While at the recent Near East South Asia Council of Overseas Schools (NESA) conference in Dubai, I attended a workshop session concerning change agency leadership presented by Pat Bassett, the president of the National Association of Independent Schools.

At one point the participants were discussing the conversations that leaders have or avoid, and Dr Brent Mutsch, the superintendent of the American School in Dubai, shared the following which he attributed to Bill Gillenwater:

Dr Mutsch explained that leaders should be consciously looking to increase the number of conversations of significance that take place.

That resonated with me and I made the connection to Heavy Coaching as a leadership skill set.

When the workshop ended, I conducted a one hour presentation on Instructional Coaching With the End in Mind.    My session ended with a model of a coaching pre-conference that I believe included a conversation of significance.

Cheryl introduced herself as a second grade teacher with six years of experience including a focus on early literacy and PYP (Primary Years Program).

Steve: What is special about teaching grade two?

Cheryl: They are Risk-Takers.

Steve: What do you do to promote risk-taking?

Cheryl: I create an environment of trust.

Steve: What does trust look like and/or sound like?

Cheryl: Students feel free to ask for support or push me away when they don’t need it.

Cheryl described the lesson I’d see as a beginning study of descriptive writing.

Steve: What’s the most important thing you need students to do in this lesson?

Cheryl: Visualize and imagine.

Steve: On a scale of 1-10, one easy and 10 very difficult, where would you place this lesson for students?

Cheryl: About 6 on average, but two students will be near 10.

Steve: What will you need to do in this lesson?

Cheryl: Energize, excite, involve… give think time.

Steve: Where would you like me to focus my attention in the observation and feedback?

Cheryl: On student behavior… especially conversations.

Steve: Whole group or particular students?

Cheryl: That’s a good question.

Steve: Thank you.

Cheryl: Focus on the two students who will struggle. Now that I am thinking about it, there is a third student you should add.

We closed the conference deciding the specifics of how I’d collect the information.

Cheryl and I spoke after the workshop ended and she told me how much she enjoyed the coaching session and that she felt she was driving the whole process. I shared that I was quite sure she would focus me on the struggling students. She asked how I knew.

After Cheryl talked about the importance (significance) of trust and students requesting support or pushing her away, I was sure having identified a possible struggle, she’d want to examine the struggling students’ learning.

 Cheryl shared her pleasure at realizing there was a third student. I enjoyed our conversation of significance.  The observation and post conference would continue in a significant vein.

I am often caught by the incongruity when leaders (including myself) miss the opportunity to model the model….when we forget to “walk the talk” ….when our behavior with staff doesn’t mirror the behaviors we are recommending they use with students.

(The administrators who give a lecture on why lecturing is an ineffective instructional process.  The school that requires all 100 staff to complete the same course on the value of differentiating instruction.)

Staff development is an area where I often find an incongruity between what educators say is important with what they do.

Lots of districts promote teachers providing a clear understanding of what students are to learn as a valuable instructional strategy.

The Leander, Texas district’s student behaviors, discussed in earlier blogs, list this as their first behavior:

1. Learning Objective: Students articulate the learning objective/target and find meaning in their learning.

Robyn Jackson, writing in Never Work Harder Than Your Students & Other Principles of Great Teaching , states, ”By making goals concrete for both you and your students, you make it more likely that students will understand and ultimately achieve the learning goals, and you build in mechanisms that help you track their progress towards mastery “.

So, I am quite surprised when I am asked to present a workshop to teachers or administrators and no one from the school or district provides an introduction as to the learning expectations. Teachers are left to their own decision as to whether or not to focus or engage.

In a blog post called Learning with a Purpose, Raymond A. Talke, Jr., President of Minds in Action, Inc., states,  ”Many organizations have education or training functions whose purpose is to create facilitated learning activities, usually in the form of classes.  Yet, it is disheartening to note that many of these organizations do not adequately incorporate the purpose of the learning into their learning activities.  Unwittingly, these organizations are creating “Learning without a Purpose.”

Talke lists a set of symptoms that indicate a training department will miss the mark in providing “learning with a purpose”. One of the symptoms often appears in systems where I consult. (I’d encourage staff developers to check his entire list.)

