Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works

Gene Tavernetti: [00:00:00] 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 Jean Taver Netti, 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

My guest today is Rajay Nakan. He's a passionate and collaborative educator who excels in supporting teachers and leaders, drawing on his diverse experience as a former high school English teacher, school improvement leader, instructional coach. He brings [00:01:00] an Wealth of experience to his work. During his time in the classroom, Nockin honed his skills as an engaging and effective teacher, helping students develop their writing and critical thinking abilities.

In his role as a school improvement leader and instructional coach, he collaborated closely with administrators and teacher teams to analyze data, identify areas for growth, and implement research based strategies to drive student achievement. Building upon this foundation, Naka now leverages his versatile background to design and deliver innovative resources, processes, and transformative learning opportunities for educators.

As the host of Science of Dialogue podcast, he draws insights from psychology, philosophy, and linguistics. to inform his approach to educational leadership. Recognized as an inspiring team leader and trusted advisor, Nockin leverages cutting edge educational technologies, including AI powered tools, to enhance teaching and learning experiences.[00:02:00]

Deeply committed to advancing equity, he is dedicated to creating more just and affirming educational experiences for all through his collaborative partnership experience with esteemed partners. esteemed organizations. Rod, good morning. Welcome to Better Teaching.

Rod Naquin: What's up, Gene? I'm so glad to be here and chat with you today. And thanks for that that biography and roll up right there. I'm excited to chat.

Gene Tavernetti: Well, well, me too. I've been looking forward to this. I think anybody who doesn't follow you on Twitter should, that should be the first thing they do after they listen to this podcast. It is, I think one of the most intellectually based Yeah. tweets that see there. And so, so I want everybody to go there. So you've got a lot of stuff going on, Rod. One of the things that I want to talk about with you is you talk about how your experiences are kind of a fusion of philosophy, communication, [00:03:00] linguistics, and I know you're doing your doctoral research in that.

Can you talk about, can you talk about that a little bit?

Rod Naquin: Yeah, so thanks for the shout out for the Twitter. I used to have my profile say, like, this is my desk, and I thought that was, like, a really good representation of how it really was, because my desk can be kind of diverse. You don't want to see actually what it looks like on the other side of the Zoom right now, because my wife is not always a fan of it.

Right. But there's an eclectic mixture there. But I think that does lead into your other part of your question here about like, there's a, I'm fascinated by, of course, educational leadership, because my expertise and experience. But there's elements of psychology there. There's elements of linguistics has been emergent in my experience.

I've realized the linguistic elements of leadership and coaching primarily. And also, there's an underlying philosophies are relevant to the ways that we we think about approaching leadership, the things that we do, our beliefs, in other words, are important for the things that we decide to do in the work that we endeavor for.

So that's kind of [00:04:00] where I'm at. And my Research right now in my EDD program in Louisiana is around how teachers collaborate. So there's a construct that I've zoomed in on called teacher collaborative discourse. That's really been core to a lot of the work that I've been doing the last several years, but the layperson way I would describe that is like, how do adults talk to one another about teaching and learning?

And I really am fascinated by it. How that plays out, especially in buildings, informal circumstances, but also just, I mean, in the Twittersphere is part of it too, like, how are adults talking to one another about what they believe teaching and learning to, to be, and how they try to affect it and work with it.

Gene Tavernetti: This is not a real scientific response to that, but I would say it's not going very well, how they talk to each other and I'm not only on Twitter, but just in, as teachers who are expected to collaborate what are some of the communication issues or core beliefs, or what is it about I don't know if it's the teaching profession or [00:05:00] just being an adult that makes it so difficult to collaborate.

Rod Naquin: Yeah that's a great question. So I got drawn, I was actually in a master's program pursuing kind of administrative work, more administrative work in schools. And that one of the things I'd like to do is like, Hey, pick a construct, something you want to investigate. And at that time I was doing a lot of work in rooms with adults.

So I was either putting together a three day professional learning agenda for a big high school or leading 30 folks in a room that were classroom teachers and coaches and administrators through some professional development. I was doing that primarily around the use of literacy materials in secondary classrooms, but when I started to think about what am I fascinated with in educational research realm, it was about the conversations that adults were having while they were trying to learn.

About their practice. And you admittedly, a big part of it was like the disagreements, the dichotomies, the impediments, obstacles to more effective collaboration or even ways to [00:06:00] better honor the diversities of perspectives that teachers, in my view, rightfully bring to the equation. So it was a lot of time spent.

With teachers in, like, hearing them converse with one another about their work and trying to work with outside entities, leadership, research, whatever it is, trying to figure out a way to make that more effective in their practice. And I mean, there's a lot of commentary, socially and otherwise, about, like, the divisive nature of, especially in this country, at this particular point in time.

But the once I started to look at teacher collaborative discourse, I started to find more names. For things that I see, not only in the context of like a teacher training, or planning, but also in the discourse around the edusphere, the ways folks are talking about education from even outside of the the schooling playfield, so to speak.

Gene Tavernetti: Okay, so you said you're getting your your EdD, which means you got to use all this stuff. So, so everything that you just talked about there makes total sense about talking about all the issues that we have. What [00:07:00] sort of strategies have you used working with teachers to help them collaborate better, to have better conversations?

