Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works

Gene Tavernetti: Welcome to Better Teaching, Only Stuff That Works, a podcast for teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, and anyone else who supports teachers in the classroom.

This show is a proud member of the BE Podcast Network shows that help you go beyond education.

Find all our shows@bepodcastnetwork.com.

I Am Gene Tavernetti the host for this podcast.

And my goal for this episode, like all episodes, is that you laugh at least once and that you leave with an actionable idea for better teaching.

A quick reminder, no cliches, no buzzwords.

Only stuff that works.

Today I'm back again with my friend and colleague, Dr. Zach Rochelle, Zach, of course, the author of Just Tell Them, and the host of the extremely popular podcast, progressively incorrect.

Today.

In this episode of Thinking Out Loud, Zach and I discuss coaching cycles.

What are they?

Are they important?

Do they provide extra benefit to teachers?

Everything about coaching cycles and supporting teachers.

I think you're gonna like this one.

Zach Groshell: Welcome back everyone, to another episode of Thinking Out Loud.

I am here with my friend Jean Taver Netti, and we are gonna keep on unpacking and talking about instructional coaching and instructional leadership in this little miniseries that we've been doing.

If you haven't, you know, caught up on the other episodes, I definitely recommend you check those out.

So Jean, how are you doing today?

Gene Tavernetti: You know what?

Couldn't be happier.

Zach, great to be with you again.

Always fun too.

To chat and geek out about this stuff.

Zach Groshell: Today we are gonna be addressing a question.

We always bring up a question, and I had to kind of wordsmith this a little bit, but I just wanted to sort of make reference to your book Maximizing Coaching Cycles in our question today.

And here it is, we're gonna be talking about today, about how do you maximize coaching cycles in a school and.

Do you even need them?

Like, and so I wanted to talk about that for a bit here.

You and I both have sort of similar ideas on this, but I thought maybe I'd bring some of my perspective from from the step lab coaching cycle into this.

And we can kind of talk about different views on coaching cycles.

Are you ready?

Gene Tavernetti: Let's go.

I can't wait to hear what you have to think about what you're thinking about this.

Zach Groshell: So when I first started coaching, this is how a coaching cycle was proposed to me.

You needed to do six or three, you needed to have teachers in a coaching cycle, and these were meant to be, A cycle was defined as, I suppose, an extended period of time.

That was like five weeks maybe, where you were with the teacher going in and out, and you sort of had maybe a goal that you established and you were working towards it.

And lots of observation, lots of feedback.

Is that typically how you would define a coaching cycle or, you know, go ahead.

Yeah, go ahead and talk me through that.

Gene Tavernetti: Okay.

No.

We have to go back to, you know, what we know about how people learn and just when we start talking about five weeks and all the times we have to go back, you know, it's just, we're talking about in my mind, too big a time, too much content.

So the way I talk about a coaching cycle whenever I'm talking about a coaching cycle with somebody, I talk about it the way that I define it in the book, and that is, it's three phases.

The cycle is first we meet and we talk about with the teacher and the coach talks about what lesson that they're gonna be teaching and to be able to clarify and to be sure what is gonna be happening during that lesson.

Then we observe the lesson and then we debriefed the lesson after.

Then based on that debrief, then it will bring us into that next cycle about what we're gonna be working on next time.

So in my mind, a, we can have a very good productive coaching cycle in two days.

One day we talk about planning.

Next day the teacher teaches, and then we talk about it.

So very short.

Very focused.

And that's the way I talk about coaching cycles.

Zach Groshell: Perfect.

And that's what I came to understand maybe a little bit later after sort of moving out of my district's view, it was like, you need to do coaching cycles.

So here is a case you.

Pick three teachers and once during the year, meet with them for an extended period of time where I had 42 other teachers.

So it's sort of, it's, you could kind of check that box a little bit too quickly.

And I found much more success with actually moving the talents of the building when I kind of switched to lots of little micro cycles of observe and feedback.

And you've added in sort of that.

Connect and clarify or pre coaching meeting, what's the purpose of that pre cycle meeting?

Like beyond just like having a chat.

Like why do you think that's necessary?

I.

Gene Tavernetti: Okay, well, well, first of all, let's go pre-meeting, pre preop.

Observation, and we've talked about this before, and it's gonna be a drum we're gonna continue to beat.

And that is you need to see the teacher before.

You just need to see the teacher teach.

