The Instructional Coach Academy

Imagine you’re running a marathon and you’ve made it to mile 24. You’re cramping up and your mouth is dry, but you know the end is near- so you keep going. At mile 25, you’ve resorted to walking because you’re legs are on fire. You know you have roughly a mile and a half left, but mentally you’re over it. Just as you’re about to quit, there’s a water station and after guzzling down two cups, you think you can make it. Forty-five minutes later you’re literally crawling to the finish line, but you’re finished. You collapse and just lay on the pavement. You made it- you’re now a marathoner. 

The act of finishing a marathon is a grueling task that few accomplish and it perfectly describes how many Instructional Coaches feel at the end of any given school year. For the past 180 days, coaches have functioned between a pseudo teacher, confidante, and colleague and as the school year dwindles down to the final countdown, the meltdowns from teachers (and even you) are more frequent and the days are longer. For outsiders looking in on the job of an Instructional Coach, being “out” of the classroom is the best position ever, but what many don’t know is that there’s an unspoken truth of our job.

Lonely in the sense you’re no longer (technically) a teacher. You can’t go into the teacher’s lounge and laugh about the silly jokes about the principal, you’re no longer invited to those long lunches during planning days and you sure are not included in those complaining sessions that frequently happen in the hallway between classes. To make things even murkier, you’re definitely not invited to the Administrative Meetings, you aren’t in attendance in conferences with teachers to discuss their areas of growth and your opinion on what instructional decisions need to occur are often ignored.

So where does this leave the Coach? In a space that leaves them alone with the difficult work of trying to change the instructional practices of teachers. Many times this loneliness shows up during times that are trying to coaches such as having courageous conversations with a teacher or when they just feel defeated, but whenever the loneliness shows up it has the ability to hinder the most ambitious coach to a crying shell of a professional.

During these moments, there are several truths that become clearer:

• Instructional Coaches need professional learning communities that are space spaces for them to cry, scream, or ask for desperately needed help.
• As an Instructional Coach, you don’t have to “like” all of your teachers.
• There’s a strong likelihood that your administrative team has not one iota of instructional savviness in their bones.
• There are days where you wonder if going back in the classroom is where you can interact with reasonable people-students.
• There’s a likelihood that the people in your building believe your job is being a glorified assistant- to everyone.
• Leaving the classroom to become an instructional coach does not mean you couldn’t “handle” students.
• You’re no longer a teacher. Yes, you’re still a certified teacher, but you don’t have a dedicated classroom, and other teachers know that.
• You can know all of the coaching “strategies” you want, but if teachers don’t respect you no work will get done.
• Your administrator will ask you to do tasks that are technically their job- you either do it, or you could (possibly) get a bad evaluation.

As each day to summer becomes nearer, these truths become harder to swallow and can leave a coach crawling to the finish line of the end of school, unwilling to confront the truths you know to be evident about your job. So instead of leaving a trail of tears, enter the theratp

You clear your throat. “Today we’re going to learn how to monitor data in our classrooms..” You look around the room and 20 pairs of eyes are looking at you waiting for you to finish your sentence. “..and how to increase student achievement at our school.” As you turn around to grab your handouts you can feel the collective sigh from your co-workers.

They HATE to discuss data.

As you turn around to pass out your handouts, the first question comes up.

Teacher A: “Didn’t we just look at data at our last meeting?”

Teacher B: “I couldn’t give my diagnostic exam because the computer lab was being worked on.”

Teacher C: “Can we make this short? I have papers to grade!”

As you struggle through the professional development you literally feel yourself failing as a coach. After training you just sit in your office and replay the events in your head. How in the hell did you even get to this point?

That right there ladies and gentlemen is the typical day in the life of an Instructional Coach. I experienced it and many times these types of experiences literally put you through the Instructional Coach ring of fire. By the time you are finished with your presentation, you have sweated out all your deodorant and your throat is dry and scratchy and you are counting the hours until you can go home and crawl in a fetal position on your couch.

The Instructional Coach Ring of Fire is an experience (or set of collective experiences) that every coach goes through despite your years and experience in education and as a result, makes you question your role and/or effectiveness of being a coach. These experiences are usually had at either the beginning of the year or as a result of a professional learning gone rogue. During this experience, many Instructional Coaches just want to go home and not come back for several days. When (and if) they do get over this initiation and make it to the other side, almost nothing else can harm them.

However, the result of this proverbial “ring of fire” is to make coaches question their position within a school. For many first-year coaches, they continue to question their purpose at the school level well into the school year. Are you there to check lesson plans and give feedback? Are you there to work with new teachers and support them? Or has your principal pulled you for more menial tasks to complete around the school? Quite simply the purpose and role of an Instructional Coach is to support teachers. Sometimes that support involves modeling classroom lessons while other times it may mean working with a struggling teacher one on one.