Rod Naquin: So, love the question, and the, when I started zooming in on teacher collaborative discourse, I found this fella named Adam Lefstein, and he's been involved with quite a bit of research about, around discourse in classrooms, and Some of it is what we would typically think about, like if you go into a teaching and learning inside of a classroom where the te there's a name teacher and there's students in the classroom, and we look at the discourse there.

That's one avenue of research, but he started researching like the adults some collaborating with one another. What do they do when they do lesson studies, so to speak? What do they do when they have a professional learning community? So inside of his research, I've started to find quite a few pieces that I think were relevant, right?

So he's done some look some looks at. Dichotomous discourse, so ways that in collaboration we end up with a binary or two camps that can be misrepresentative, but it [00:08:00] can affect the collaboration. You might be familiar. We can talk a little bit more about that. Another concept he lifts up is like teacher face or this idea of Who is in a part of the collaboration affects what I want to lift up about my practice, so it's different if I'm talking to my colleague in a collaborative planning, and there's an instructional coach there.

Maybe there's a different way I'll speak about my practice because of the different kind of positional elements. That's another one teacher face. And then finally, He's started to identify more of a framework that they've named it's research backed at least, and it's been starting to be tested the name, they name it Pedagogically Productive Talk, so they give some hallmarks of ways that we can try to invite our collaboration to be more have more of an effect on the pedagogy.

On the practice that we apply in our classroom going forward. Parts of that are, is that it's supported, but also critical that there are elements of student artifacts of learning is another element there. So that's what I've started to discover. So when I [00:09:00] go, when I'm working with leaders and teachers, those are the, some of the things that I'm trying to bring about to improve their collaboration, right?

So that some of those pedagogically productive elements, and we can talk a little bit more about those, Jean.

Gene Tavernetti: Okay. Well, I do want to talk a little bit more about them because you talked about and I don't remember the term. I remember it started with a D. That's as good as I have with regard to what are the aspects? And you gave the example of maybe there's a, an instructional coach in the room.

How about is the dynamic similar? If there is an imbalance regarding experience of the teachers, how is that reflected in the collaboration?

Rod Naquin: That's really great thing to lift up, right? So one of the. The things that I think is relevant from my work for folks who are doing coaching or teacher collaboration, teacher leadership, or. Even administrative work and otherwise is the import of each little thing that folks say, like each [00:10:00] utterance each like part of the conversation.

So I think sometimes we tend to think about. affecting educational train, change as like a concrete process to play out. And I'm not, there are many amazing things we can do through concrete codified process. But the point I'm trying to make is that there's a dynamic, informal talk that's always happening, that as a leader, and as a collaborator, My awareness of that can affect the quality of my collaboration.

So, it, when we that, that suggests that a process in itself, without thinking about the individuals that are playing it out, is not the complete picture. So when you say, hey, like, it could be an instructional coach with three teachers, it could be three teachers, one of them with 20 years experience, one of them with two months experience, and one of them with five years experience, There we still get a positional dynamic because of that.

It's just anchored in a different base of credibility as [00:11:00] I think that would be sensible enough, right? So the credibility of my 15 years experience in comparison or contrast to the credibility of two months experience. I will say that clearly there's a difference between the expertise claim there. I think we started to get into rhetoric, right?

So if you're a philosophy person, I think that's relevant as well, right? So like, why is it, why is the expertise of the 20 year vet in the room? How do we view that when they collaborate with us to the, I was like the 10 year experience instructional coach in the room with a 20 year teacher. So you can, I guess what I'm pointing out is that, There's a dynamism to there's a bunch of variables that could affect the collaboration from that perspective.

Gene Tavernetti: And I think you're going to, you're moving from some of this research that you talked about that has, you know, a theoretical description of what goes on, to now I think moving And correct me if I'm wrong, moving to more of a psychological aspect of how do we get these folks to work together given these [00:12:00] differences of experience or perceived differences of knowledge about the process.

Rod Naquin: And one thing I want to lift up, and I think it's relevant to one of your the previous questions in this stream, is in another, there was a phrase in one of Adam Levstein's articles, I think there's one that I go through all the time, it's called, like, Relocating Research on Teacher Collaborative Discourse from about four or five years ago.

And there was a little bitty phrase that I highlighted and I it's that teachers conversations about their practice are often asynchronous with their practice. And let me unpack that for you a little bit, right? So, and it only made sense to me because we were in like COVID land and thinking about async and synchronous, the, that's the only reason why I knew that term.

But the meaning of it is that when I'm meeting with Eugene, if you're my coach and I'm a 10th grade English language arts teacher, Oftentimes, there's not like a really objective description of what happened in my second period class last Thursday. In other words, I'm telling you my experience of [00:13:00] it from the teacher's perspective.

I'm recounting my memory of those 90 minutes. I may have a set of artifacts, like my plan that I used on that date. Maybe my slides or the instructional materials. Maybe some examples of student artifacts and things they wrote or whatever it is. So it's often I'm talking to you about the moment of my teaching at a different time, right?

So that changes. It's like a game of telephone. It happens. So one of the things that's suggested in pedagogically productive talk research and you see this More broadly, in a lot of instructional coaching, there's more of an emphasis on it, is the clarity of what we're talking about. So, Jim Knight, I just went to his conference earlier this week.