See how they are in the classroom, see what they do so that when you have a conversation with a teacher about what they're planning to teach, you have an idea how they run their classroom, what their class is like.

So you bring in some prior knowledge and are able to customize your conversation with that teacher a little bit.

But the big thing that's gonna happen during that pre-observation meeting, and you're right it's more than a chat, it's a discussion about how the teacher thinks about.

Whatever the areas of focus are in the school.

It could be, you know, this year we're focusing on entering the classroom.

It could be we're doing gradual release.

I'm trying to think what's in that cyclone six we're in, you know, whatever it is that they have agreed upon that this is what the focus is.

I need to understand what the teacher thinks about that.

How they understand it, what their mental models are around that, so that we can move forward.

Because if I don't understand how the teacher thinks about something, then I'm just talking.

I. I need to have a conversation where we're really having a meet, a meeting of the minds.

So, that's why I think that meeting is so important.

The other thing that happens during that meeting is it clarifies.

You can clarify what's gonna happen, what.

So if we have these areas of focus that we're looking for, it's very clear that's what we're looking for.

And you can ask a teacher, is there something you want me to look for?

I was at a school once, very early in my career.

I was working for a, another group that did things differently and I observed this teacher and I went in to get and then I gave feedback.

We did not have a pre-meeting.

Then I went in and gave feedback and he said, but what about my use of technology?

And I said, I don't care how you use technology, but that was his, that was the focus of the school.

And nobody told me nobody told me that was it.

And so, you know what happened?

Lost all credibility.

Anything, any feedback that was valid was just lost because we didn't have a meeting of the minds beforehand.

Zach Groshell: I think another thing to add to that, and I completely agree with this is that sometimes it's important to just connect on the level of like.

Like purpose and maybe even of the value that you have in coaching.

I feel like sometimes you, you go into this, these cycles, you just start kind of, you kind of try to jump into them without just kind of explaining to the teachers, sort of the whole rationale behind coaching, the whole purpose behind why you decided to be a coach.

Why?

You know, for me, I always tell the story of Mr. McGregor, who was my instructional coach, who, you know, took me from.

A novice teacher to a decently, you know, good behavior manager within just a matter of months.

You know, and I talked to, you know, or I talked to them about the things that they've been working on, and just let them kind of air out some certain things we're not talking about like this really long, elaborate, scripted meeting, but just a moment to
connect, clarify the purpose, connect on a level of values, and, that sort of sets up, maybe you are the second pair of eyes, but maybe it gives you the right lens going into that first observation of what to look for or what the teacher has been working on.

And it may even actually increase certain behaviors of the teacher in that first observation that are productive for the feedback session that comes afterwards.

Right.

And so I think it's, IM, I think it's important.

Gene Tavernetti: Yeah, the clarification piece.

Absolutely.

Talked about a pre, pre and, you know, beginning into the classrooms, but also.

If you're going in and you're gonna be working with a co, with a teacher on something in particular, then they should have been trained in that.

There should have been training during the training.

There should have been modeling for what it was gonna look like.

So it, so that it's not a, it's not a big surprise what's happening now.

Having said that, part of that getting clarification is I will ask a teacher the first time I meet with him, is there anything you had problems with?

During the training, is there anything you disagree with?

Because if we don't get that stuff out in the open, again, we're talking about how does a teacher think about these things?

There are some teachers that will just do the dog and pony show for you and I try to tell 'em, you know, if you don't agree with this, we need to work this out.

I don't need to see a dog and pony show.

I I know that I've been in your classroom.

I know how you operate.

Okay.

But.

Let's if this doesn't make sense, then let's work it out.

And you know, there have been, in the 20 years, there have been maybe less than five times.

We've just gotten to the point where we said, you know what?

Forget what we were going to do in here.

And I. And talk about a lesson.

Just do whatever you're gonna do and then we'll talk about it after.

But the idea is, and some people think, well, you wasted the time.

No, I got to know this teacher professionally.

I got to understand what their issues were.

And I would bet in that half a dozen times that happened, it was a misunderstanding about something.

Because Zach, you and I know that what we talk about, the reason we talk about it with so much conviction is that we know that it works.

And usually there's a miscommunication misapprehension.

A mislabeling of what something is and that needs to get worked out before we go in and talk about a lesson.

Zach Groshell: So, let me summarize a little bit.

There should be sort of school-wide pd and there usually is at the beginning of the school year and that is before all of this coaching take play takes place.

