it and learn from the experimentation process, rather than looking that I’m spending the time trying to make sure that I got the right decision or the right answer before I implement it. And I think that that’s the mindset. I think the reason you need vulnerability is because growth requires risk.

[00:14:17.870] – Steve
So if I’ve got a setting where the coach is taking some risk and the teacher’s taking some risk in what we’re gonna move forward with, we probably got a relationship that’s clicking.

[00:14:29.550] – Robyn
Yeah. And I guess the enemy of that is certainty. Right? We need to be hypothesis testing and exploring and being curious. And if we pretend that we are certain about what an answer is, then that closes the conversation and the collaboration and both.

[00:14:50.460] – Steve
And it doesn’t take long for the teacher to realize that what worked really well second period didn’t work third period. So it can’t be what the lesson plan was. And similarly, when when I’m in the coaching role, what worked with the previous teacher that I coached in my response isn’t working here, and I need to be able to take that as feedback and figure out what’s next.

[00:15:18.480] – Robyn
Yeah, and that’s what makes this work as being an educator so dynamic, right? Because if every lesson was the same and played out the same, then that would be awfully boring. But it is incredibly complex work to navigate that every day as the orchestrator of different learning in different ways all the time. And teachers need support to do that and to think through it.

[00:15:48.250] – Steve
Yeah, it’s the line I took from Dylan William that the neat thing about working in education is you don’t have to worry about hitting mastery prior to retirement.

[00:16:02.540] – Steve
[laughter] Exactly.

[00:16:03.290] – Steve
There’s always that new piece to learn, which really makes why I use the statement, “every educator deserves a coach.” It’s not that you need one, you deserve to have that support because of the challenging role you’re taking on.

[00:16:19.070] – Robyn
And that’s why I felt like I needed to deserve to coach as well. It’s not easy leading faculty learning and having that space to sort of test some of my thinking and be vulnerable, especially, it’s outside my school and so it doesn’t jeopardize any of my relationships, felt incredibly supportive. And so I sort of get what teachers were saying about this idea of feeling like high expectations and high support because that’s how I experience it as well.

[00:16:55.000] – Steve
Cool, cool. Before we close, I’m wondering if you have thoughts that you could share with listeners about how to get the greatest return. So I used the word results, but how do you get the greatest return from – you’re investing your time and your energy in being coached. So what is it that a person does that causes them to get the most out of that?

[00:17:21.590] – Robyn
Yeah, I mean, I’ll talk about my process that is sort of funny. So we’re talking and I take these like wild notes over 3 pages of paper and it’s a total mess. And then the next day I come back to it and I rewrite all my notes into a notebook really nicely and I organize it. And then before I have a coaching meeting with a teacher, I go back and I refresh on all my notes and think through – I have kind of a bank of different ways to approach different conversations, and I think through what would be the best approach, and I plan the conversation, and it never goes the way I think it’s gonna go, but at least I’ve done some pre-thinking on it. And then if I have questions about it, I bring that to our next meeting. And so, the way to get the greatest return out of it is engaging with it regularly and often. And it’s what we know about learning, right? It’s all the retrieval and the practice and the application and then the relearning. And gosh, it is a master – like to be a really great coach is an impressive skill.

[00:18:39.860] – Robyn
And I hope one day I can get there, but it really is a skill that needs to be developed and a lot of people don’t have it. And in some ways I think that’s a shame because I think a lot of people could learn in the process.

[00:18:57.310] – Steve
Well, Robyn, I wanted to reach out and ask you to join me and I’m just so glad that I did. How might one of the listeners, if they’ve got a question or something they wanna exchange a thought with you, is there a way they could touch base with you?

[00:19:15.330] – Robyn
Of course. I’m rvierra@aes.ac.in at the American Embassy School in New Delhi, India.

[00:19:24.810] – Steve
I’ll stick that email into the podcast lead-in and make it easy for folks to find.

[00:19:30.930] – Robyn
Awesome.

[00:19:32.250] – Robyn
Thanks so much, Steve.

[00:19:33.570] – Steve
Take care.

[00:19:34.770] – Robyn
All right. Bye.

[00:19:35.950] – Steve
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.

 

School leaders often express concern when teachers resist implementing a newly adopted curriculum with fidelity. The assumption is understandable: If we selected the program carefully, why wouldn’t teachers follow it? A recent Phi Delta Kappan article, “Educator Resistance to Curricular Control,” suggests we may be asking the wrong question.