He talks about getting a clear picture of reality. So, one of the things that I think that's relevant for our conversations is that, like, are we talking about the same thing? And the more artifacts Of teaching to bridge that gap of like, I'm talking about something that, that we, I have, we have to talk about something that happened last week because that's how our planning structure works, [00:14:00] but how can we represent that more richly to make sure our conversation is anchored more thoughtfully in the actual reality of teaching, rather than my perception of what happened last week, if that makes sense.

Gene Tavernetti: It makes absolute sense. I have two, two thoughts. One I'll mention right now, and the other one I'm sure I'll forget, but the this has to do with the whole idea of teacher collaboration and PLCs. And what are, in my mind, and what I tell people is there are some prerequisites that I think deal apart, deal partly with what you just talked about with respect to objective reality, and that is there needs to be a system where a couple things occur.

One that there's a shared, shared reality about whatever it is we're going to be focused on with respect to instruction. So when we go into this experience, this is, we share this already, okay? There, there is an objective, there is an objective [00:15:00] reality that the coach maybe has talked about previously with a, with the teacher.

And then the next step is the coach being in the classroom a lot to know what that teacher says so that when they are interpreting, when they are interpreting their reality, the coach has some some context for what they're talking about, both what they did, what, how the students are behaving, et cetera.

And then that third piece I think is critical to collaboration is having the other teachers. have that same experience, that they're watching each other, so they have so, so if Rod tells me something happened, And how he did something. I, it's, I have a picture in my mind because I have it. So, so that we become closer to an objective reality, regardless how Rod talks about it.

Thoughts?

Rod Naquin: Yeah. So the I love that I was taking some notes and I think many of the things you're lifting up there are relevant to what our. Had the opportunity last month. It was October, I think, [00:16:00] 21 in Delaware. I went to research ed. I think you have some connections with research ed. And my presentation was simply titled The Science of Dialogue.

I brought six papers. I promise you this is relevant to what you just said. I brought in my presentation was just six papers that I believe to be relevant, really relevant to when we think about dialogue and educational circumstances. And I ended up at the end, the sixth paper is about something from psychology research.

It's it's called the Interactive Alignment Account. And it's a so from psychology research, and there's been a lot of two core researchers the Martin Pickering and Simon Garraud, I think, out of the UK over the last 25 years have developed this model and synthesized quite a bit of research.

But their point is that when we have a conversation, we're trying to align our representation. We're doing many different things to end up with the same kind of model, but what they call it as a situational model. Like I was saying, I just went to TLC's conference. I saw Haley Hughes and Sarah Cotton had talked about mental models and in the context of instructional coaching.

So what you're [00:17:00] saying is for us to talk about our practice, we need a shared reality, right? We need like a representation of something that we agree is. To some measure objective. Now I could go into philosophy land about objectivity right there, we, at least we're talking about the same thing, right?

We have same map that we're referring to. So, so what, why I'm lifted up in interactive alignment is because like, I think that's what the charge of coaching is, but it's also ubiquitous in our talk, in our regular lives. Like I'm trying to understand what you're referring to. In order for me to comprehend what you're saying and to move forward in our conversation, so ways that you can try to support that from a leadership point of view or collaborative point of view is important.

So I agree. The research bears out what you said, like having a shared reality coaches being in the classroom is another part of it, right? So I'm in the room while the teacher is there. So it no longer is it necessary for the teacher to try to communicate all of the different variables that were party to their [00:18:00] decision if I'm trying to coach them through a moment like how did kids enter, how did I respond to a certain prompts when kids had lifted something up in discussion, whatever it is.

So coach being there means they have more of a comparable model to the teacher they're trying to work with. And then finally. I agree with that last piece too, like the other teachers having that experience as well, right? So then you broaden the opportunities for you to be aligned on what you mean by an effective instructional practice.

So I think there's a lot from what I see in the science of dialogue literature that would support. Systemically trying to have shared reality coaches really being in classrooms a lot to know what the teacher's experiencing and then other teachers having that opportunity as well.

Gene Tavernetti: And I know another thing. I know Haley talks a lot about the use of video and I think the use of video is good. After we've accomplished some of those things that we just talked about, because otherwise it becomes a well, [00:19:00] first of all, it takes a long time in my experience, even the best teacher to say How would you like to be videoed?

We used to pay teachers. We used to pay teachers a hundred bucks video, and we're gonna use, you know, you're so good we're gonna use your video in our trainings and It was tough. It was tough. There's a big degree of vulnerability. So getting, I think it's great when you could get there, but I think, I don't think you want to get there too soon.

Because, you know, you're really asking people to be vulnerable. And I know I was listening to somebody talk the other day about, you know, fostering a culture of coaching culture. And I think there's a big difference between fostering it and creating it. You know, first we got to create it, you know, with all of these things that, that we're talking about, then we can really move forward to other things.

Rod Naquin: Huh. That's fascinating. No, I, the, one of the things I was excited about having an opportunity to talk to Eugene is because the [00:20:00] and the, I'm gonna go back to the philosophical stream for a moment. Right. The, one of the. The first slides I used, and my presentation is available online for anybody listening.

