Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works

Gene Tavernetti: Welcome, everyone. Today's episode of Better Teaching is another installment of a conversation with Zach Groshell, something we call Thinking Out Loud, where we discuss topics involved in the implementation of instructional coaching and all things instructional coaching. Zach, most of you know, is the author of the new book, Just Tell Them, which is available wherever you buy your books.

So today we're going to be thinking out loud about pros and cons of various coaching models. And one of the things that people who listen to your podcast and some of the folks who listen to my podcast Know that we have we are influenced.

Zach Groshell: Yeah, I mean, the, from what I understand, and I know this intimately as a, as the, as an employee, as the director of step lab USA, which is that, which is a British based company, but now that's everywhere. The, we are instructional coach as a full time roles, instructional coach type of role.

They teach one lesson. And so you've got that where definitely it's a little bit messier, maybe I could say than it would be with the full time instructional coach, but that's what we're here for. to kind of thinking through the pros and cons of these different models. And maybe we kind of come to what's ideal if, you know, if there was infinite money and time and you could design it from the ground up, you know, what would we prefer?

And they were going to be the coach for their department. And you know, like most schools, they got one prep per day, but in order to coach the rest of their folks, they gave them a second prep. So the idea was that these teachers would coach in that extra period, the other folks in their, in their department.

Gene Tavernetti: well, the first thing, the first thing was there's an assumption that the best teacher is going to be the best coach and they're, you know, there are levels of knowledge about teaching and like I always said, you know, you know, when I was an administrator, gosh, if I'm the best teacher on this staff, you know, I'm going to be disappointed because there are people who are great teachers and just, they're great with kids.

Where's my head? I mean, my head is in my primary responsibility, which is my, my classes. And it's almost like, well, if I have time, I'll, I'll get to them. And then the other problem, the logistical problem is how do you get to all those folks in that one period? What if they have a prep period? What if they're not doing, you know, there are all sorts of logistical problems.

You don't want to come in and mess up a kid's day. You don't want them to misbehave because the lesson isn't. Well designed and perky pace and so on. What about the coaching responsibilities? What is the right? There wasn't coaching before things happened, right? You can, the teachers aren't going to demand the same level of, you know, consistent, predictable support as kids will in a one hour period.

Some of them are planning so you can meet with them, but you can't observe their lesson. And some of the teachers are not probably high priority to coach anyway. You know, the, whatever, it's a specialist teacher, you know, so, so you're already kind of limited there. In that concern. So yeah. What do you mean spend an extra buck?

You think you're saving money because you're only paying one sixth of that salary, or however, however, one fifth, whatever the calculation is, versus paying a full salary. But you're paying it over All these different departments, and again, you're having all of these logistical problems. So I think a big reason that that folks went to that is because they think, well, the teachers will respect this coach more for their content knowledge.

Yeah. So what other models are there? So we've got this kind of. We got that out of the way. We've got this coach schools. Just try to do a coaching patch. Give a teacher. That's a good a great effective. Nice teacher a like an hour off That they are supposed to do for coaching. What else we got?

Gene Tavernetti: Well, you know, the, think that we have to take a look at supporting teachers in just the same way. We take a look at supporting students. You know, we take a look at, at like an MTSS model, you know, and there are teachers who need certain things. There are teachers who need more support. There are teachers who need less support.

So in order to. To provide coaching to all the teachers, we need to know what's needed for everybody. So for example, it may be that I don't, as a coach, I may not be a math expert. I know who the math expert is that we can, that we can tap on the shoulder. And, and Zach might be that top. That top math guy and I'm not going to pretend, you know, if I'm not, if that's not my content area, I'm not going to pretend that I'm going to teach you math, but I can, I can hook you up.

But I can't tell you, like, necessarily, like, how history is best taught, sort of the epistemology of history, like, how do we situate the learner in place and time? What are sort of the so called critical thinking skills that are involved with thinking historically, even though these are kind of vague terms, what is what?

These are all different skill sets. We have to have somebody who can maybe manage this and draw from the resources and be someone who thinks in an MTSS type of model where what, where, what can I do? That's preventative versus what can I do to be responsive and so on. I totally agree with that. People come to me saying basically coaching doesn't even can't even happen because Of the subject specificity of especially upper grade subjects.

So I wanted to expand on these, on this coaching, on the coaching model a little bit, because I want to get to some models that I think that actually work better. All right. And so one of them is to have. Is that the coaches there's coordination within the district of coaches. So for example, let's say we're working in a district and they have 10 instructional coaches.

You know what we have. We have eight coaches in this district. You tell me when we can meet and I'm going to have a coach cover your class. And so what and so what do we have we have we freed up that teacher with some with not a sub who they don't know this is one of the good ones this is this is this is a competent teacher so they can cover the class they can actually teach the lesson that they had that they had in mind and what does it what does it do for the coach.

Zach Groshell: Interesting. I mean, does the coach need to be in the classroom themselves to be grounded and to have the credibility? That's the two things you just alluded to, right? The credibility is shot when you leave the classroom, which we both have. So we're, I guess nobody's going to listen to us. And the other one, and the other one is that something that being in the classroom teaches you a lot about teaching or it makes you not forget and empathize with the learner, with the with other teachers realizing like, that it really is a lot of busy work and there's a lot of different initiatives coming at teachers and when you're in that position, you realize really what one can handle because you have to shoulder some of that.