Instead of asking why teachers resist fidelity, we may need to ask: “What are teachers trying to protect?”
The Kappan authors researched teacher resistance to curricular control and identified several responses teachers make when required curriculum conflicts with their understanding of students’ needs:

• strategic compliance- teacher complies, but has private concerns often producing frustration
• strategic compromise- teacher blends their own interest, knowledge or materials with the mandated curriculum
• strategic redefinition- teacher resists in their own classroom and presses others to push for change, perhaps in PLC, department, or district committee
• overt resistance- teacher may openly refuse (sometimes overlooked by administration)
• exit from the school or profession- teacher may seek a position more closely aligned with personal beliefs

Teachers resist losing influence over decisions that affect students.

Research shows that most acts of teacher resistance are closely related to the level of program fidelity that is required. As demand for curricular fidelity increases, so do acts of principled resistance.

(Huddleston, Talley, Edgington, Colwell-Kappan)

In my coaching experience, when I hear what appears to be resistance, I’ve learned I need to become more curious rather than more directive. That idea was reinforced on a podcast I recorded Becca Silver, the founder of The Whole Educator and the designer of the Resistance Remedy. She posed that “Resistance isn’t refusal. It’s a signal of unmet needs.” That requires coaches’ questioning and listening to help diagnose the unmet needs.

Silver describes a paradox. “We look for the teachers to be critical thinkers. We want them to think critically about what’s going on in their classrooms. And yet, when a change comes down the pipeline that they didn’t choose, they’re expected to comply with it. Some teachers respond, “Okay—you want me to do this? Not a problem. I’ll do it.” Some teachers grapple with whether they agree or disagree, or if they think they’ll be successful or not. This grappling sometimes appears as resistance.”

The Real Issue May Be How We Define Fidelity

When leaders say, “Implement with fidelity,” teachers often hear, “Follow the script.”

Resistance frequently emerges when fidelity is framed as compliance rather than as protecting the learning design that is focused on improving student outcomes. In earlier work on coaching and program fidelity, I explored how implementation strengthens when teachers understand not just what to do, but why the new design matters for learners. The idea of fidelity to purpose builds directly on that understanding.

Can we communicate fidelity as commitment to the purpose rather than compliance with the program?

I believe that consistency in implementation improves when teachers understand:
• What the program is designed to change?
• Which elements are essential?
• Which decisions can remain professional choices?
• What evidence should appear if the program is working?

The Kappan article points out that perfect procedural fidelity is rarely realistic. Teachers will adapt. So, the important question becomes, ”Are teachers adapting away from the purpose—or toward it?” A shift—from fidelity to procedure toward fidelity to purpose—can change conversations and teachers’ responses.

Resistance can become useful information if coaches and leaders consider what concerns a teacher is having about student learning. Teachers’ concerns often relate to:

• pacing that doesn’t match learners
• developmental readiness
• cultural responsiveness
• engagement levels
• previous successful practices
• instructional relationships they don’t want to weaken

Seen this way, resistance is not obstruction. It’s feedback.

When we introduce a new curriculum program, we should be inviting teachers to join us in shared vulnerability. A request to implement, question, observe, and report out along the way encourages teachers to be members of the district team focused on maximizing students’ success. I believe the word fidelity belongs inside this vulnerability conversation. For the evidence and data from the teachers’ observations, student engagement and learning assessments to build systemic understanding, fidelity of purpose is critical.

These three questions are initially critical to explore with teachers:

• What must remain consistent—and why?
• Where is teacher judgment expected?
• What student evidence will tell us the program is working?

Coaches can increase teacher engagement by exploring these questions:

• What student thinking should we see if this program is working?
• Which elements seem essential for producing that thinking?
• Where do you feel the program aligns strongly with your learners?
• Where are you noticing tensions?
• What evidence should guide adaptation decisions?

The implementation of new curriculum and/or instructional strategies should create an opportunity for increased team building across a school system. Fidelity is important—and unlikely to be built through supervision alone. When curriculum supervisors, instructional coaches, building leaders, and teachers engage as partners—sharing both responsibility and vulnerability—a fidelity to purpose can emerge that strengthens a continuous learning community serving students.

What’s one of the first questions you tend to ask a teacher after you’ve broken the ice in a post-conference? Here’s one I hear very often: “How do you think that went?” I cringe a little when I hear that question. The reason is something I learned the hard way early in my coaching career.  That question can lead to teachers protecting and the moment protection enters the conversation, reflection usually leaves it.

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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.