If you go to my sub stack, you should be able to find it. The slides I use at ResearchEd for the Science of Dialogue. One of the first things I bring up is an anecdote about the kind of mystic philosopher Arumi, who's one of the most famous poets around the world nowadays. But there's a story about his ability to have conversations across party lines, so to speak, right?

And the story goes is that the dignitaries around were like, Hey, Rumi, like, I hear that you can agree with everybody, but, like, these folks over here don't agree with them, and they don't agree with them, and they don't agree with them, but, like, so how do you agree with all these people at the same time?

And his response to the dignitary is that like, I agree with you too, period. But I named that story because, and, I like talking to you because of what you just said, right? So like, you can't just say, Hey, we're just going to [00:21:00] video everything in your classroom. You, it's going to be great. You know, we'll have the same objective picture of our reality.

And then like, we'll go there or like the distinction you made too, between like fostering and creating, right? So you can't foster something that hasn't been created. And if you go in there and then you ask folks to be like. really vulnerable and forthright with something that's, of course, is professional, but it has many personal elements.

They're teacherly practice. So that the reason why I bring up the Rumi story is 'cause like, I like the spirit underlying that is that there's a spirit of humility. There's something if, even if I'm, if even if I went to the big conference and I know, like I can cite 50 papers on why looking at videos is really important for your practice as your coach, you not gonna want to care about that, right?

Not

Gene Tavernetti: right.

Rod Naquin: a humane. That's not a humane way for me to bring that, like, lit review in your classroom, and that's the reason why you're supposed to put the swivel there and send me the video on Google Drive. You see what I'm saying?

Gene Tavernetti: Yeah. Yeah.

Rod Naquin: What I like [00:22:00] about the Rumi thing is that, like, I need an answer. If it's my charge and my responsibility, and I believe in it, like, to support a teacher to do even better work for kids, that I need to have some humility about what they know, and if they're telling me something about, like, I don't want to send a video.

I, I should try to understand why they're coming from that point of view rather than bring them like a bunch of like just rationalizations for why they should have a different point of view. I'm not saying that I won't engage them and try to get there. But anyway, that's a lot of word salad. Yeah, I think that's, it's really relevant.

There's so many dynamics when we work with teachers.

Gene Tavernetti: Yeah. You know, it's funny. You relate that story. The story that I relate is and I haven't figured out how to say it in a non politically charged world, but two disputants go before a Sufi judge and the judge says, okay, so tell me your case. And he listens to the first guy and the judge says, you're right.

And then the second disputant [00:23:00] says, well, wait a second, you haven't even heard my side. And he says, well, let's hear it. And the judge looks at him and says, you're right. And then they, the two look at each other and tell the judge, well, we both can't be right. Said, you're right. So it's a very similar story.

And so, I appreciate that. And I always appreciate philosophy stories. So, even if I can't understand them. Every time, in fact, time I tell that story, I think, what does it mean?

Rod Naquin: Well, go, I can go pretty radical to, and I'll interject just real quick 'cause I know we have a lot of things we wanna talk about. But like, another thing I go, like I come, I was a high school teacher, a lit, a literacy teacher, a high school language arts teacher, and I come, so I come to Ed research for, with a humanities emphasis.

That's why I think that I'm part, I advocate for philosophical viewpoints on our research that we do. because I come from a humanities background. And I will say that we can learn, there's a, I get that it's, there's a difference between empiricism and objective science and all [00:24:00] this kind of stuff. I think sometimes we shortchange what we can learn from a humanities perspective in little anecdotes such as the ones that we've just shared.

and in literature as well. So right, I go back to Don Quixote all the time, and Sancho is his friend, and at the end of this story, spoiler alert, sorry, Sancho gets to become the governor of his island, and he's the judge, and people keep going to him to decide the disputes, and he's like, I thought I wanted to do this, but I don't want to do this.

There's a lot we learn from those kind of stories about the reality of management, governance, leadership, and the human Aspects of that aspiration, you know, so I just want to interject and say that like that's why I lean into some of the literary and philosophical elements because they're part of they flesh out what we know through learning science and otherwise that can be important for our practice.

Gene Tavernetti: you know, I think again, to piggyback on that, I think I became much more empathetic after reading Alice in Wonderland. [00:25:00] And it was when I don't know if it was a Cheshire cat, maybe, you know, said words mean exactly what I want them to mean or something to that effect. When I realized that I'm just going to defer, you know, I don't need to agree with your definition.

I just need to understand. what you're saying. And so, that is, that has helped me a lot, I think be a better coach, to be more empathetic, and it could transition us into another topic a little bit in that and you touched on it peripherally, and that is, I'm not going to are a lot of people that say, you know what, if the teachers just do the research, if the teachers just do the research I, don't believe that.

And my counterpoint is, look you know, everybody knows how to be fit. You eat better, you exercise, but people aren't lined up to go to the gym. We already know enough. It's not knowing intellectually. That's not the answer. So, so [00:26:00] when I do training, Even if I know that there's some research to back it up, I don't talk about it, you know, because the research to me is just a description of reality.

You know, it just describes phenomena, natural phenomena in the world. And so when I'm talking to a teacher and we're describing, well, you know what, you know, when you talked for 30 minutes and nobody's paying attention anymore and everybody's screwing around, They're shaking their heads. Yeah. Well, guess what?