Finding your purpose as an Instructional Coach is a process that’s both complex and (at times) political. There may be teachers in your building who are resentful of one of them giving them feedback and seeing them at their most vulnerable moments.  However, there are some things Instructional Coaches can do that establish their presence in the building as help not more eyes for administration such as:

• Conducting a professional learning survey for all teachers in the school. Tools such as Survey Monkey and Google Drive make it easy for you to create a simple 10 question survey about what areas teachers feel they are experts in and what are their areas of growth. Any survey given out should be specific enough so that you can gain insightful data, but it shouldn’t take the teachers 30 minutes to complete. A good “rule of thumb” is to make the survey less than ten minutes.
• Have a discussion with your administration team of their expectations for your job. Being an Instructional Coach is not the same as an Assistant Principal or Principal, instead your role is all about support of teachers. At the beginning of the year, sit down and ask of the expectations the administrative team will have for you. When I was an Instructional Coach I was required to observe one teacher a day and offer feedback to that teacher. In addition, I was expected to deliver professional learning once a week in collaborative planning. However, after speaking to other Instructional Coaches their duties differed greatly. Some were being used as Assistant Principals while others covered classes all day. In order to see improvement in struggling teachers, it’s critical for the administrative team realize that you are there for support.
• Meeting with teachers 1:1 about the results of their survey. Once you have data from the survey, make a face to face to all teachers you support and just let them know your role in the school. This is a great time to reinforce the data you have already had and a great way to meet each teacher and determine the teachers who may be most resistant to your role.
• Offer genuine help to struggling teachers. During these 1:1 meetings with teachers, it will become clear who needs help and who doesn’t. Sometimes the teachers who are struggling will come to you, but many times you will find them during your routine visits. Listen to them when they tell you the areas they are struggling in and give them real help. So many times, principals suggest for teachers to read and article and expect for the teachers to become better just by reading. In reality, these teachers may need some modeling and some explicit help in overcoming their areas of growth.
• Stay out of all administrative decisions- you are not an assistant principal. I remember when one of my principals asked me to sit in a meeting he was having with a struggling as he was about to put them on a professional development plan. I politely declined. Instead, I suggested for him to send the teacher to me afterward so I could console her and give her a plan to get off of the plan. Instructional Coaches should not take place in anything punitive (or viewed as punitive from teachers) directed toward their teachers. Instructional Coaches should be impartial and should focus on what the best for instruction at their school sites.
• Make professional development timely and job-embedded. No one likes professional development that is a “sit and get”.  If you don’t believe go to any session at an education conference where a  PowerPoint is the center of learning. Instead, we love learning that’s relevant, timely and job-embedded.  So during every professional learning, I created an activity that allowed teachers to learn through the activity.

Coaching is one of the hardest jobs in the building, but with careful planning, you can help teachers tremendously and find your purpose in your building. Now tell us how you defined your role as an Instructional Coach in the building!

Originally posted on The Educator’s Room

By Terri Froiland

In my six years as an instructional coach, I have been fortunate to have been given a great deal of professional development in a variety of coaching models, from invitational coaching to transformational coaching.  As I have been trained in various models, I have worked hard to adapt and learn the new lingo.  However, regardless of the model, one secret to coaching success never changes: It all starts with building relationships.  In order for educators to truly benefit from working with an instructional coach, they need to trust that they are actually there to support them.

Here are some ways to build those relationships:

Find an entry point to help. Once I was coaching in a school that was adding a bilingual program.  Sadly, I am not bilingual but still felt like I had something to offer to those teachers.  I was shocked when I went room to room introducing myself the first day and a teacher told me I was not welcome in her room since I do not speak Spanish.  Rather than arguing with her, I bided my time.  Two weeks later, some new classroom furniture arrived for her and I offered to unpack and assemble it for her.  That investment in her, though far from my coaching job description, got my foot in the door and helped us to develop a great connection.

Be trustworthy. A teacher’s time is so precious.  If you schedule a coaching session with an educator, show up.  If there are extenuating circumstances and you just can’t make it, notify them as soon as possible and offer to make it up to them in some way…reschedule at their preferred time, bring them chocolate, whatever it takes!

Listen all the time. Everyone appreciates feeling listened to, so ask lots of reflective questions and listen carefully to their responses.  Not only will you build rapport, but you will learn so much about how to best support each educator in this manner.

Praise whenever possible. Every conversation you have with a teacher should include some praise.  It’s comparable to teachers conferring with students; starting by sharing something positive you noticed gets everyone off on the right foot and feeling more open to some constructive advice.

Cycle your support. Be aware of the school-year cycle for new teachers, which is also pretty applicable for veteran teachers in my experience.  In addition to listening to your teachers and being responsive, this cycle can help you be proactive with your support when they need it most.California New Teacher Project, published by the California Department of Education (CDE), 1990.

Bring food to all meetings. Treats are the way to every teacher’s heart.  I accidentally forgot to show up for a meeting earlier this year.  I felt so badly about it and knew that the inconvenience it caused required more than a mere apology, so, when I rescheduled, I offered to buy sub sandwiches for our next lunch meeting.  The teachers truly appreciate it and there were no hard feelings because of my gesture.  That was a fairly grand treat…don’t forget the power of a little bit of chocolate!

Have you ever worked with an Instructional Coach? If so, did it help your practice?