[00:00:29.840] – Steve
Starting post-conversations that lead to reflection. What’s one of the first questions you tend to ask a teacher after you’ve broken the ice in a post-conference? Here’s one that I often hear: “How do you think that went?” I have to admit, I cringe a little when I hear that question. And the reason is something that I learned the hard way early in my coaching career. Back then, I could feel the tension that both the teacher and I brought into those first moments of the conference. I knew it was important for the teacher to do the talking, but I wasn’t always sure how to begin. So I went with what felt like a natural opening. “How do you think that went?” Well, pretty quickly I discovered that that question often created the wrong environment for deep teacher reflection. Instead of opening thinking, it frequently led to surface-level safe responses. Sarah Cottingham and Adam Kolbeck from Cognitive Coaching describe this as the problem with what they call, “the vague opener.” While the question seems reflective, it actually asks teachers to scan across an entire lesson and produce a summary evaluation. And perhaps even more importantly, the question can cause the teacher to wonder, “What happens if I say something went well that the coach thinks didn’t?” So, instead of reflecting, the teacher begins protecting.

[00:02:30.350] – Steve
And the moment protection enters the conversation, reflection usually leaves it. Suddenly, the message we’ve been working so hard to communicate—that coaching is not evaluative—gets unintentionally undermined by our very first question. Teacher voice is key in generating the reflection that leads teachers to a “what’s the next step” thinking and decision-making. Consider that the coaching post-conference should be a conversation, not a report delivered by the coach. I suggest a minimum goal of having a 50/50 coach-teacher voice goal for post-conferencing. And I love the idea of working towards a 75% teacher voice in post-conferencing. My approach to the post-conference is based on using questions that help me understand what the teacher is thinking and maybe even more importantly what the teacher observed while teaching that is influencing that teaching. Here are some questions that can encourage the teacher to re-enter the lesson rather than to judge their lesson. Was there a spot during the lesson that made you smile? How did the movie you imagined when you planned the lesson compare to how things unfolded? What were you paying closest attention to while the lesson was unfolding? How much of what you did was planned, and where did you modify or ad-lib the lesson based on what you observed?

[00:04:33.610] – Steve
Were there surprises during the lesson? You asked me to record the questions you asked as you moved among cooperative groups. What do you think you’ll find as you review the list of questions I collected. You had asked me to focus on the two new students during the lesson. What did you notice? If in the pre-conference the teacher’s focus was set and how the coach would collect the observational data was established, the coach can now use the data to reinforce or extend the teacher’s reflection. Here’s an example of an opening to a post-conference. Coach: When you planned this lesson, you had a picture in your mind of how the group discussions would sound and feel. As you think back now, how did that movie compare to what actually unfolded? Teacher: I think the opening went pretty close to what I had imagined. Most of the groups jumped right in. Some of the other groups, though, did need more prompting than I had expected them to need. Coach: What were you noticing that told you some groups needed more prompting from you? Teacher: They were offering options quickly, but not really building on each other’s ideas. I found myself stepping in more than I had planned to.

[00:06:20.130] – Steve
Coach: You mentioned in the pre-conference that you were curious about the kinds of questions you asked as you moved between groups. Before we look at the list that I collected, what do you think you’ll notice when you review it? Teacher: I’m guessing I ask a lot of clarifying questions, probably more clarifying than probing questions. Coach: What makes you think that? Teacher: Because I was trying to get them unstuck instead of focusing on pushing their thinking. Coach: Let’s look at what I collected. I tried to record as many as I could, but I know that sometimes I got interested in the learning interaction and I missed your next question. As you scan the list of questions, what stands out to you? Now, at this point, the coach would share that recorded data, probably seated side by side with the teacher. The teacher might continue, Yeah, there are more of ‘What do you mean by that?’ kind of questions than I expected, and fewer follow-ups like ‘Can someone build on that?’ Coach: What do you make of that in relation to what you were hoping students would be doing during the discussion? This kind of conversation now sets the stage for reading a coachee’s readiness to explore future steps or actions.

[00:08:07.320] – Steve
My approach in my post-conferences is to question and paraphrase with curious and interested nonverbal communications. As the coach helps build my clarity of understanding their planning, observing, analyzing, and predicting. This work on the teacher’s part supports their own reflection and likely highlights some of their emotions and their insights. They understand more as they work to get me to understand more. Coaching is a human experience, and often the reflection part begins with the very first question we ask. Before your next post-conference, consider planning your opening few questions in advance. Not the feedback you want to give, not the suggestions you’re thinking about offering, just the questions you want to ask first. Because the first questions often determine whether the conference turns into a report or a reflective conversation. What opening questions might support the teacher to do more of the thinking than you’re doing as the coach? I’d love to hear your thoughts or questions. Remember, you can always reach me at barkleypd.com. And thanks for listening.

[00:09:57.170] – 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.