Dynamic Learning Project

Permission to go Rogue – How to Adapt your Coaching Cycle

May 19, 2020

If you’re anything like me, you’re a rule follower. I can’t help it, that’s just the way I was programmed. One of the things I love about being a Dynamic Learning Project Coach is I have a clear direction to follow in the ways in which I schedule coaching cycles and conduct coaching meetings. While some of you have been able to do this on your own, I wanted to address the rule followers in the room. You hereby have my permission as a fellow instructional coach, to go rogue. Now, if my credentials are not enough for you to feel comfortable throwing the Dynamic Learning Project coaching cycle out the window, I assure you I was given permission from Heather Dowd herself to let you know you may go rogue.

Though having a structure is a great benefit to being a Dynamic Learning Project coach, the other benefit of being part of this program is the network of support. Nearly all the leaders that have designed the Dynamic Learning Project and mentor coaches within the program have, or continue to be, classroom educators themselves. These leaders have been in your shoes so they understand the enormous amount of stress you are under. These leaders understand that, just as teachers do, we are sometimes forced to change our approach.

One of the greatest skills a teacher can possess is the ability to be flexible – we don’t lose that ability when we become instructional coaches. Coaches, like teachers, need to remain flexible and adapt their practices to suit the needs of their learners. In the case of COVID-19, flexibility will continue to be the greatest asset you can possess. Though I have two teachers request that I keep their cycle intact as much as possible, most of my teachers feel too overwhelmed for traditional coaching at this time. Some teachers will have different needs and requests, and as a coach you need to be able to be flexible and adapt along with them.

Now that you have permission to go rogue – seriously, please do – I wanted to share some adaptations you can make to your coaching cycle to better suit the needs of teachers during this time.

Tip #1: Host Webinars or Professional Development Trainings

Just because you aren’t meeting with teachers face-to-face anymore, doesn’t mean you can’t continue to help them grow. I am sure many of you have already taken advantage of video conferencing platforms to increase communication across your campus or district. You can use these video platforms to host webinars or professional development training for your teachers, and show them tools or tips that will help them engage in remote learning.

My district has hosted several webinars centered around the three main learning management systems available in our district. We had training for brand new users to help them get started, as well as training for high flyers in which we could show them the latest updates or hidden features. The purpose of these training sessions was to help teachers get up and running with remote learning and establish some level of continuity across the campuses and the district.

Hosting these webinars was another great way to connect with teachers and uncover issues or questions that may not have otherwise been addressed. You can discuss best practices for the tools you are using and troubleshoot any issues a teacher may have. It is also not uncommon for teachers to reach out to you at a later date asking for more tips and tricks that you may have, which is a great way to continue building relationships with your staff during this time.

Tip #3: Demo Slam

As instructional coaches, we all have our favorite tools that help make our lives easier. If you are unable to, or uncomfortable with hosting a training webinar, you can start small with a demo slam. Pick your favorite trick or tool and screencast yourself explaining or demonstrating why you love it so much. You can send that screencast to your staff letting them know that if they have questions about the tool or would like more training, they can set that up with you. Some teachers will be able to take your ideas and run with them on their own, but there may be some that need a little more support. Demo slams are a great way to show teachers the tools available to them, and allow them to continue adding tools to their own toolbox.

Tip #4: Check-In via Email

This one may seem like a duh, but I wanted to mention it anyway. I don’t know about you, but I spend a lot of time these days in my email. Email is the text message of the professional world. What I love about doing email check-ins is that I can send emails and respond to emails at my leisure. This is great for teachers as well. We know that many have additional responsibilities while at home, so email is a good way to leave a quick note for a teacher and let them respond when they have a moment.

Now, what I don’t want you to do is send an email to everyone on your campus at once and get flooded by 500 replies. Every week I reach out to a handful of teachers – literally a handful – and just let them know I am checking in to see how they are doing. I ask if they are healthy and if there is anything I can assist them with at this time. Short and sweet is best. Even if the teacher’s don’t need any support at this time, keeping the lines of communication open will go a long way in maintaining the relationships you have already developed with your staff.

I also wanted to add a note about email for my type-A coaches out there – it is okay to walk away from your inbox with unread messages. Just because you have an email, that does not mean you need to respond to it at that exact moment. Remember, email is a great tool because it allows you to respond when convenient – it’s like that answer message when you call the doctor’s office. Make an appointment when you are available and call 911 for emergencies. If a teacher has an emergency, they need to contact their campus principal or your district help resource. Emails can wait.

Tip #5: Celebrate on Social Media

One thing people need during a time of crisis is to be reminded of all the good happening in the world. If you are like me, remembering to celebrate your teachers was something you struggled to find time to do while we were on campus. Take all of those celebrations you saved up and use this time to post them to social media. You can highlight awesome things teachers have done, or are currently doing to support their students. These celebrations don’t have to be just about instructional practices or technology tools teachers are using, you can celebrate your teachers with a shoutout of kind words. Many of you have worked with a teacher previously this year and you just want to remind them how awesome they are – share that with the world. Teachers, now more than ever, need to feel appreciated and supported. During this time we have the opportunity to share with the world how amazing and valuable our teachers are.

Tip #6: Start Planning for Next Year

Another way you can adapt your current coaching cycle during COVID-19 is to use this time to plan for next year. I have had a few teachers already reach out to me and say something along the lines of, “Now that I know how to do _____, maybe next year you can help me with ______.” As teachers continue to grow and learn new things during this time, it might spark an interest in seeking out future coaching opportunities. Maybe there are teachers who were reluctant to coaching the first time around, but after this situation have recognized a need for it in the future. Maybe this crisis has illuminated some gaps in teacher’s knowledge and understanding of key instructional tools, which you can leverage as areas to focus on with the campus once classes resume.