And the coach, I. Is really gonna refer back to what the school is working on because we're all rowing the boat together.

So there are certain things that the school values that we think is necessary that the principals and coaches and teachers have all sort of agreed on.

This is our plan to make our ourselves a better school.

We get this great PD that starts at the beginning, or maybe this has been threaded into our PLCs and so on, and the coach is gonna sort of tap into that shared.

Language and that shared knowledge to start off a coaching cycle.

Here's where I see the wrench getting thrown into this, is that schools just have a scatter gun approach to PD where they just do random stuff every year or their PD is not even based on instruction.

And the coach, I've been in this.

Situation myself, the coach is really the only person in the building who's really seems to be that obsessive about instruction, and they have to be the one that gives that knowledge for the first time.

I mean, how do you manage that?

When with that kind of puts the coach in a pretty difficult position, I feel.

Gene Tavernetti: You know, I don't even wanna talk about it this much.

This, you know, that's a real issue for coaches and you have to bring it up because we've got a lot of coaches listening to this.

That's a management problem.

That's not a coach problem.

That, that's a, administrative problem.

That, you know, you think that it's almost like having an intervention program.

Like the coaches become the intervention teacher when the tier one instruction was no good.

You know, you got to bring me along.

We have to be partners in this principle.

I don't know what you do.

In that case because I think what happens is it's very common what you described, and then you have a coach out on an island creating menus of services, sending them out to teachers, begging, you know, begging, Hey, I'll come work with you.

I can do this, and this.

Versus what do we do here at the school?

Which is an administrative function now that having being able to help people.

Yes.

After we've established this baseline instructional proficiencies.

Zach Groshell: You know, and you know what I ended up doing, being in schools where the PD was trash and like one year.

We started off in August and we all get together.

What do we talk about?

We talk about the school's new evaluation tool of teachers.

So we're learning, but nothing instructional.

Just this is how you will be evaluated afterwards, we have a meeting with the union where we all.

Debated whether or not it was even appropriate that they had that PD about the evaluation tool and whether the evaluation tool is okay with us.

And then after that, we're doing bloodborne pathogens and we're doing, you know, whatever child abuse prevention trainings and all the stuff.

And then bam, school year starts.

Now you're in a situation where you're as a coach, you don't really have that, those shared.

Understandings, that shared definition of what, how learning happens and how instruction is going to proceed this year.

So what did I do?

I had to advocate for any moment of time I could to be that first PD on teaching.

I had to be like, I need 15 minutes.

We're gonna talk about knowledge organizers, we're gonna talk about oral response, whatever it is.

And that way I could just prefer back to remember the things that I said in that 15 minutes I was given.

That's not a good position to be in, but I think Gene, there are a lot more schools that do that then than there should be.

Gene Tavernetti: Well, I think that, and then there's also, there are other opportunities.

If you're working with the administration and working with the unions and however you do that to go to, you know, you might not have the hour at the pd, you know, a schedule, BT pd, but can you go into a you know, A PLC and talk about something you know, that is.

One of the things that we need to talk about, but it's something because you've observed all the teachers and you've chatted with them.

Maybe now you go in and you talk about a turn and talk, or you talk about how you model or how you tell effective stories or how you do say, I'm trying get your book in there.

Zach just, you know, just tell it.

But those are the important things.

But you don't need an hour at a PD for everybody.

You can do 15 minutes at a meeting and get a lot accomplished and then agree.

Either agree that this is something we wanna continue or agree that it's something that maybe some people wanna continue and now you have a focus as a coach.

So there are some workarounds, you know, when you don't have that focus from the administration, but you need to, you still need to work within whatever structures there are at the site.

Zach Groshell: Well, let's move on from this topic.

Back to the coaching cycles.

Let's cycle back to the coaching cycles and we, so you have some sort of connect, clarify, sort of pre-meeting that pre-observation meeting that helps set the stage for this little micro coaching cycle of observe and give feedback.

What I thought we could spend the rest of the episode doing was chatting through the important components of that observation and feedback.

Cycle so that we kind of, we know that there are different approaches to coaching.

And so, and I just wanted to kind of pick your brain on what goes into those different phases starting with observation.

Like what does the coach need to do?

How long do they spend in this room, and how, what do they need to do to get the most out of their time?

Observing a teacher?

Gene Tavernetti: Okay, so I'm gonna do exactly what you didn't wanna do, and I'm gonna go back to the pre-observation for just a minute because the pre-observation sets some sort of target, set some sort of goal, and so it's impossible.

