By Michael A. Zook

Relaxing after the Holiday breaks often feel necessary. Don’t we all need to recover from that extra pie and food? These dishes seem to infiltrate every meal afterward until we can’t stand it anymore! Then, as you finally start to feel like yourself again, Monday comes around. No matter how strong the coffee is, it can’t seem to get your head back in the game entirely. On top of that, you are trying to support the teachers who are feeling it just as hard as you. When the weather changes, the cold wind of apathy also seems to be shutting your door of opportunity as a coach. Whether you have three weeks or four in between the breaks, it is hard to keep everyone’s attention and zone back into the challenges.

Of course, there are always those outlier extra positive teachers. We know those few teachers that could make a paper bag feel like the most exciting algebra lesson or a science experiment that combines real-world problems with engaging writing. All of these feelings combine into a whirlwind of emotion that is a storm with which coaches and leaders are called to be the stability to hangSo let’sLet’s take it head-on and make sure we push into the holidays.

Two things need to happen here. First, let’s take care of ourselves. If we don’t start there, we will never get to the second round (which is others). Many people have used the slogan “love others and love yourself.” This may be true, but a general observation like this never feels practical. So let’s break it down. Reengage and do a few things to free your mind up to be ready to bring your best to the table for your teachers.

1. Get some adult recess in. This is probably one of the hardest, so we must take it head-on first. There are many benefits of exercise. Get your heart rate up! Listen to a podcast or some music to help get your mind on other things. We often use things like recess, brain breaks or other techniques to get students up and moving, but we forget to get ourselves going. Try to get that heart rate up for at least 30 minutes 3 or more times per week.
2. Go to bed. You may be a night person or a morning person, but you’ll be a useless person if you don’t put your head down and get some rest. Remember to try some things to help get your body ready for sleep. Research shows that the body requires a drop in temperature to get better sleep. Guess what? You’re in luck! Cooler weather is upon us. Also, think about doing something like reading before bed instead of watching a screen. The bright light will prevent you from winding down. You will want to grab that non-work-related book for this one to help keep your mind relaxed. Think about regular, consistent routines.
3. Talk about the 3 things. This may sound weird, but it is a proven way to reframe your mind. In my family, we will often talk about the 3 things at dinner. This is where we talk about 3 positive things that happened in the day. This exercise of talking about positive things helps reframe the brain to look for positives over negatives. This will seem awkward at first but gets easier over time. 

If you can begin with a few steps as we move through these weeks, you can set yourself up to be more productive and provide better support for those teachers in your care. So, how do you spend time caring for your teachers? Help them feel the true value of the work they are doing while honoring the time that the students are spending in the classroom. This is your time to shine as a coach. Bring your A-game for your team. They need it now more than ever.

1. Stay Personal. This may seem like a simple task, but often when the business of the school gets intense, we forget to have the smaller conversations that fuel and solidify the reasons we do what we do. I was reminded by a teacher in a recent session I taught that these important tales of student success and progress are what help us all remember the vitality of what we do. As I was about to brush across a student’s story for the sake of time, she told me that what really anchors the concept is the connection to our emotions. Listen for these personal highlights, and bring them back up for your teachers to help them stay on track and excited to engage their students.
2. Positive Walkthroughs. As the year winds down for my team, we have begun to practice more intentional positive walkthroughs. There are so many evaluative pieces happening with the teacher; we can’t forget the power of positive praise. It is critical to remember that what is praised is repeated. When you do a short 5-minute walkthrough in the class, talk with students and see what they are doing. Give the teacher specific feedback about positive instructional practices and the impact it has on their students. This becomes more impactful when you leave a handwritten note. Often in order to reduce some of the stress on the teacher, you can write after you leave their room and put that note in their box. If you want to know how much impact this has, look around your teachers’ desks, and you might see your note posted up somewhere. 
3. Model Lessons. Offer to present a lesson for your coachee. This can be a powerful tool and take some stress off our teammates. Take the time to plan with your teacher and emphasize some of the things you have covered up to this point. Use a good reflection form to have the teacher think about the parts of the lesson and connect to what they want to add to their own instruction and what they might change. It doesn’t matter what you use as long as it is a focused tool to help you as a team figure out what you may want to move forward. 

In a season of gift-giving and cheer, we can help give the gift of learning to those around us. A well-cared-for coach can be effective in creating a team of inspired and dedicated teachers. Take the time to invest in yourself so you can build up those around you. Your positive and engaged attitude changes the temperature of the school from the chill of winter to the warmth of the holidays. Be the gift your staff and students need. 

Crossing the globe early on with his military parents and continuing in mission and educational work, Michael offers a unique perspective on the world. He has traveled adventurously backpacking, hiking, skiing, rock climbing and having a grand old time. With a foundation as a writer for Disney, earning a Masters degree in Autism Intervention, and writing children’s books, he has a driven and practical educational approach. He continues to grow as an educational leader as a district Intervention Programs Coordinator, and has served as a principal, regional, and local instructional coach. Michael is married to his wife, Linley, and they have two wonderful children together.