Personally, my district was supposed to have been using a learning management system for the last couple of years. Naturally, not everyone was and that was okay at the time, but COVID-19 quickly changed that. I have often joked that when I facilitate training next year I’m going to refer back to COVID for the importance of staying ahead of the curve – or at least staying within the ballpark. My goal is for my teachers to not feel as unprepared as they did when schools closed. I know that’s a pipe dream, but I think it’s possible.

Even though COVID-19 has disrupted our ability to adhere to the Dynamic Learning Project coaching cycle as it was originally designed, it does not stop us from using pieces of it to continue supporting professional growth. Take this time to go rogue, to adapt to your needs, and to support teachers in the way that is best for them. If you have the opportunity to go back to the coaching cycle structure, that is great, but if you can’t that is perfectly fine as well.

Megan Purcell is a Digital Learning Specialist and Certified Dynamic Learning Project coach in Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD located in Carrollton, TX. She enjoys working with teachers to help them elevate their teaching through the use of impactful technology tools and strategies. Megan holds a masters degree in Educational Technology, which she earned overseas at the National University of Ireland in Galway, in addition to being a certified Microsoft Innovative Educator and Apple Teacher. She is a former high school English teacher who loves learning, technology, and helping make life easier for her teachers. She believes that every student should have access to current technology in order to develop 21st century skills necessary for participating in a global society.

How to Structure an Effective Coaching Conversation

February 13, 2020

Teachers hate meetings, they just do. If you ask a teacher how a meeting went, they’d likely respond with, “it could’ve been an email.” We’ve all been there. I’m even guilty of giving that response. My theory as to why teachers hate meetings is because meetings take time. Teachers do not have a lot of extra time throughout the course of a school day, nearly every minute is accounted for. When meetings get scheduled, that takes time that was already allocated for something else the teacher had planned. The worst possible outcome for a meeting is for a teacher to feel like that allocation of their time was wasteful or inefficient.

As an instructional coach, you are already facing an uphill battle with teachers. Coaching requires meetings and meetings require teachers to reallocate some of their time, which can be overwhelming or burdensome on their daily schedule. I have had several teachers back out of instructional coaching because of the time commitment it requires. It is imperative that as instructional coaches we ensure that our coaching meetings are productive and efficient for our teachers. If your meetings are valued by your teachers, they will go out of their way to make them a priority. The first coaching meeting is the most essential. If you can win teachers over in the first meeting, they will be more open-minded and coachable for the subsequent meetings that will follow. I currently have several teachers on my caseload that tell me they look forward to our coaching conversations, and have asked to be coached for the duration of the school year. The best way to ensure that coaching conversations are viewed as a benefit to your teachers is to come to meetings prepared, with clear goals and objectives, and a plan.

As teachers, we were required to lesson plan for our classes. Over time, and with experience, you may have been able to survive a class period or two without a lesson plan, but lessons are smoother, more strategic and tend to dive deeper when thoughtfully planned ahead of time. Coaching conversations are no different. Just as teachers need to come to class with a lesson plan, instructional coaches must also plan – on paper – for their coaching conversations. One of the greatest mistakes a new coach can make is going into coaching meetings unprepared – I know, because I’ve done it.

When I first started coaching, I took the “I’ll go where the conversation takes me” approach, but what I’ve found is that it is an inefficient use of time. The first few minutes of the meeting were typically spent in awkward silence as the teacher prepared themselves for the conversation. Next came several minutes of pleasantries and ‘get to know you’ type questions. Then I would ask about what teachers are doing in their classes and what they’d like support with in the hopes that something would spark an idea. More often than not, the teacher would just go over their lesson plans, I’d say “that sounds great” and we would go our separate ways. Sometimes a teacher would ask me if I had a tool, strategy or activity for a particular class and I would have to say, “I don’t know, let me do some work and get back to you.” Had I prepared ahead of time, I could come to meetings with pointed questions, recommendations and resources, thus maximizing the time we had together.

So how do we create this plan?

Planning for a coaching conversation is similar in many ways to planning a lesson. Each lesson has clear goals, a route to meet those goals, and anticipated challenges that might arise. Coaching conversations should follow the same path. As you work with teachers, one of the first things you do is identify the challenge they want to work on. That challenge becomes the goal. Next, you identify strategies and tools to help them address that challenge. That becomes the route to meet the goal. Just as teachers need to think about challenges that might arise in their lessons, coaches need to consider challenges as well. Will a strategy work for different class sizes? Does the teacher have the resources they need? Does the teacher need to learn how to use a particular tool or program for a lesson?

These are all considerations the coach needs to make as they prepare for a coaching conversation. Teachers will often review material that might be helpful, practice the activity themselves, or even keep notes closeby as they teach to help guide the lesson when needed. Coaches should do the same. I rarely recommend a tool or a strategy that I haven’t already used myself, because as teachers implement something new they will have questions, and as an instructional coach, you need to be prepared to answer those or at least help troubleshoot. Similarly to planning a lesson, when you plan a coaching conversation you need to keep in mind that you may need to change course, modify plans, or even abandon what you had planned because some other pressing need presents itself throughout the conversation. So, let’s dive on in.

Step 1: Identify the objective for the conversation

Is this an initial coaching conversation where you need to explain how instructional coaching will work? Is this the goal-setting meeting in which you help the teacher identify their challenge area? Is this a follow-up meeting after a classroom visit or implementation of a new instructional tool or strategy?