It's just like a lesson.

It's if you don't have a learning target, you're just.

You know, it's just a shotgun approach.

Same thing with when you go in and do your observation you know, you don't have to take an hour to talk about what the lesson's gonna be.

It's just Zach.

Okay we've met before.

What do you working on?

And then the teacher will tell you what the focus of the observation is going to be.

That doesn't mean as an observer you're not observing everything because in addition to you working with that teacher, you're also trying to gather data that may be common to the whole staff.

So the teacher may have had you come in, watch my modeling, watch my gradual release what it is.

But you also notice some other things.

And in your work with the other teachers, God, it's very common.

And then we get back to how you can provide that.

So, so there has to be a focus, is what I'm saying.

Now, if the focus is, Zach, I, you know, please come in and watch me do my first 10 minutes, then you do 10 minutes.

Okay?

If it's something that has to do with the structure of the lesson, then you may be in there the whole period.

So it's gonna depend.

You can't discount the importance of that pre-observation conference.

Whether that conference is an hour or whether it's for three minutes, it's still gonna give you the focus.

I.

Zach Groshell: So you come in I usually try to do beginning, middle, and end.

Like I try to get that pretty clear.

Like when would I come in during this to see this?

And you know, a lot of times it is about starting the classroom off with a strong start or it's about introducing the learning target of the day and actually teaching the teacher led component of the lesson.

Or it might be more about the end of the lesson when it comes to the routines of exiting, using exit tickets, using retrieval practice or whatever it is.

And so I kind of like to think of those in two, three different.

Parts of a lesson because I've got other teachers.

This is the important thing that I think your book is so strong on maximizing coaching cycles, is that everyone needs to be coached.

And so you can't spend 60 minutes in the typical observation because the be because there, there's all these people and there's this, there.

You can get enough information from a very quick gathering of concrete evidence during a smaller proportion of the lesson.

But you go in there, you get down your notes.

What are those, what are some of the pitfalls that you can kind of fall into and how you record or how you capture that information.

I found that to be tricky when I first started observing lessons.

Gene Tavernetti: Well, the more you know me, the more you realize that I am maybe one of the least structured people.

And that, in observing, like I do a chronology in my notes and then I go back and, think, well this was important because this was the focus, because however you do it, one of the things that I always warn against is having a checklist, going through the checklist.

You saw this because.

I think teaching is more than checklists.

You can see, you could see lessons that every box is checked and the lesson was not that good.

And on the other hand you have a teacher who's very responsive to the formative assessment.

And maybe they're not as slick.

Maybe they didn't have everything, but just because of that one thing, they're so good at checking for understanding and then providing the students, what they need to move them through.

And they have a great lesson, but they didn't check all the boxes.

So when I'm observing, that's the main thing is did, was the lesson successful?

Did the kids, were the kids able to do what you wanted them to do At the end, everything else is just details.

Zach Groshell: So you've got the, you said chronology, so you've got some timestamps, you've got some sort of objective, I'm reading out of this sort of objective sort of data, things like what the teacher is saying, doing, writing, what the student is saying doing writing, headcounts and a as you're recording these, you said you kind of did it afterwards.

I kind of did it during, which is you might start forming initial hypotheses.

Like when does that start to kind of enter in where you're sort of circling and like this is the area, this is the step that I'm gonna use.

Do you do that during, or do you take a moment outside to kind of formulate those?

Gene Tavernetti: I do it during, I kinda have three columns.

What's the time, the timestamp, what happened, and then a positive comment, why that was effective or maybe something we might wanna talk about.

And the reason I say it's might wanna talk about is because many times it shows up a couple minutes later and then I end up crossing it out.

Great.

The teacher knew, this teacher recognized it and took care of it.

So I'm formulating from the minute I'm observing based on our objectives, that we have determined that, you know what I'm looking for.

I'm already formulating things, and in, in a lesson, I come out of a lesson and I might have a half a dozen things that we could talk about with the teacher.

Zach Groshell: Love that.

And you know, you asked me to kind of bring in the kind of step lab perspective on this.

I just what's interesting is, so what you do is, you know, you have your notes open on your laptop.

And you're taking these timestamps and so on, and what you then are prompted to do is you can spend the next few minutes, 'cause it only takes a few minutes to gather like enough.

Information.