Recently I have worked with several district-wide and building leadership teams, planning professional development aligned with increasing student achievement. I have suggested that we share with teachers at the outset, the connection between the professional development and the desired student outcome.

We can communicate that by illustrating the change in teacher behaviors that the training is designed to initiate, the change in student behavior that would be generated by the teachers’ changes, and finally the learning outcome being sought. These changes may be simplistic in early stages and then grow in complexity.

As an example, a leadership team shared that they were offering “thinking map training” to their staff to increase students’ strategies for learning to improve achievement as measured by district assessments.

Here are some questions I explored as I facilitated their discussion:

What would teacher practice with thinking maps (TMs) look like in early stages? How would it change as teachers and students learned the strategies?

What would student behaviors with TMs look like in early and later implementation? Moving from teacher guided use, to teacher suggested use, to independent use?

When and with what assessments would we use to look for improvement in student achievement?

By what date should teachers invite an observer to provide feedback on their initial work with TMs? What dates would you be looking for more complex use to be demonstrated and student behaviors to be occurring? At what date would we predict that uninvited observations could appropriately be looking for teacher and student use of TMs?

I believe all of the above should be shared with staff before the professional development and coaching activities around TMs begin. Some staff already using their own version of TMs may request an observation with feedback before they attend the training.

Knowing the expectations (the accountability) before the learning activities begin can provide motivation and understanding for increased teacher learning.

Actually, it should be Rule #1 for staff developers, coaches, facilitators, and administrators planning the back to school sessions with staff, students, and/or parents. It is listed as Rule #4 in John Medina’s book, Brain Rules.

A teacher in one of my summer workshops recommended the text to me and I am enjoying it as my airport read. As I read the chapter on Rule #4 and the summary bullets, I reflected on my own learning and experiences as a presenter/facilitator.

In the summary (page 94), Medina shares these points:

This is evident to me at the beginning and end of my presentations when I am thrown a curve by the person in charge. They get up to introduce me and decide to use this opportunity of having all staff present to announce some upcoming ‘event or requirement’, giving everyone a focus other than my topic just as they are to turn the microphone over to me.  The other comes at the end when half an hour before my closing. Invariably,  just as I have everyone focused on the wrap up, they pass out an evaluation form to be filled in… I’m ready for my big close up, and no one is even looking at me.

Lately, I’ve been attempting to more consciously give an opening statement or two that hints at a pattern in my upcoming presentation.  As an example, in my day long workshop around PLCs and coaching I mention up front beliefs that drive my work- “Teaching is a team sport” and “Teaching should be a public act”. Throughout the workshop material being discussed should be connecting to those pattern statements. I received reinforcement this week when a high school teacher approached me mid afternoon and said, ”I wish they’d have brought you in before they pushed us into PLCs. I get it now.”  I think he got the pattern.

Medina reinforces this in Chapter Five (page 116)… Introductions are everything…Film directors know that the audience needs to be hooked in the first three minutes after opening credits to make a film compelling.  Public speaking professionals say that you win or lose the battle to hold your audience in the first 30 seconds of a presentation.

In last week’s blog I shared a clip of a high school valedictorian’s speech questioning her energy being spent on grades and missing the opportunities to learn. I used that clip early in several presentations this summer and have gotten participant emotions aroused to set the stage for learning.

Audiences check out after 10 minutes, but you can keep grabbing them back by telling narratives or creating events rich in emotion.

I discovered this years ago and  plan my material so that a 90- 120 minute presentation  is made up of about seven 10-12 minute chunks all followed by a small group discussion, turn and talk, answer a question in pairs…something requiring a participant response.

Medina suggests that every ten minutes presenters provide emotionally competent stimuli (ECS) which he calls hooks.

Effective hooks need to:

….trigger emotions

… be relevant

… connect the chunks of the presentation

Most of my hooks are stories. The key as Medina states is that the hook must be relevant.  Simply telling a joke or some irrelevant anecdote can create distrust with the listeners. They can feel like you are disorganized or even patronizing.

The good news …. schools and classrooms are filled with the stories that hook educators’ emotions to learn, grow, and change to enhance the achievement of their students. My thanks to everyone who has shared their stories with me.