The first step to plan a coaching conversation is to identify where the teacher needs to go in a particular meeting. To do this, you can read over the notes and reflections you made after the last coaching meeting. This helps you as the instructional coach remember what challenges your teacher is having, what strategies or tools you’ve already recommended and gives you a place to begin the conversation. For an instructional coach, keeping these types of notes is essential in planning for effective conversations. It does not matter if you take handwritten notes, use a collaborative Google Doc or even have something more robust like the DLP Coaching Dashboard, what is important is keeping track of each conversation you have with teachers. With several teachers on your caseload, you will not remember everything from meetings each week. By the same token, teachers will not remember everything discussed in your coaching meetings either. I recently met with a teacher and we discussed the use of digital rubrics, and then went through some ways she could organize the data that was collected. I praised the teacher for picking up on this skill so quickly, and she made a comment “yeah, but I have a class coming in soon so by the time I get back to working on this I’ll probably forget everything”. Teachers have so much on their plates already and it’s impossible for them to remember everything all the time. These notes allow both the teacher and coach to review where they’ve been and plan where they need to go. Think of it like planning for different classes, each one requires their own unique lesson plan based on where the class ended in the previous lesson.

Step 2: Identify tools and resources for scaffolding

The second thing to consider when planning for a coaching conversation is to think about where the teacher may need to go in order to move closer to their goals. Just as with students, teachers may need to have some scaffolding to get from where they started to where they want to end up. Each coaching meeting should move teachers a little bit further along than they were until the ultimate goal is reached. Consider this, when you were first learning to drive a car, did the instructor teach you to parallel parking, merge onto the highway and perform a 3 point turn all in the same lesson? No. Just as students often need material chunked and scaffolded, so do teachers. This also helps ensure that coaching meetings continue to be productive, because each one builds upon the meeting before it. Teachers are able to learn one skill or tool, become comfortable with it and then add more depth or complexity later on. This is very similar to working with students. As a teacher, you must constantly assess where your students are, where they need to be and what the next step is in getting them there.

Step 3: Script your meeting

Though planning for a coaching meeting is important, it is just as important that you don’t over plan. Remember, we do not want our coaching conversations to turn into coaching interrogations. When I first started teaching, I would script my entire class. I would write down exactly what I wanted to say at each step of the lesson and it would throw me for a loop when the student’s wouldn’t respond the way I had scripted it. Don’t worry, I learned how to adapt. Just as teaching, coaching conversations should be organic and ebb and flow where needed. Teachers, much like students, may not realize if we subtly guide the conversation in a particular direction with thoughtful questions, but as instructional coaches we also need to be prepared to go in a different direction entirely based on our teacher’s needs.

The number one barrier for many coaches is time. Time is an obstacle not just in ensuring meetings are productive, but it takes time to prepare for each meeting. As a teacher, lesson planning takes time. Teachers are often afforded a planning period, because schools recognize that planning effective lessons requires time and they want to ensure that teachers have the opportunity to do so. As an instructional coach, we don’t get a planning period. What we do get, however, is the ability to moderate our own schedules. Set aside a planning period for yourself each day or each week. Block off that time on your calendar to protect it, and use that time to review previous meeting notes and plan for upcoming meetings. Some conversations take a long time to plan for and some take less. The more coaching conversations you have, the more efficiently you’ll be able to plan.

There is an infinite amount of resources out there about teaching, education and instructional practices. As an instructional coach, we do our best to stay up-to-date with as much information as possible, but there is no guarantee we are going to know or remember all of it. We are more likely to guarantee that we won’t. As you plan your coaching conversations, you have an opportunity to gather some materials or resources you think may be relevant for each of your teachers. Even if the conversation digresses, you still have some tangible ideas you can leave with teachers or tools they can implement right away. Planning instructional coaching conversations allows you as an instructional coach to keep the big picture in mind and consider the needs of your teachers as they work toward their instructional goals.

5 Lessons I’ve Learned as an Instructional Coach

February 5, 2020

Being an instructional coach is unlike anything else I’ve ever done before. Instructional coaching is a unique role to any school building or district and is one that can be quite complex. When I first became an instructional coach, I had some expectations about what my day-to-day would look like and the different projects I would be involved in. What I quickly learned, however, is that coaching is much different than I had imagined. No two days are the same, and things rarely go according to plan. Here are 5 lessons I’ve learned as an instructional coach.

Lesson #1: Embrace the Chaos, but Set Boundaries

Let’s face it – I’m definitely a type A personality. If you came into my classroom during my teaching career, you would find everything neat, organized, and probably color coded. I had folders labeled with every day of the week for absent students, I had a specific place for all materials, and I would spend about an hour each day putting things back in their place. I remember being told as a first year teacher that by the end of the week, your lesson plans will probably have changed 10 times. I remember thinking to myself that if I planned well enough, I wouldn’t have to change the plan 10 times because change stresses me out – boy was I wrong. It took me about 3 years in the classroom to be comfortable with the idea that no matter how prepared I was, there was a good chance I’d have to redesign my lesson on the fly. For a type A person, change, and especially change on the fly, is a scary and daunting feeling.

One thing I’ve learned as an instructional coach, is that change is a constant in this position. The only consistent thing about instructional coaching, at least for me, is my meeting times with teachers. Everything else should come with the disclaimer, “subject to change.” I meet with each teacher I’m coaching during their conference period on Mondays and Wednesdays and that does not change for the duration of the cycle – mostly. There are times when other things pop up, or teachers are out for something and the meeting needs to be moved, but for the most part, this is the most consistent part of my job. The rest is chaos.