This is what, like if you do a lot of observations, you realize it doesn't take that much time to gather that critical like persistent problem that you found Then what goal and what strategy they need to use.

And so at that point you just start kind of scripting out your praise of what you're going to say to them.

That was good.

You start to find like things that are gonna be like.

Gonna really spotlight success for that teacher.

And then you kind of choose a step that you want to work on out of the library of steps that you're like, bam.

This is what I'm thinking is something we can work on next.

And you can do that in the classroom.

So, so I did mention praise and so I wanted to kind of.

So you go in, you get the notes maybe before you leave.

Do you do anything be to kind of exit the room that like makes it so that you kind of honor what the teacher has given you?

Do you have like strategies for that?

People always ask me that I.

Gene Tavernetti: I try not to disrupt what's going on, and many times I will leave as the kids are working and the teachers checking, you know, as they're doing the work or as the teacher pulled a group, you know, if it's an elementary and the teacher has pulled a group, because we can't convince secondary folks to pull that group.

But a smile.

Thank you.

Thumbs up, mouth.

Good job.

You know, thank you.

But not a lot.

Okay.

And here is when we're talking about praise, I want, you know, jump ahead for a second here, talk about what that conference is gonna be.

I always start the conference with three questions that that I want the teacher to answer.

And I tell them, you can answer 'em in order.

Holistic, however you wanna do it.

The first one is, how do you think the lesson went?

What would you do?

You know, how did you, how did the lesson change from how you thought it was gonna go in your head, in your plan?

And then what would you do differently?

And what usually happens is teachers are very self.

They're the hardest critics of themselves.

And they will say something like you know, I guess it went okay.

And I'll say, let me, excuse me.

I don't wanna interrupt you, but I'm gonna interrupt you right here.

It went way better than, okay.

I want them to know that I thought positively of it, but I don't give a lot of praise that way.

When we get in more and we're talking about the things that we have put in our notes, I'll say things like, man, this was really effective when you said this, did you see how the kids reacted?

So I'm gonna be very specific and try to do it in order.

I, I was trained, I don't do the glow and grows.

I don't do a pray sandwich.

I try to do things in order.

And so, um, that's how I do it.

And as you know, and everybody who's read my stuff or we've talked before, coach in there, you should be smiling the entire time, any anyway, so, you know, this was good.

Thank you.

And you know what, if the lesson was really bad.

Why are you gonna tell 'em?

They know.

They know it was bad.

Okay.

Zach Groshell: I think with the praise and sometimes praise isn't even the right word.

Like even the same with kids.

I'm like, I don't want you to praise them.

I want you to acknowledge what was effective.

Right?

And so it's not so much of like, yay, good job.

Right?

But it sometimes turns into that if it's just kind of, it's sort of authentic, but just you said it yourself, it was effective when you did this, and just one.

Thing like, because if you do that laundry list of lots of things, it starts to feel like an evaluation.

It starts to feel like you had a checklist in mind and you are going down the checklist of things.

So like being very specific, being very precise, and I think opening it up, you said with your questions, opening it up for the teacher to talk about.

That acknowledgement you spotlighted some success, so bam.

Like, you know, how did that impact the rest of your lesson?

How did that impact how much learning happened?

You know, how did that feel when you did it?

Right.

You know?

And that gives them just a moment of time to think.

It's not you just like delivering a list of praise statements, but that they actually need to be involved in the conversation too.

Gene Tavernetti: Well, and I'm listening to what they have to say.

Again, I am trying to understand how they think, how they solve problems in the classroom.

So one of those questions just as a do a little retrieval here, one of those questions was what would you do differently?

Usually one of those things, something that they would wanna do differently.

It's gonna be in my list of half a dozen things.

And then I'll say, you know what?

That's funny you said, that's exactly one of the things I wanted to talk about.

Let's talk about that.

And so now we're into it.

We have agreement on how they wanna get better.

This is where I have some you know, I, you know, we've had lots of conversations.

I don't agree with teachers initially.

Just saying, oh, what do you wanna work on?

What do you know, no.

We have these things that the school, you know, this is who we are, this is what we're gonna do, we're gonna start there.

But that doesn't mean that they don't have some agency within those things to choose what they wanna work on to get better.

Zach Groshell: And it's especially weird if when they.

Bring it up.

You know, you say, tell me about this moment.

Right?

And they, and they bring up the step that they, or strategy or technique that they're wanting to work on, that they're willing to adopt.