There's some research behind, you know, behind that and, but I'm not going to don't, they don't need to know because their experience tells them. Yeah. What's an answer? Give me an answer. Don't tell me, don't give me 10 references. Yeah.

Rod Naquin: So this might jive with your philosophy experience, and I've entertained this idea of maybe this conversation will like kick me a little bit in the backside in order to go further down, but it's epistemology for educational leaders, [00:27:00] and I probably didn't want to call it that, but maybe you should, but epistemology is just like the stock, the study of knowing, like how we know things, and the reason why I bring that up right now is.

Of course. What many journals are reporting through the amazing research that folks are doing all around this world and have done for a long period of time, that's an amazing source of knowing, like, the claims that are generated through our research in classrooms and otherwise can really, of course, inform our practice.

They're, teachers know stuff. They're hanging out with kids all day long in their classrooms. It looks different when they testify, right? So that's another word when, if you look at knowing From a more philosophical perspective, like the ways that we share our knowing through evidence that we gather through instruments or through the testimony we provide, right?

So when I mentioned earlier, oftentimes teachers are telling, are planning asynchronous to their practice. I'm giving you a testimony of [00:28:00] what. Happened in my 10th grade classroom, and the sensibility of that gives you a little bit more of a vibe where I'm coming from, right? So then we need to think about what is, when we think about the explanation of practice as a testimony, we can think about it differently, right?

So it's imbued with somebody's personal experience. The reason why I'm bringing all of that up is because It's because I think like, and I went to this topic because I stood in front of teachers and leaders all the time and heard them criticize the things that I was bringing to them, and we would bring them reporting on the opportunity myth about kids assignments and the reason why they should use this material in their room kind of stuff, and these are smart amazing.

People, right, oftentimes had more classroom experience than I did that were criticizing this. And it didn't matter how airtight the Dan Willingham quote about memory and residue was, they didn't care. But and part of it was trying to understand, it's not that they didn't care, I don't necessarily want to disenfranchise that, they, it's that, it's that they have a, Epistemology.

They have knowledge, they know things and they're trying to like see what it [00:29:00] means. What's the relevance of this research to their context that they know really well. So I, I agree with much of the spirit, at least what I'm hearing you saying, like, I don't think it's like, like if teachers did the research and read all the journals, that all of a sudden that they would that may be a SHRM man in some ways, but all of a sudden they would change their practice.

Right. But I like how you said it like. Like, research is oftentimes describing things that teachers observe already in their practice, or it's a description of the natural world so I think the more that we can understand that a teacher is doing a lot of science, they're making a lot of observations, they're making a lot of predictions, they're hypothesizing about It helps.

So What kids are doing and why they're doing this thing. So the effects of their instructional practice, it just, it, it formulated differently than what we would encounter in a different kind of a mode.

Gene Tavernetti: And I think it's important to acknowledge that to teachers that, you know, this, I mean, you know, I know people talk about, oh, that's, you know, oh, you're coaching from an [00:30:00] asset, you know, versus a deficit. Well, everybody wants to be recognized for what they know for crying out loud. Just say, yeah.

Yeah, you know, when you do that's very effective. That's very effective when you did that. Okay. I want to switch gears slightly, but I want to have one last thing to say about the PLCs. First of all I don't know how many schools I've worked with in the last 20 years. I've never seen a PLC work effectively.

And And whenever I say that, everybody laughs because it's the, you know, and it is so much like when you put kids in groups, okay, oh, we're collaborating today and you put the kids in group and you have one kid, you know, do all the work and the other kid waits till it gets done and the other one's moving in and out.

And You know, a lot of times PLCs, you know, work like that too. Somebody dominates. And so my point, my big point and which is going to get to my question has to do with asking kids to collaborate [00:31:00] every day. And there are some some curricula that, you know, will promote that, that we're going to, we're going to work in a group every day.

You got your groups, or we're going to work with a new group every day. I'm telling you I've been on the earth few decades. And I think I've collaborated two or three times effectively in my whole life. And that may say more about me, but to come up with something that is, you know, that synthesis of like, wow, it's a better product because we work together.

And then having an adult. in the room, try to mediate that thing that's going on, that they can't do it with adults. And now, but we're going to ask you to do it as kids. Uh, what do you know about collaborative work with kids and the dialogic implications there? Yeah.

Rod Naquin: friend, a friend of mine that I saw again at research ed that she does a great job online of of calling out like this, like bias to like classroom organizational [00:32:00] furniture into, it must be in groups, right? And I'll admit, as a high school teacher, I walked into this building, I had a mentor teacher, she helped me set up, I shouldn't blame it on her, I made this decision.

I always had classrooms that had kids in positive four, and the more that I reflect on it from my point of view right now, I think that was probably A disservice to many different kids, but it was just I share that testimony because I want to own like the decision that I made and the responsibility I had there and like what knowledge I had and didn't have and like how that plays out when a teacher arrives.

I was like 5 years experience walking into a building. This is the way it is. This is the way we set up a classroom. This is the way that an ELA happens, and you have a shoulder partner not saying that this discourse is important. You have this one, you have the cross, but here's the structure, this is what middle, that kind of thing, right?

So one of the things that I've learned is, and I take a Socratic approach, the older I get, the more I do it, is like, what are the assumptions that are embedded there? Like, There's an [00:33:00] assumption that for some reason the cross collaboration is going to enhance what happens for every person and I share some of your experience that you shared there.