When I first started instructional coaching, I felt more like a fireman than anything else. My days were filled with running from one teacher to the next just putting out fires. My staff was not used to having an instructional coach on campus every day and they definitely took me up on my offer to help whenever possible. In the first few months, I spent very little time in my own office, I was mostly there to read emails and eat lunch. I would have teachers, principals, counselors and support staff constantly emailing me and calling me with questions. I was grateful that everyone was asking for my help, but you can imagine how overwhelming this could be.

One thing I had to learn as an instructional coach was to embrace this chaos. Though I have a plan each day, I never really know what will pop up when I walk into the school building. One of our programs could suddenly go down and derail an entire lesson. The Wi-Fi could be glitchy and wreak havoc in a classroom. A teacher could have an emergency and be forced to leave school without time to prepare for a sub. Life happens, and as the instructional coach, you need to be the rock for your teachers amid the chaos. You need to embrace the chaos as it happens, and remain calm enough to problem solve. There are times you will feel like you spend your day running around just putting out fires for your teachers, but as a teacher that once felt like she was teaching with her hair on fire and I would’ve appreciated having someone to help me.

That being said, it is also important for you to set boundaries as an instructional coach. While we want to do our best to help teachers in their times of need, it is important that we do not enable teachers to use us as a crutch. It’s that old idea of ‘if you give a man a fish he eats for a day, but if you teach a man to fish he’ll never go hungry’ kind of thing. For a while, I was just handing teachers fish. There would be a fire and I would put it out and move on with my day. What I have learned, though, is that I needed to teach teachers and enable teachers to put out their own fires. As an instructional coach, you need to set boundaries or all you will ever be is a fireman.

One way you can set boundaries is to determine what is an emergency and what isn’t. When I first started coaching, I thought everything was an emergency. When someone asks me for something, I would drop what I was doing to go help them. That just created more work and anxiety for me. It is important to remember that lack of preparation on someone else’s part, does not constitute an emergency on yours. I have now reached a place where a teacher will ask for something and I can tell them that I am not available right now, but I can help them tomorrow. Either the teacher will figure out their own solution, or it really can wait.

Another way to set boundaries with teachers is to – gently – force them to problem solve themselves. There are numerous times that teachers ask for my help with the same exact problem they had the week prior. There are also times teachers ask for help and the solution they are looking for can be easily found via Google. In these situations, I often send the teacher a link that explains the solution, or I’ll do a quick screencast of the appropriate steps to take and email it back to them. If I drop what I’m doing and go perform the same task for the teacher every week, month, or semester, that teacher will never learn how to do it for themselves. It is important that as an instructional coach we are building capacity in our teachers so they aren’t so reliant on the fireman side of us, and free us up to do more transformational work with the staff. In the meantime, embrace the day-to-day chaos, but do not hesitate to set boundaries for your own sanity.

Lesson #2: Don’t Lose Your Street Cred

You are a coach and a teacher. Not either-or. Staying connected to the work that classroom teachers do every day is essential to your work as an instructional coach. As an instructional coach, you may now hold a title at the district level, rather than the campus level. We all know how teachers feel about people from “the district”. This role also often comes with more paperwork responsibilities than you had as a teacher, which will make it enticing to sit at your desk or be on your computer for extended periods of time. You need to make it a point to keep your teaching skills sharp by spending time in classrooms. As an instructional coach, I tell all of my teachers that I am available to model or co-teach lessons with them. I also make a point to lead a professional development session or present at a conference whenever possible so that I don’t lose those teaching skills or become too detached from the feelings teachers have when they face a classroom full of students.

Having street-cred with your teachers will be one of the greatest assets to you as an instructional coach. Teachers tend to immediately discredit anyone who has been out of the classroom for too long, because they feel like they cannot empathize with their situation nor understand the day-to-day burdens teacher’s face. It is essential that you as an instructional coach, never lose sight of what is going on with your teachers because they are the people you are working for. I have had several teachers tell me that they trusted my approaches because I had not only worked as a teacher in their content area, but worked at the school where I was coaching. I know that this situation is rare, so it’s important to build your street-cred among the staff at your school(s).

One way to build street-cred is to attend all staff meetings and trainings. Even if the topic does not necessarily pertain to you, I would encourage you to still go and listen. Not only does this make you visible to the staff, which is a benefit, but you also get all the same training and information they do which puts you in the trenches with the teachers. Teachers hate working with someone who is living in ‘fantasy district land.’ I often hear teachers say things like “that sounds good, but…” meaning the idea and the application just aren’t matching up. It is important to know your campus and what will work for them.

Another way to earn street-cred with your teachers is to attend school events. Go to football games, go see the school musical, attend a band concert or pop by the basketball game. Many of the teachers you work with are not just teachers – they are coaches, directors and sponsors. These roles are likely as important to them as their role as a classroom teacher. Just as teachers are encouraged to go support their students outside the classroom, we can support our teachers as well. This also shows teachers that you care about them as individuals and understand all the responsibilities they have going on.

Lesson #3: Time Management is a Must

When you’re a teacher, your schedule is neat and tidy. Teachers know exactly when their planning periods are every day, when weekly PD is scheduled, and of course, their lesson plans are all lined up and ready to go. As an instructional coach, your schedule is unstructured, things always change, and it isn’t always so neat and tidy. As an instructional coach, you have a lot more control over your schedule, and your deadlines are not always clear. While you may enjoy getting to use the restroom whenever you’d like, and not having to eat lunch at 10:50am, it is important that you manage your time well because it is not necessarily managed for you.

As an instructional coach, my Outlook calendar is my lifeline. If something is not scheduled, I probably won’t remember it. This goes for everything you do throughout the course of a school day. I have learned that not only do I need to schedule my meetings and classroom visits, but I also need to schedule myself work time, lunch, faculty meetings, PD sessions and even reminders. There will be so many different tasks and projects to keep up with as you work on behalf of your teachers, that it is important to manage your time well.