They've come to agreement with you in their own words, and then you say, well, what do you wanna work on?

Well, that doesn't make sense.

They just said it.

Or you say like, well, I brought you.

This, which has nothing to do with what we talked about, but even though all things equal what they just brought up is perfectly reasonable to work on.

So I think that people don't, people like to say that coaching is either directive or facilitative, but this kind of dialogic approach of talking about it actually leads to, I think, a very organic way of agreement on.

Strategies, technique, steps that the school is working on that are aligned with the science of learning and effective instruction.

If you facilitate that discussion the right way.

Gene Tavernetti: Yeah.

And teaching is very difficult and it's developmental.

You know, you, if you're working with a novice teacher, those things that they realize that they wanna work on are gonna be different than working with a veteran teacher.

I. Who is, you know, has this little small tweak, you know, that's just bothering them in their practice that they wanna talk about.

So, yeah, you have to talk to them.

You have to listen as a as a coach.

Zach Groshell: And like with the beginning teacher especially, I cannot count the number of times that very novice, beginner teachers have essentially said.

You know what?

If I knew what I was supposed to do differently, I'd be doing it.

I'm going home exhausted.

And I need the recipe.

Right.

You know what I mean?

I, that happens all the time.

And when that opens up for you, of course take it.

They're asking you for basically to, to create the curriculum for them that their teacher prep program should have done with them, in which they didn't receive being up in the ivory towers of the university.

They're now in the face of real children and they are saying clearly.

I would be doing a lot of different things and I'm exhausted and I'm frustrated and what did you do?

And I go, here's what I'd do.

You know what I mean?

And I, and I, do you take a similar approach to especially newer teachers?

Gene Tavernetti: Yes.

I mean, they are so as you said, they're.

They don't know what they don't know.

And when they learn something and it works and you're watching them in the classroom, and you could, well, you know, it's like when you're teaching something, you're the teacher and the kids learn it.

You could just see it on their faces and they're beaming.

It's the same thing with the teacher as when you're, as a coach, when you're working with the teacher, they have this big smile, something's working.

They look at you and they, you know, they look at the coach and they're smiling and they're yes.

And it's like everything, you know that success begets motivation, begets more success, et cetera, et cetera.

They have more faith in you as the coach.

Zach Groshell: So let me back up and just, I just want everybody to hear the very transient sort of checkpoints of this coaching cycle.

I know it's all verbal at this point, but you have a conference meeting that's gonna set the stage.

For that first observation, you go and you do your observation, taking down concrete notes, formulating hypotheses, smiling, being a pro, positive presence in the room.

As you leave, maybe give 'em a thumbs up, right?

And you take that information and you wanna set it up so that it begins.

In a positive light that it gives the teacher a chance to reflect on very specific things that were in that observation and in their teaching.

And finally, you can be responsive or situational to the expertise of the teacher in.

Coming to an agreement on a step that fits in with your school's strategic plan, with the PD that's been happening that aligns with that pre-conference meeting.

Now here is where I think most coaching approaches end is right there.

That's the coaching cycle.

We agreed we should probably do a little bit more opportunities to respond.

I felt like my lesson was a little low ratio.

I should have a higher ratio of student engagement.

Great.

And the coach leaves.

And I mean, is that a coaching cycle, right?

If I just completed one by, you know, it just feels like it's not enough at that point for me without modeling and rehearsal, without coming back.

But what are your thoughts on that?

Gene Tavernetti: Exactly.

And I don't think during that debriefing time, I think that debriefing time should be very short.

Maybe 10, 15 minutes, because if you go any longer, I. You are con, you are conflating your feedback and debrief of the lesson with goal setting training, rehearsing the next lesson.

So I think it's better to cut that short.

It's my opinion.

Cut that short.

Honor the teacher's time, and then when you go, you can either give the teacher the option to meet again.

Do you wanna meet again before you work on this?

And then you could have a short, again, if you're one-on-one, you can accomplish a lot in 10 minutes.

If it's something that.

It is very common with the staff.

Again, you could go to the PLC, you could ask for 10 minutes at a staff meeting to do it again.

Trying to isolate these things and not beat a dead horse.

You know, just get some good information out and then guess what?

The next time you have the cycle, the next time you do a cycle, you ask the teacher, Zach, did you have any questions about this thing?

Let you know what, let's just take a couple minutes and go through it again.

Before you do it, so it doesn't have to be an hour, you know, the next cycle doesn't have to be an hour.