I don't know how many times I've collaborated and really had a fruitful, like, better than the sum of its parts kind of outcome, though I was in a band for a while and like, and that's the only context that I can think of where, and I didn't really like most of our stuff, but you made me think about that and that's a relevant thought, right?

So, like, we had to have. We couldn't make music unless we had collaborators. Maybe that's something I would be thinking about if I was in a classroom right now, like is the artifact at the end, in that context, it's a recorded song with multiple instruments, right? Does it, is it necessary for there to be collaborators?

So that may be something I would be thinking about if I was a high school teacher. Oftentimes I think there's a discord, right? So like, you're collaborating right now, but the artifact at the end is that each of you have like a paper or a paragraph or something about it. You know, and even in [00:34:00] that, you know, that can be challenging.

So, the I have the. I do have a radical belief that I, my knowing is like dependent upon other folks, like I have to be in a world with other people in order to like make sense of my experience, but whether or not that's relevant for instructional moments all day long in classrooms is a different question, right?

So, I would probably not be putting them all into groups of four if I was teaching right now, but that doesn't mean I would be avoiding collaboration. I would just be thinking about it differently.

Gene Tavernetti: Yeah. Well, I'm just, you know, been doing a lot of thinking lately with with some folks. We're collaborating. Actually, these are with, I'm collaborating with these folks and we're talking about you know, the the behavior of kids is deteriorated somewhat, you know, and the dysregulated kid and that sort of thing.

Again, asking, you know, dysregulated adults to now [00:35:00] lead dysregulated kids and it's just we're trying to come up with some actions that people can take to come up with better outcomes. But

Rod Naquin: So, do you, are you familiar with this little phrase I guess like talk moves, right? That it's how relevant is this idea of talk moves and some of the things that you think you've applied with folks in the past? Is that phrase ring a bell for you or

Gene Tavernetti: The, you know what, the phrase doesn't ring a bell, but give me a quick description and if I under if I am familiar with it, I'll stop you. So what are you talking about?

Rod Naquin: simple talk mood would be like, say more, right? Or you share some evidence for that? Or why do you think that? Or they're a lot, they're very similar to coaching questions. If you've there's that famous book, like, The Coaching Habit that's that kind of idea. So

Gene Tavernetti: Okay. So the answer is yes. Yes.

Rod Naquin: Okay. So that is what really was also part of the motivation for me to look at teacher collaborative discourse. And one of the things that I would say. In [00:36:00] the context of collaboration, like our last question, right? So when you ask kids to go collaborate with one another, they like who's doing the moves, like who's doing the talk moves, like, is it the kid that has the most kind of background knowledge?

Is it the kid with a different personality or different kind of set of skills or a kid that probably has discursive like practice, you know, they're the one that steps up and says, Hey, you do this. Hey, you do this. Hey, you do that. Or a teacher tries to name roles or whatever it is that the thing that I'm trying to lift up more so is that it's a lot like the thesis of the coaching habit that you can do coaching all the time with these little questions and that a lot of the work we try to accomplish alongside one another.

It's conversational, it's linguistic, it's discursive, and it can be prompted, it is prompted all the time, we just don't necessarily see it through little talk moves with one another. So, I was drawn to teacher collaboration by meditating, basically, on talk moves, like, how can you use a little move like say more to invite [00:37:00] prac classroom practice, to give a richer representation, to have a next move for coaching.

So the reason why I want to lift that up is because, That's what I think is, I used to be charged with going to PLCs, quote unquote, right, and I didn't, and to me it was like this paradox, it was like, okay, so wait, you want me to go to the PLC, but you don't want me to lead the PLC, because the PLC is supposed to lead itself in this thing, right, and that's the impetus of it, is to develop the teacher leadership, but then like, who is the leader, isn't, So to me that, like, ambiguity was not helpful because it didn't, like, na like, It's too many chefs in the kitchen kind of thing, and I'm not saying I'm always a directive person, but the point that I'm trying to make there is that, like, that naming, like, who's driving the conversation can be really helpful and powerful, and then looking at how do you drive that conversation through your talk moves and your intentional questions and [00:38:00] prompts is the next part of my research that kind of or my case for ed leads, if that makes sense.

So a classroom context kids don't have that skill. And a PLC, it's like, it can be so ambiguous, it's unhelpful.

Gene Tavernetti: Yeah. Well, it's funny, you know, having those, what did you call, what did you call them? Talk moves?

Rod Naquin: Talk moves.

Gene Tavernetti: Talk moves. You know, I know that I have talked when I've trained coaches about some similar things. And instead of calling them talk moves I just called them scripted conversations or scripted you know, responses.

And one of the questions that they have is that, well, can you do that all the time? Aren't they going to be, of course you can do it all the time because then it becomes meta. Yeah. I mean, you know, when I asked the, you know, when I've coached a teacher several times, I'll say, you know what I'm going to ask you, don't you?

And they go, yes, and that's good. That's what I want because I'm modeling how I want you to be reflective. And so many times [00:39:00] initially in those talk moves, you know, because it could be something that's on a classroom wall. It could be something in your PLC yeah, once you do it, you may laugh about it at first and think that it is so structured, so formal, but guess what?