Early on in my instructional coaching career, I fell victim to the freedom of my schedule. At first, I was on top of everything because I had just come out of the classroom so I still lived and died by the bell. I have now gotten to the point where I don’t hear the bells anymore – and was in fact late for two meetings this week because I didn’t hear the bell. It was freeing to know that I could manage my own schedule, but that puts a lot of responsibility on you as an instructional coach. It is easy to become sidetracked or fall victim to procrastination when deadlines seem far off. It takes some time to figure out how to self-manage your work each day. Time management becomes easier as you find what works for you.

Lesson #4: Have Tough Skin

I will admit, I do not have tough skin – but I am working on it. As an instructional coach, it is important that you develop a tough skin, or even just a strong sense of resilience. In most districts, becoming an instructional coach is considered a promotion from being a classroom teacher. Master teachers become instructional coaches because they have demonstrated that they have the pedagogical expertise to be successful in the classroom, and as a coach, they are able to share some of that wisdom with others. Unfortunately, not everyone will celebrate this promotion.

Teachers like to be recognized for their work and regardless of whether a teacher wants to actually be an instructional coach or not, there may be some resentment from peers. I know I frequently hear teachers speaking negatively of administrators because it is not uncommon for principals to spend 3 years in the classroom and immediately get their principal certification. There are many teachers on campus that will constantly remind you that they have been in the classroom for X number of years, in an attempt to undermine your credibility. For some reason, teachers associate years of service with expertise and many times that’s not necessarily the case. I have worked with some first year teachers that are rockstars in the classroom, and I have worked with teachers that have been in the classroom for over a decade and still haven’t mastered basic classroom management techniques. It is important to know that you are deserving of this role because of the expertise you possess, and you have an amazing opportunity to share your gifts as an instructional coach.

Another reason you need to have thick skin is because it will likely take some time for you to gain the traction you’d like on your campuses. Remember that teachers find working with an instructional coach to be negative and will likely be reluctant to work with you given the choice. In my time as an instructional coach, I have had teachers dodge meetings, tell me my ideas are stupid, say my PD sessions are a waste of time, so on and so forth. While I pray this never happens to you, I at least want you to be prepared for it. Know that these reactions are rarely a response to what you are doing, but are instead a teacher’s way of expressing their own insecurities. Who would volunteer to have someone come into their classroom just to point out everything they are bad at? I know I wouldn’t.

Until you are able to build a rapport with the teachers on campus and show them that you are there to help and not to judge, you will need to have a thick skin. You may feel like you are a salesperson going door to door trying to get someone to buy your product, but I promise you that if you just keep trying, the doors will open.

Lesson #5: You Need a Support System

Teaching can be lonely, but what I have come to learn is that instructional coaching is even lonelier. While you as an instructional coach are still able to commiserate with teachers on your campuses and empathize with their situation using your own classroom horror stories, no one else on your campus can do the same for you. Though teachers try, no one really understands your day-to-day struggles and you’ll find that it’s even difficult for you to describe when asked. Though there may not be any other instructional coaches on your campus or in your district, there is a vast network of coaches across the globe.

As an instructional coach, you need a support system. While the job may start out great and you’re getting along just fine on your own, there will come a day when your patience is tested and your bucket is full. In these moments, you need a cheerleader and supporter of your own. Building your professional learning network and filling it with other instructional coaches is critical to your growth and sanity in this job. You will lean on your network during frustrating days. You will call upon your network when there is a challenge you can’t solve on your own. You will share celebrations with your network so they can cheer you on in your journey.

My network of instructional coaches has grown throughout my years in this role, and I frequently call or text other coaches when I just need a pick me up. These coaches are in similar situations to mine, and can often shed light on something or just remind me that I’m not crazy for taking on this task. We all know that it takes a village to raise a child, but we all need a village sometimes. Use social media to grow your village, especially if you don’t have any other instructional coaches nearby. Coaches are out there, they want to connect and help you grow and succeed.

While there are numerous other lessons I’ve learned as an instructional coach, these top five are the most important and in some cases most unexpected. When you first take on this role, there will likely be bumps, mishaps and just straight up ‘I don’t know what the heck I’m doing’s’, but I promise it does get better. The work you do as an instructional coach is important, and you were chosen for this role for a reason. Recognize your talents, have a thick skin and know that we’ve got your back.

How to Set Intentional Coaching Goals in 2020 (5 Easy Ways to Get Started)

January 30, 2020

Welcome to a new decade! As the saying goes, ‘New Year, New Me,’ right? I’m sure you have heard this phrase uttered everywhere or have seen it plastered all over social media, but there is some validity to a fresh start.

Many people use the new year as an opportunity to make resolutions and set both personal and professional goals for the upcoming year. Many teachers often use the new year as an opportunity to evaluate the success of their first semester, and make plans or adjustments for the next semester. As an instructional coach, you should be very familiar with helping teachers establish and reach a particular goal, but it is equally – if not more – important for you to set goals for yourself as an instructional coach as well.

If you have never set a goal for yourself as an instructional coach, I encourage you to start now. The teachers you work with have their own personal and professional goals – often tied to their annual evaluations. While it may be easy for you to help your teachers identify and set goals for themselves, it may be more challenging to set a goal for yourself as an instructional coach. Your role is often fluid, unique and not easily quantifiable. Luckily, setting goals will not be as difficult as you may think.

Here are 5 easy ways to get started on setting intentional coaching goals in 2020.