Originally posted on The Educator’s Room

By Katie Sluiter

Many teachers consider themselves to be coaches rather than just instructors. We are not just imparting knowledge, but we are there to mentor our students and develop them into becoming better thinkers, writers, readers, doers.  We don’t bark orders, rather we kneel down and workshop papers and assist in labs and calculations. It is reasonable to assume that teachers would want to be the best coaches possible for their students; however, demanding schedules of lesson planning, assessment-creation, grading, and data digging leave little time for teachers to engage in seeking out resources or new strategies. This is why instructional coaches are becoming valuable in the districts that provide them.

Many teachers think of their job as one of a coach rather than just an instructor. Share on X

The junior high where I teach in a Title 1 urban district in West Michigan decided to allocate some of our Title 1 Grant funds to providing four instructional coaches (one in each core area: math, science, English language arts, and social studies). Our coaches, who are all participating voluntarily, are all current veteran teachers in our building who have a history of strong educational practices.

I’ve brought up the idea of instructional coaches in other educator circles and was surprised that there was pushback and misinformation about the role they play in helping teachers be better at what they do in the classroom. From my admittedly limited perspective of working with our coaches during the first semester, I have seen many advantages to bring Instructional Coaches into the classroom.

Collaboration

In our school, our instructional coaches get an extra release hour on top of their planning hour to work on instructional coach responsibilities. This means they teach four classes (we are on a six-hour-plus lunch daily schedule), have a prep for their own teaching responsibilities and an additional hour for coaching. All four of our instructional coaches cite collaboration with their department and other departments as the number one thing on which they spend their coaching time.

From personal experience, I have been working with our ELA coach to develop curriculum for the 8th grade ELA classes. We’ve created fun activities like Book Tastings and World Read Aloud Day activities, as well as brainstorming better ways to assess our standards. I have also worked with our math coach on how I can better incorporate math in my classroom because one of our district goals is math across the curriculum.

Our ELA coach has worked across disciplines (specifically with the Health and PE teachers, but also in conjunction with Social Studies) to boost writing across the curriculum, and our science coach is devoted to working with her department on the new Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and what that implementation will look like. Our Social Studies coach has worked with some of our newer staff on creative and engaging ways to make history come alive as well as how to create more relevant assessments. Our math coach has even worked with one of our band directors on a collaboration of creating a “Music and Math” class for next year.

Research and Resources

I have often heard teachers complain that while they know there are really good ideas and resources “out there,” but they simply do not have the time to find and vet them. Instructional coaches do! Weekly we get emails from our coaches about internet resources and research that supports our best practice strategies.

When the 8th-grade team decided to try a Book Tasting Event with our students, it was our instructional coach who found the resources, reserved the Media Center for us, and created the materials we would need.

Our math coach provides her department with resources for state test prep, using questioning strategies related to their “8 standards for mathematical practices,” and the most innovative teaching and technology strategies that relate to math instruction.

Observation & Feedback

All of the instructional coaches have stated that one of the first things they did was get into classrooms to see firsthand the practices that were going on already in our building. They were very eager to share all the good things they saw that largely go otherwise unnoticed since teachers don’t tend to toot their own horns. Our math coach, for instance, could specify something awesome every single teacher in her department was doing.

Some teachers balk at the idea of having a coach observe them, feeling that they are being scrutinized. That is understandable given the trauma of judgment teachers often have to endure from the public and even from well-meaning administrators and the evaluation systems that are in place. However, in my experience with coaches, I have found that they are not there to “catch you,” so much as to get an idea of the great things that are already happening and be an outside observer of something you choose to have them coach you on.

Sometimes it’s behavior management, but more often it’s actual instructional practices. Our ELA coach has been invited into numerous classrooms to observe and then collaborate on lessons focused on the writing process and close and critical reading.

Our science coach is also observing what is currently being done in science classrooms so she can help teachers adapt their units when the NGSS rolls out next year.

Demo Lessons & Teaching Strategies

Sometimes the observations lead to a quick meeting or email giving feedback, but in some cases more in-depth collaboration occurs. One of the most specific examples of this comes from our ELA coach. She was able to observe one of our newer Health teachers and discuss the class’s paper on Character Values. She worked with him on how to make the assignment more relevant, then did a demonstration lesson to his first hour. After that, he taught the rest of the day–writing with the students and modeling how to cite sources in MLA format. Student writing was the best it had ever been for him.

There are so many other ways our coaches spend their time: developing new assessments and modifying old ones to be more relevant while maintaining rigor, mapping curriculum for the department, assisting our new teachers, and finding the latest and greatest strategies and resources for their subject area.

This is just our first year with instructional coaches and I can already see the benefits multiply as more and more teachers take advantage of the goldmine that we have available to us.