That's how we do it. You know, that's how we do it.

Rod Naquin: I like how you say structured and formal there, because another part of, one of the papers I brought to research ed was also about paradox, and and this is because I see oftentimes when you work with teachers collaborating, Camps start to emerge and dichotomies like, Hey, like we should totally do everything explicit or inquiry.

You know, like, like we make these camps up and I'm not saying there's not validity for different arguments. And there's a lot of amazing people who know more than me that can argue in that particular domain. But what I'm interested is the discursive thing, like that emerges and like, why does that emerge?

But what do we do from a place of goodwill when we see a dichotomy emerge? And to me, that's where talk news can really help us out. I pulled this little research I've used this [00:40:00] little resource I've used before to name more concretely what we might mean by talk moves, right? So, part of it is like, so, are you saying X, Y, Z, like a paraphrase, right?

So, I'm trying to understand, like you mentioned earlier, when you said, hey, a shared reality. I'm trying to get at I'm trying to better understand your shared reality. I'm trying to have the same mental model or concept scheme scenario model in my mind. Like, I can ask for evidence. Why do you think that?

What is like, what is behind you? How did you arrive at that conclusion is another way to say it. I can try to point out a counter. I can be really the gadfly like Socrates, like, Does it always work that way? Does that assumption bear out? Like, when you have kids sitting four in a table, does it always bear out that their contributions, the artifacts that they're learning are refined as a result, right?

So, I think they, and the reason why I like how you said is that formal, like people work with me a lot, they start to notice that like, I knew you were going to say that, and can you say more there kind of thing. They notice the talk moves start to emerge. [00:41:00] I try to make the argument sometimes that it's informal, but it's kind of both and, you know, like a really intentional thing I'm doing on purpose to ask you that question, but I'm leveraging it in a moment that is responsive to what has just happened and where we're trying to go.

So I think it's kind of a boat. It's a. Formal tool applied in an informal moment in oftentimes in my practice, at least. Yeah.

Gene Tavernetti: sometimes people will argue about Socratic methodology and different things and I'd say, that's great, but you know how he ended up, don't you? So,

Rod Naquin: Yeah. If that's why I say I'm kind of a radical, right? So, you know, like if you really want to go to Socratic route, then I mean, we could go there, but I'll just, I'll send you something Gene, about TalkMoves. There's this cool resource from a science organization that is called TERC, T E R C about TalkMoves that I think is really relevant and really helpful as well.

Gene Tavernetti: awesome. Well, you know what? There was a whole bunch of things that I [00:42:00] wanted to talk to you about and we're going to have to talk again, right? Because yeah,

Rod Naquin: glad we did it. I'm glad we did it because I like so look, I'm really interested in linguistics and philosophy and psychology. There's something that's happening right now in 2024 that it also evokes like really fundamental questions and psychology philosophy and linguistics called language models and artificial intelligence.

And I know that we're both interested in that. And the and I'd love to chat with you more about that. But also glad, I'm also glad that we got to talk more about the core of my experience and expertise, which really is, like, talk classrooms, the way adults and kids talk about the work that they're doing with teaching and learning, and it's been a blessing to chat with you about it.

Gene Tavernetti: Oh, I've had a great time here. Did you say you had a question for me?

Rod Naquin: So, yes, this, because I'm, I know, I have such respect for your experience and expertise, the, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do something that I probably shouldn't. Well, I don't like to bring up [00:43:00] dichotomies on purpose, but I'm a paradoxical guy, right? So people tend to think about coaching in one lens is through these two buckets.

Technocratic or technical and adaptive. I don't know if you've heard of those two buckets. Have you ever heard it framed that way before? Like, technical or adaptive?

Gene Tavernetti: again, explain give me a quick explanation. And I probably have, but I don't recall the label. So,

Rod Naquin: So like the tech, technical. Yeah, the technical is a lot of like process, cycle, protocol, like the this step. And the more of the documentation and text part of it. And adaptive is like relational, human, spontaneous, dynamic. So coaching is tended to, in my experience, be approached sometimes with some of those elements or one or the other.

Like, what do you think? And you kind of. Mentioned some of it hints. It suggested it earlier. Like, what do you think are the top three [00:44:00] things that coaches need to be doing? Are they really like more technical pieces or adaptive pieces? I guess if that question makes sense.

Gene Tavernetti: Well, I think the first thing is and then you can, you put, let me tell you what I think you put them into the categories. It goes back to one of the things that we said before about the coach needs to be familiar with the teacher.

Rod Naquin: Okay.

Gene Tavernetti: when I talk about, in fact, are you going to research ed?

I'm going to be talking about developing professional relationships with teachers. In fact, it's called Developing Relationships Without Chocolate. And so the idea is if you think of professional relationships like a doctor, if I asked you, do you have a doctor you like? you told me yes, I could guess why.

He listens to me. He respects my time. She you know, she's not gonna give me advice that's not gonna fit me and I think that's the type of relationship that a coach needs to have. They need to have that knowledge of the [00:45:00] teacher so that there is this, an objective reality when we're talking about.

The only way to know that is to spend time in that teacher's classroom a few minutes at a time. Because, you know, how do they come in the, how do they come in the room? How do they transition? How do they do these things? And, I'm not giving any feedback about that until I know who this person is, because, guess what?