Tip #1: Choose a Set of Standards

The first step in setting any kind of goal is to know by what rules or standards you want to adhere. In other words, you need to establish the rules of the game. This first step helps you as an individual more easily quantify your goal, and will let you know when you have either reached it or strayed too far from it.

Standards help make goals manageable and ensure there is a better chance of successful achievement of said goal. Think about all the people that vowed to get healthy after the new year – some will simply say “I want to be healthy” and some will say “I need to lose 30lbs to be in a healthy BMI range.” Both of these statements are goals, but only one has a standard attached to it. Which do you think is more likely to be successful? For the person that “just wants to be healthy” there is no standard or measure against which they can check their progress. What does healthy mean? How will they know when they are healthy? This goal is too vague and it will be easy for the goal setter to abandon. The other person, however, knows what standard they are using – BMI index – and they know what they must do to achieve success in alignment with that standard – lose 30lbs to be in the healthy range of their BMI index. Now, before you get all technical on me and explain that BMI is not the be all, end all to measuring health, this is simply an illustration for why standards are important in goal setting.

Similar to philosophies of health, there are many different philosophies of education you can abide by that help inform your approaches to students and learning. One of the main jobs of an instructional coach is to help teachers identify and work toward instructional growth goals, but it is equally important for the instructional coach to set professional goals for themselves as well. As an instructional coach, and especially as an instructional coach working with the Dynamic Learning Project, you should be familiar with the Impactful Technology Use Rubric, as well as the DLP Coach Success Standards. These are two examples of standards around which intentional coaching goals can be set. As you work with teachers, they may be using their own set of standards to achieve their goals, perhaps a SAMR rubric, the TPACK model or some other educational philosophy standards. Students adhere to standards in their learning as well. In the state of Texas, these standards are known as TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) and are used to inform students of their progress and achievement. Ultimately, the set of standards you choose for setting your goal does not matter, what matters is that you have some sort of standard or framework to work with.

This framework will be essential in setting intentional goals for yourself as an instructional coach because they will help quantify your goals and keep you on track.

Tip #2: Be Realistic

Another important element to intentional goal setting is to be realistic. It is easy to ‘dream big’ and want to achieve these ‘pie in the sky’ goals, but if we are not being realistic, we are just setting ourselves up for immediate failure. Go back to the health illustration. To say you’d like to lose 30lbs in a span of a year would seemingly be a pretty realistic and achievable goal for most people. However, if you were to say you’d like to lose 30lbs in the next 2 weeks before your birthday, well that’s highly unlikely to happen. You can drink as many skinny teas and work out as much as you want, but 30lbs in 14 days just isn’t reasonable for the average person. If you were to set this goal for yourself, there is a good chance you will not achieve the goal and will end up disappointed.

Disappointment is the fastest, easiest and most efficient way to kill a dreamer’s spirit. Being disappointed, or failing to achieve a goal makes it significantly more difficult to set and achieve new goals in the future. If you set out to lose 30lbs in 2 weeks and you work really hard but only lose 10lbs, you are likely to throw away that progress and only see failure. As teachers and instructional coaches, we know that progress takes time. You want to make sure your goals are realistic so you are not disappointed when growth does not occur at the rate in which we would prefer.

As an instructional coach, you need to think about what is realistic for you to achieve. Would I like for all my campuses to be high tech and innovative? Yes. Would I like all my teachers to be inquisitive, self-starters hungry to improve their practice? Yes. Are these things realistic? No. When I first started as an instructional coach, I wanted my campuses to be seamlessly 1:1 and for all teachers to be using the Chromebooks the district had provided for their classrooms. Even that goal, as I would learn, was unreasonable. My mentor at the time told me that seamless 1:1 integration was a lofty goal for year 3, and most certainly not a goal for my first semester in year one. At that time I had to scale back my expectations and realize that if I could get 50% of my staff using devices 2-3 times per week, that would be a huge success.

It is likely that you are the only instructional coach on your campus, or maybe even in your district. You are working with 6-8 teachers during a coaching cycle and there are 4 coaching cycles each school year. That means that you are working with 24-32 teachers per year. I would venture to guess that, depending on the size of your campus, those 24-32 teachers are no more than 50% of your staff at best. How do you expect to affect campus-wide or even district-wide change when you only have the opportunity to directly work with half the campus and a miniscule amount of the district? Be realistic.

I know each of us has gotten into this role because we want to affect change and we want to help better the educational environment for teachers and students, but it is important to be realistic about our impact and our ability to affect change. Goals are intended to be set and then achieved or exceeded. Don’t let your idealism or your desire for systematic overhaul derail your opportunity for success.

Tip #3: Make it Measurable

Once you have decided what kinds of goals are realistic for you to achieve, the next step in setting the goal is to make sure it is measurable. You might be thinking to yourself at this point that what I’m telling you is reminiscent of the SMART model for goal setting, truth be told it is because it works. To be intentional about setting a goal you need to find something you can use to measure progress and ultimately success.

For this illustration, I’ll use a marathon. In a marathon race, there is a starting line and a finish line. The goal of the runner is to get from the starting line to the finish line because that is how they will know they are finished and have achieved their goal. If there were no finish line – or in some cases no specified distance – the runner would not know when to stop. The runner would not know when they have achieved their goal for that race. I know that your work as an instructional coach is never really finished, and that can make it difficult to establish a ‘finish line’ for your work. Consider this – just because the runner finishes one race, does that mean they are done running? No, it just means they are done with that race. Think of each of your teachers and each of your coaching cycles like their own individual race. It is okay to have a finish line and start again, this does not diminish the importance of your goal. As former teachers, many of us have a mindset that the finish line is the state test, the final exam or the end of the year. These are marathons and we aren’t ready for that yet. As an instructional coach we are often working on a “Couch to 5K”. Our races are shorter, they require us to move outside our comfort zones and do things we may not have done before. We can’t set out to run a marathon in our first race.