It can be very short because it's more focused this time.

And that's what I think we get so caught up in, oh, we have a pd, it's an hour, we're gonna take an hour.

Why take an hour if it's gonna take 10 minutes?

So there are various places to handle that getting of information, rehearsing et cetera.

Zach Groshell: Right.

And we have to, I think like, like you agree on a step, like let's just say it's, start your.

Lesson with a, with the do now and make sure the do nows, you know, has questions from previous lessons, whatever else.

Right.

And the big question on my mind without sort of returning or without doing a bit of like.

Planning together during that lesson.

Okay.

What are you gonna do for the next one?

Do you have questions out you, how about you bust out those questions?

Now?

Let's put the do now together.

Right?

Let's do it.

Now.

My, my worry with a form of coaching in which we just sort of agree on a step and see you later is there's just gonna be no adoption.

It's just, this was just for.

Zach or for Jean's, job security that we had this meeting, we had this talk and it was cool.

It was professional and it went fine.

He is not a jerk or anything, but I am.

I've got my next lesson.

I've got things to grade, I have things to do and maybe I will consider the thing that I said I would agree on.

You know, so how do you kind of revisiting another episode too, how do we.

How do we ensure that adoption of the agreement of the agreed upon step I guess beyond PLCs and more pd, beyond using those other things, how do you do it within coaching?

I.

Gene Tavernetti: I don't want to take all of their time on the job.

Their job is to teach the kids not to meet with the coach.

All right?

So I will ask them at that time.

Okay?

Okay.

This is something you wanna work on.

When's a good time to get together?

If you want to get together before I come back to see it.

Let's get together.

Let's set a time.

Okay.

If you think you got it, let's set a time for me to come in and see it.

So there's always more than I'm not coming back, especially if there's something that they both agreed upon about what you, what we wanna work on.

See, it's funny, even when I talk about it, you know, you pick up on the looseness, you know, there is more to the, you know, the structure than I'm just talking about.

Like, we have a, you know, I always use a a form at the end of a coaching cycle.

Ask them what was the most important part you know, what do you, what's your big takeaway?

What do you want support on and when can we get together?

So those questions are there that they are going to give.

They're gonna leave with me.

Okay, so it's a little bit more strong sure.

Than what I described.

But there has to be exactly what you said.

We have to talk about it.

There has to be some more, maybe there's more training, maybe there's just rehearsal.

Maybe it's just practice.

Let's practice what this looks like.

But it doesn't have to be this real, it can be very informal.

Let's get together for 10 minutes and do this.

Zach Groshell: Yes.

I think that's, that I there, there's an element of like planning.

Forward of seeing this all being like the coaching actually leads to performance improvements that I just so want to emphasize, and that's just that like, we can't just talk about what we wish will happen and then move on to the next teacher.

Right there.

The, how do we embed this into practice, right?

That's one of these mechanisms of effective pd. Is.

What can we do to make this into a habit?

Does it mean doing meeting again and planning this out?

Does it mean I need to come back to you with a resource?

Does it mean you need to practice in front of me?

And we kind of go back and forth and just kind of see how it feels on you before you do it.

In the lesson I observe and then I give you a thumbs up, and then we come back and we talk about it again.

But this like the.

I worry sometimes that for some coaches observing and then having that chat is just enough.

It's just enough to say, I met with them, I heard them out, and I'm doing a good job.

Is that gonna lead to the change the kids

Gene Tavernetti: You know what,

Zach Groshell: impacts achievement?

Gene Tavernetti: Zach?

I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you, you know, you've been talking to me about step lab, you know, from the, for a long time, and I've told you I don't get what you're doing.

And then the more that I learn about it, the more that I realize.

How in line my thinking is that they've just set up a system.

You know, they have a system so the coach can't screw it up, you know, and they don't forget stuff.

Oh God, I should have done this.

No it's there.

And I think I. New coaches need that.

They need certainly more of a structure.

I provide a when I work with coaches, kind of a introductory level, how to meet with coaches.

I never talk about how to set up systems.

I never talk about how to schedule.

I don't talk about that stuff.

It's more of a. How are we going to, when we meet one-on-one, how are we gonna have the most impact?

You know, how are we gonna respect each other?

How are we gonna do this?

But they need a system.

You got 40 teachers that you're working with.

You can do coaching cycles with 40 teachers if you talk about it in the way that we're talking.