If it's a bad day, teacher doesn't want feedback. He said, it was a bad day! So, so, why are you talking about that? So, That

Rod Naquin: would say that's, I would say that's adaptive, right? And then in a different, in some context, that's just me saying that I'm not saying everybody would have to accept it that but in some contexts, it may be interpreted that it's. I like the, I told you this before, I like the title with the chocolate, right?

So like, am I building the relationship before I'm doing the coaching kind of thing? What do you think about that state response to that?[00:46:00]

Gene Tavernetti: well, yeah, you develop, you're developing the professional relationship. Okay, so now you go into the doctor's office and he spent time, he knows you, and this is developed over time. It's not going to happen the first time you go to the doctor. Same thing with the coaching relationship. It's going to develop over time because now when I go into the doctor, I trust that the doctor knows me.

Well, guess what? Now it's up to the doctor. The doctor had better have some expertise. The doctor better be good. Same thing with the coach. So now that I know you Rod and I know how you operate now when I better have some things that are really going to provide you some support, some answers.

I'm not going to give you some BS, go read this article. No let's work on this thing right now. And You know, if it's something that we need to practice, we'll practice it. But it's going to be, I'm going to respect your time. I know you, and I'm only going to talk about things that are going to help you.

So adaptive [00:47:00] or technical. Well, how about that

Rod Naquin: what I'm hearing, what I'm hearing, and it's challenging my own, like, dichotomies in many ways, but like, when I hear about, you gotta understand a teacher, you gotta know what their reality is, like, what's happening in their classroom, you gotta, like, just, like, what people say when you're a first year administrator, like, just paint the walls, you know, just listen everybody for twelve months, you know what I mean, like, don't like, go at them all the time, To me, that's adaptive.

However, I can see, like, the technical component of getting, like, the technical part is, like, spend a lot of time in their classroom. Like, how many minutes have you been there? Like, you know, that kind of thing. There's a technical way, a technique to adapting your service to the teacher. So, but what I'm hearing is, hey, like, I can't, I don't know what technique is going to be the most effective or the most, like, the, most sensible next step for both of us until I can adapt to your context.

Like, I need to know what your room looks like with the 25, 28 kids, with sections, whatever it is, in order for me to technically apply [00:48:00] it sensibly in a way that you would actually like uptake anything or like not feel an affront to your personal dignity about whatever I'm trying to apply as an intervention.

Gene Tavernetti: I'll give you one story. I was working with a coach years ago and it was, usually it doesn't matter what the gender is. In this case, it matters the gender. This was a young woman, young, Everybody's young to me now, but I'm going to say she, know if she, I don't know if she was 30, and obviously she had been a successful teacher because now she was a coach.

And so we're talking about how she works with teachers, and she said, you know what, when I was a, when I was a teacher. I drew on my experiences as being a head cheerleader. And what I would do is could find some kind of rap or cheer or something that we could do. I could create it on the spot to help the kids remember the content.

And I'm looking at her and I said, you know what? I didn't say this out loud, but I'm just thinking, I have [00:49:00] a teacher. I said, I ain't rapping, you know, that's how you did it. Help me, you know, and you can't help me unless you've been in my classroom and you know, how I do things, you know, what are my procedures?

Because so that's how I look at at my coaching. I have to know what's going on. I'm not going to give a bunch of advice. To let them think I'm smart. I have to let think, you know, I want them to know that I think they're smart. That's what I want.

Rod Naquin: yeah, well, see, I got inspired to research this and by Gotsky, I know there's all kind of different opinions. There's and I've struggled to find a provenance of this quote from by Gotsky, but it's quote, like, through others, I become myself and I know that some people can use that to justify collaborative work in a classroom.

Right? But that's why I bring a philosophy and linguistics, but I really do believe that. The like they're like monologue is downstream from dialogue. That sounds strange, but like consciousness is not just mine. Like I have to share it with someone else. [00:50:00] And that's really an important thing for me to have kind of ironed out when I try to work with somebody else.

Right. So like I needed to like adapt to what your reality is because I am not at your address. That's another thing I've learned through dialogue is that you have your own address. When I'm trying to talk to you I'm trying to hit it to your address. I can't stand there because you're standing there right now and I can't be where you are.

So what does that mean for me if I'm trying to work alongside you? Like, it means I need a, like, a know about your situation so that I can adapt whatever I'm trying to do alongside you to be important to that context. If your situation is that, like, You weren't on a cheer team and you weren't in Rakim and Eric B and you weren't like dropping your MC mixtapes all the time, MC Gene, then that's not going to work for you.

So, but it's been a blessing to talk to you today, Gene, and I'm excited to have a follow up, a part two.

Gene Tavernetti: All right. Hey, Rod, thank you so, so much. We'll talk soon.

Rod Naquin: This was great. Have a blessed day and have a great weekend.

Gene Tavernetti: Thank you too, Rod. Bye [00:51:00] bye. If you are enjoying these podcasts, please give us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts, and you can find me on Twitter, x at G Tabernetti, and on my website, tesscg. com, that's T E S C G dot com, where you'll get information about how to order my books, teach fast, focused, adaptable, structured teaching, and maximizing the impact of coaching cycles.

Thank you for listening. We'll talk to you soon