Therefore, it is important for each goal we set for ourselves as instructional coaches to have a finish line or an end point. I know it is easier to leave goals open ended, but it makes them much harder to achieve. Go back to my example about wanting all my campuses to be seamlessly 1:1 with all teaching using the district provided technology. Considering all the turnover each year and changes in district initiatives, that goal really has no finish line – if it does, it’s way too far in the distance for me to see. The other issue with a goal like that is it’s difficult to measure. What does “seamlessly 1:1” mean? How will I observe that? How will I know when I’ve gotten there? A better goal would be to get all my coachees using 1:1 technology twice a week. I will know I’ve achieved this goal through classroom observations and meetings with my teachers. I can visually and tangibly see technology being used in the classroom and I will know if I have accomplished what I set out to do.

Tip #4: Micro > Macro

The best way to ensure that your goals as an instructional coach are intentional, realistic, and measurable is to approach your goals on a micro scale as opposed to a macro one. Often times people want you to ‘look at the bigger picture’ and not get so caught up in small details. In this case, those small details are exactly what you need to focus on.

Remember, as an instructional coach, you are in a position to help teachers grow and advance their practice, but systemic change will be a slow process. If you are only focused on the big picture, it is easy to miss all the small changes that occur everyday. Visualize a forest. If every day you are focused on seeing the forest as a whole grow, you are unlikely to see any changes day to day. Over the span of many years, decades or centuries you may notice how much taller the trees have gotten or how much longer the grass has grown, but at what cost? Imagine the disappointment and frustration you’d feel every day if you went to the same place and never saw any change. Instead, look at the forest on a micro level. Each day, there is a new blade of grass on the ground. Each day the trees get a centimeter taller and have just a few more leaves. If you look at things on a micro level, you can see all the small changes that occur, which will eventually lead to changes in the bigger picture.

As an instructional coach, we want to affect change on a grand scale. Many of us left our classrooms because we realized that we were limited in our influence and that this new role could help expand our sphere of influence. While this is true, the reality is that we are only one person and our abilities are still outmatched by the bigger picture. The good news, is we as instructional coaches can cause a ripple effect of change. The work we do with one teacher can be transferred to another and so on until the ripple widens enough to make a wave. It is important that when setting goals, we keep this ripple in mind. Don’t look for the waves, look for the ripple. Maybe you show one teacher a new tool or instructional strategy and then a teacher happens to walk by their room and asks them about what they saw. You won’t see this effect immediately, but over time you may come upon these teachers who have adopted something you once suggested.

Instructional coaching is a difficult job and it can take a lot of time to see any changes or growth occur on your campus, so it is important to make sure your goals are set at the micro level, so that when you step back you can see how they work together in the bigger picture.

Tip #5: Celebrate the Small Victories

My last tip is not necessarily going to help you set an intentional instructional coaching goal, but it is just as important to the goal-setting process – you need to celebrate. As a follow up from setting goals on a micro level, it is important to celebrate small victories. Go back to the marathon illustration – the finish line, or 26.2 miles is the ultimate goal, but in marathons, and many other races, there are checkpoints. Runners are notified when they hit 5 miles, 10 miles, 15 miles and so on. Why? These small achievements help keep you motivated to reach the finish line.

I know many of my instructional coaches are probably very organized, type-A personalities so consider this: how satisfying is it to cross items off a list? For me, it is incredibly gratifying. Why do we do it? To show ourselves that progress is being made toward the larger goal of ultimately getting all your tasks accomplished.

Just as it is essential for us to celebrate the successes of our teachers, we must celebrate our own successes. Maybe a teacher has used a new tool for the first time or has implemented a new strategy. Celebrate it. Maybe you were able to connect with a teacher you had never met before or someone new has asked you to work with them. Celebrate it. It is important to celebrate the little victories in our journey to the goal for they will help keep you motivated and moving forward.

One of the greatest blessings of a new year and a new semester is the ability to start fresh with a clean slate. To maximize this reboot, it is important that you approach the next semester not only with good intentions for your teachers, but with good intentions for yourself. Take some time to reflect on your progress thus far and set some intentional goals for yourself moving forward. I know many of my examples have focused on setting goals for the ways in which you work with teachers, but goals can be pseudo-professional as well. Maybe one of your goals is to connect with other coaches on social media, to read more educational blogs or to participate in a book study. Other goals could be connecting with two new teachers, getting three teachers to try a new tool or strategy or even just meeting with your principal twice a month. If you need some ideas, I encourage you to look at the DLP Coach Success Standards to help you find a place to start. Whatever your goals may be, having goals is important in keeping you grounded, optimistic and – to be quite frank – happy in your role as an instructional coach.

The DLP Strategy Menu

March 26, 2019

When we launched the Dynamic Learning Project (DLP), a program from EdTechTeam, Google, and Digital Promise that empowers school leaders to transform instruction across every classroom for every student, we wanted to put teachers in control of their professional development. So, we developed a first-of-its-kind coaching model, based on Jennie Magiera’s work in Courageous Edventures, aimed at helping teachers tackle their challenges with personalized strategies and innovative tools.

To help coaches put the DLP’s challenge-based coaching model into action, we worked with expert technology coaches to create the DLP Strategy Menu ⎯ a new tool that helps educators explore common classroom challenges and find strategies and tech tools to jump start students’ learning. And today, we’re sharing our Strategy Menu with educators across the globe and providing them with 150+ ready-to-use instructional strategies and tech tools.

