Recently, I wrote a post about helping new teachers. As the 2020's often remind us, all educators need support. We all benefit from feedback loops. While an administrator's insights may help, true impact is made when colleagues, also doing the work, are involved in this process. The administrator's role? Create conditions for teacher's to coach one another.
Unfortunately, we see administrators who miss opportunities, to create conditions for teachers to help one another.
Now's the time, here's our chance to make it right.
How do school leaders miss out on fostering teacher-to-teacher feedback and coaching?
We don't prioritize or emphasize this importance of this work.
We adhere to an old hierarchical mindset of "it's not their job".
We underestimate teachers' multiple viewpoints on teaching well.
We don't make the time to get to know our teachers, as individuals, and build trust.
Administrators are presented with daily opportunities to invest (and reinvest) in building a teacher's confidence. In fact, we're surrounded by these chances to build teacher efficacy.
Here's one approach that I've found particularly useful:
Step 1: Know Thyself: Go, Grow, Glow
With each new school year, we add tasks to our already overflowing "to do" lists.
Something we don't do, nearly enough? Check in with ourselves, to set our annual teaching goals. When was the last time you invested even 30 minutes, to review your District's adopted rubric? Doing this, for yourself, will help center your focus on areas in which you will work this year. Here's an activity, based on the work and ideas of Peter DeWitt, Ed.D.:
Each teacher who is a member of the learning community select:
one domain in which you're proficient, but looking to improve (One of Go On).
one domain you'd like to shift from developing to effective (One to Grow On).
one domain about which you say with confidence, you're a leader (One to Glow On).
This information may be used in different ways, depending on your organization's learning culture. In the setting where I am principal, this information:
is collected using a Google form.
is used to guide insight for informal classroom visits and feedback.
aids in identifying and allocating resources, based on emerging patterns for teachers, grade levels, departments, and school.
guides conversations between a teacher and the direct supervisors/lead evaluators.
Of greatest importance, it's the basis for co-constructing teaching goals. Success comes when teachers identify personalized co-constructed goals, in partnership with school leaders who see and present themselves as coaches, with a laser focus on learning and teaching.
Step 2: Birds of a Feather
Why is it that we have to remind ourselves to make the time to share what is going well?
Having a clear sense of a teacher's personalized co-constructed goals makes this information readily available and useful in promoting professional growth. For example, a school leader who uses parts of available contractual time (Faculty, team, or department meetings) as a forum for teachers to share "what's working" will show that reflective practice and instructional leadership are priorities.
One low-prep activity that can be no-tech or low-tech involves Clock Partners.
Using a pre-printed paper analog clock face, ask teachers to find four partners. Each conversation between partners may last five minutes, with two minutes transition time.
12:00: Partner with a colleague from the same grade/pod/floor/wing:
Share your "One to Go On".
How do we grow this from an effective to a highly effective practice?
3:00: Partner with a colleague from a different grade/pod/floor/wing:
Share your "One to Grow On".
How do we grow this from a developing to an effective practice?
How do we grow this from an effective to a highly effective practice?
6:00: Partner with a colleague from the same department:
Share your "One to Glow On".
What makes this a highly effective practice?
What other ways do we see others executing highly effective practice in this domain?
9:00: Partner with a colleague who you don't know or don't know well.
Share something new you learned from the previous three conversations.
Discuss what is one thing you will try today, this week, or this month?
Name two colleagues who'd benefit from connecting to support each other's growth.
Step 3: Take action, follow up.
This activity will have planted some seeds. To grow, seeds need tending to. Ask teachers to note who their clock partners were, to keep in touch. Ask them to visit one another's classroom, schedule a visit, send an email, or leave a note to check in on his/her progress towards achieving his/her co-constructed goals. While there will always be priorities competing for our time and attention, making this commitment to each other casts votes for improving our profession. Exploring this and other casual check-ins will keep this a collective priority and ultimately, will build individual teacher efficacy as well as collective efficacy. Most importantly, it will serve our students and all members of our learning organization.
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