And you need some sort of system and structure to keep everybody going.

Zach Groshell: Absolutely.

So we've come to the end of like.

That meeting.

I mean, do you have like, I love these little, like gens or these just like these tiny little nuances of like just your body language and your, and how do you close out that meeting for the feedback session so that it, it ends in the way that is best for them and for you as a coach.

Gene Tavernetti: What's your big takeaway?

I asked that in this is an oral.

I will ask it orally before I ask him to put it on paper.

Say, what's your big takeaway?

I say, I've done a, you know, I've done a lot of talking.

What's your big takeaway here?

Do you have any more questions for me?

And then put on the paper what additional support that you want.

I don't tell them what I think they need to do next.

Hopefully in this skillful conversation, we have agreed on what they need to do next, and now they're gonna put it on the paper and that's we'll determine when we're gonna meet again.

Zach Groshell: And that kind of what will you do to make this change stick.

Right.

And but you're saying it and like, what are what?

What was most impactful or what was, you know, and what supports do you need?

But what they're gonna do is write down, like, the things I'm going to do are gonna involve this.

And they're basically finishing.

They're just, it's sort of, they're holding themselves to self-monitoring in the next few weeks around the things you've talked about in that meeting.

I think that's.

I think that's important.

Easy to drop that, I suppose.

You just kinda leave, you say, okay, thank you.

Sorry for wasting your time.

And you kind of take off before kind of reinforcing the main meat of the conversation.

How is it going to stick for you?

Gene Tavernetti: Yeah, you need closure.

It's closure.

It's just like what You're, you, this is what we've talked about the entire meeting and we talked about it because it was important to you.

So what were those things that we talked about?

How are.

We going to, how are we gonna get better?

Let's plan on how are we gonna get better?

Yes.

Zach Groshell: Love it.

So we did like a very quick, and gosh, there's a lot more in your book, but you're, you basically a quick run through of what's the structure of a coaching cycle in your book, maximizing coaching cycles?

The number one question I get from folks is, when should I stop meeting with them?

Should I keep doing this?

Like, it's like, it's one of those things, I don't think there's a right answer for every coach or every teacher, but do you have sort of rules of thumb of when is it appropriate to move on from a teacher versus we've gotta stay in this, on this step, or with this teacher for a little while longer.

Otherwise it just won't feel like they're making any improvements.

Gene Tavernetti: Well, I have a a theory about teaching, which I have, which pretty much everything in my life, and that is, it's good enough, like if I work with a teacher, I don't think teachers need to be 100% on everything that they could be.

if they're consistently providing 80% lessons, the kids will get it.

That, that's good enough.

I'm not gonna beat a dead horse.

Everybody could get better.

But if you're doing a good job as a coach, and you know, I saw Zach.

He's good enough.

Zach, let's check in once in a while if there's anything you wanna talk about.

I'm here now that gives the coach time.

To do some triage and spend more time with folks who are gonna need more assistance.

But and then what's gonna happen?

The more you help, the more the coach is seen helping people get better.

And how do you know that they've seen helping people get better?

They'll talk in the staff room.

It'll go from, huh?

You have to see the coach to, yeah, I'm gonna go ask Zach a question, to see if he can help me.

Then that gives permission psychologically to that teacher you worked with before to come back and ask, Hey, I'm working on something, Zach, come see me.

Come see me do this and gimme some feedback.

So, first of all.

You.

Nobody's perfect.

You don't have to be perfect.

That's how I know to move on because I got other people that, like you say, you might have 40 teachers you need to work with.

Zach Groshell: Well, I've loved this conversation.

This discussion.

I know that if you're a coach and you're listening that, you'll find something to take away from what we've we've talked about, maybe just the tweak in your own practice.

I think that those small tweaks, one degree changes, they make a big difference in your overall practice over time.

And so I really do appreciate everybody tuning in and listening.

Jean it's been a pleasure.

As usual listeners, if you could go ahead and give this a five star rating and share this around, we'd really appreciate it.

Take care.

Gene Tavernetti: If you're enjoying these podcasts, tell a friend.

Also, please leave a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

You can follow me on BlueSky at gTabernetti, on Twitter, x at gTabernetti, and you can learn more about me and the work I do at my website, BlueSky.

Tesscg.

com, that's T E S S C G dot com, where you will also find information about ordering my books, Teach Fast, Focus Adaptable Structure Teaching, and Maximizing the Impact of Coaching Cycles.