Head to the DLP Strategy Menu to take a tour of this new tool, or see below for step-by-step guide on how to get started. This is just one element of the Dynamic Learning Project, now available for all schools! The full paid program offers many more supports, including individualized program consultancy and activation events at Google’s campuses to help school leadership teams get the most impact from our program and transform every classroom in their buildings. Click here to learn how to join for the 2019-2020 school year.

3 Steps: How to Use the Strategy Menu

Step 1: Identify the Challenge

The DLP Strategy Menu was developed to help both tech coaches and teachers identify their problems of practice, and consider different strategies to overcome those challenges. We built this tool based on one key belief: teaching and learning is primary, technology tools are secondary. As a result, the Strategy Menu was primarily designed to help educators identify and implement effective strategies to help tackle the challenges they face, and their students face.

“Is there an app that can help?” Sure there is, but back it up for a sec. What’s the precise problem you’re trying to solve?

Too often in the edtech community, teachers simply want to know if there is an app they can use without identifying and understanding their instructional challenges. If you know the type of challenge you’re facing, you can jump right into the Strategy Menu and do a keyword search or filter by challenge areas. When you do, you will notice that the challenges are structured by category to help the educator not only find the challenge they’re facing, but help them find related challenges.

If a teacher is new to using technology in the classroom, a common practice by tech coaches is to simply give a teacher something new to try. What’s the problem with just looking for a new app to try in the classroom? Well, here are a few potential pitfalls of that approach:

As educators, it’s important to remember that the challenges we face in our classrooms revolve around pedagogy, not technology. Apps can only supplement best teaching practices, not substitute for them.
It’s easy for teachers to overload their arsenal with certain types of apps without recognizing that their teaching practice may reflect the imbalance of those types of applications. Google Forms, Quizizz, Quizlet, GoFormative, Kahoot! are all fantastic assessment apps, but students may benefit from a variety of learning experiences to truly engage their class content.
Teachers can become disillusioned if they run into problems with a particular app, resulting in giving up on integrating technology altogether. Whereas if they were given a couple of tech tools to try, they can be advised to switch to the alternate tool while maintaining their strategy.

Step 2: Choose a Strategy

After a teacher identifies their challenge, their tech coach can point them to the Strategy Menu to see, there’s a strat for that! Imagine that, during a tech coaching meeting, a teacher admits to having some issues with classroom management and believes that at the root of the issue, her students are not motivated to give the extra effort with the classwork. In this instance, the coach may recommend the teacher try creating a sense of collaborative competition.

Note, the strategy is the focal point. In this case, the teacher is committed to implementing incentive trackers and sharing it out so that the students can both see their progress, but also collaborate in some way. If the progress tracker doesn’t seem to motivate the students (or if it gets old after a while), then she can try one of the several other strategies that are under the challenge area topic of Classroom Management. The challenge remains the same, it’s the strategies and tools that can change.

If the coach or teacher desires to share out a strategy, simply hover over or click on the plus button to the right to copy the strategy to your clipboard or share out on social media.

Step 3: Try a Tool

When viewing the strategies, you will notice that there are a few apps identified that can be used to implement that particular strategy. All of the apps listed in the Strategy Menu are free (or free for basic use, with upgradable options), web-based, or cross-platform for Android and iOS. The recommended apps are not meant to be an exhaustive list, but simply a starting place for executing the listed strategy. If unfamiliar with the app, simply click on the link to explore more. For the more adventurous, you can search YouTube for tutorials on a particular app or reach out to your personal learning network (i.e., “has anyone ever used Google Slides for creating incentive trackers?”).

Apps should be evaluated based on accessibility of use in the school setting, ease of use for teacher and students, and overall effectiveness for accomplishing the recommended strategy.

Have suggestions for strategies or additional tools to try? Please provide feedback, as seen below!

The Strategy Menu is just a tool itself, one that is best used in conversation between a tech coach and teacher. Remember, apps are just tools in the toolbox to be used in certain situations. Tools come and go, but that’s why good teaching practices are paramount.

Originally from Southern California, “Sociologist turned Technologist,” Dee Lanier is a passionate and energetic educator and learner with over a decade of instructional experience on the K-12 and collegiate level. Dee holds Undergraduate and Master’s degrees in Sociology with special interests in education, race relations, and inequality. Dee served at Crossroads Charter High School as a full-time Vocational Studies teacher, Testing Coordinator and Title I Director then went on to become the Technology Catalyst for the Lower School at Trinity Episcopal School. He was also an Executive Director of a national nonprofit and a founding board member and tech coach at Charlotte Lab School. Dee is a Google Certified Trainer and Innovator and specializes in creative applications for mobile devices and Chromebooks, low-cost makerspaces, and gamified learning activities. Dee is currently a Program Coordinator for EdTechTeam. You can find him on Twitter @deelanier from Southern California, “Sociologist turned Technologist,” Dee Lanier is a passionate and energetic educator and learner with over a decade of instructional experience on the K-12 and collegiate level. Dee holds Undergraduate and Master’s degrees in Sociology with special interests in education, race relations, and inequality. Dee served at Crossroads Charter High School as a full-time Vocational Studies teacher, Testing Coordinator and Title I Director then went on to become the Technology Catalyst for the Lower School at Trinity Episcopal School. He was also an Executive Director of a national nonprofit and a founding board member and tech coach at Charlotte Lab School. Dee is a Google Certified Trainer and Innovator and specializes in creative applications for mobile devices and Chromebooks, low-cost makerspaces, and gamified learning activities. Dee is currently a Program Coordinator for EdTechTeam and Dynamic Learning Project Mentor. You can find him on Twitter @deelanier