Gene Tavernetti: No, I think I, I think what I described was for the benefit of the whole coaching system so that, because you can't ask teachers to take on one more thing. You can't ask teachers to, to teach their load, and now you're gonna have to come on your own time. To do this coaching. No, no, no, no. That's, that's, that's, that's not going to happen.

Why? When you're in the moment teaching. You know, your focus is on those kids. You're not, your focus isn't on how am I going to coach somebody to be better. But if I can just be an observer and be a coach, observing that lesson as a coach, I'm going, I'm going to learn a lot to help. Other teachers. And the other thing is, is that if I'm one of those eight coaches in that district, and I observed six lessons that day, and you're another one of those coaches, and you observe six lessons, and we talk at the end of the day, there's a multiplier effect.

Multiple coaches coordinating. They have a PLC. They even have a an informal debrief at the end of the day. What, what'd you see today? What'd you do with that? You know, how is the debrief? What did that teacher tell you? How did you handle that? You know, all of those types of things that we don't have to wait for a monthly PLC as coaches.

And it seems like the same thing with coaching. Okay, what other? So, so, so what other models? Because I know of another one that is. Increasingly popular. It sounds interesting. I even visited a school that is doing this. And from what I could tell doing it effectively, and that is this everybody is a coach model where every teacher teaches a full load, except.

Gene Tavernetti: You know the joke, you say weed, you have a frog in your pocket? Because I wouldn't call that effective. I would call that, you know, tip time. Which is not bad. Unless there's a, more of a coordinated type of, I don't even want, I hate to use terms. But lesson study, where, you know, we've met, we're teaching similar lessons.

And the reason that I don't want to call it coaching per se is that I could go into Zach's classroom and watch him and say, Hey man, Hey Zach, here's a tip. Giving a tip is different than coaching. You know, so that that's I'm not saying that teachers don't won't get better and I wouldn't say stop doing it if it works, but I'm just saying, you know, that there may be ways to make that even meatier and to and to make that time even more effective.

Whether or not that's sitting side by side and planning it together or whether that's showing a video or whether that's just demonstrating what you personally do and then both going back and forth and trying it out for me that will that is. The old, it's hard for me to see that happening in a really consistent and systematic way with 40 different individuals doing this on a very rare basis.

Again, we're developing these professional collegial relationships, developing a culture because there, there are, there's just a plethora of talent, you know, out there that if we, if we, if we cultivate it, but I just don't want to call it coaching, you know, it, it, you know, it could be that as you described, the coaches are managing this.

But the idea is, I'm an instructional coach, I'm going around one by one giving personalized PD. It's the same thing that's in the classroom. That's the problem. If I go one by one and give every kid individualized feedback. Sometimes it might be better to step back and give everybody the feedback because I don't have to have thirty five minute conversations.

Gene Tavernetti: Well, it's now we're moving from the individual coaching You know that one on one pd But like you say there are a lot of similar issues You know, even though those classroom doors are closed, there's a lot of similar issues, and there's no reason that a coach, having seen all the classrooms, having, that's part of their job, knowing what's going on in every classroom, to step back and either at a PLC or at a, at a, at a staff meeting, PD, because what do teachers, one of the main complaints of teachers about PD is it doesn't, It has nothing to do with them. Well, guess what? I just collected data from every teacher in this, in this school and 95, this applies to 95 percent of the teachers and the 5 percent that it doesn't apply to, I'm going to use them as the good examples during the PD that I do. And like you said, if it's five minutes, I'm not going to. Make them sit on their butt for an hour just because I have an hour We're gonna we're going to talk about this in five minutes ten minutes. We might even practice it as a group. So The coaching expands beyond the one on one And I think it includes those, you know those groups You know where you have common things occurring based on observations and again, it could be plc.

It could be pd and that would still I see that as part of the coach's responsibility And we could put some air quotes around that as as they're coaching.

Oftentimes, presentations are used just because they're extremely efficient at getting out information. So we see that 95. We, let's put together this presentation. It's responsive. It's happening right when we need to. And then what does that do? It triggers all these other interactions. It makes it so that the coaches need to meet with certain people more often.

Gene Tavernetti: Well and the And the role of the principal, let's get back, let's use the analogy of the MTSS again the principal does not need to be the best coach in the system. He's the person that works on the system. Now, what can the, what can an administrator do? Listen to the needs of the coach, listen to the needs of the teachers and supply resources to be able to do these things.

Another thing we haven't talked about yet. And and that is what did these outside consultants do when they come in as a coach,

People like you and I and other people that are working as outside instructional coaching consultants. I think that's a big part of our role. We're coming in and we're not going to be there for forever but how can we leave something behind in which we're instilling routines and a mindset. In a and an approach to collaborating with each other and having these discussions being more scientific about it be more like thinking about instruction like it's the bees knees be more like a detective right and trying to right trying to care about this a little bit more this I think external consultants have a huge role to play what are your what do you agree with that or what are your thoughts on that

Gene Tavernetti: well, yeah, I'm sending all my checks back that everybody I've worked with. No, the answer. Absolutely. Yes. In fact I shared with you many times is that we didn't even want to work in a district unless an administrator was there with us the whole time. And or when coaches started being hired an instructional coach was there with us all time because we wanted to model what was going on and the first few times we'd work with teachers We just tell the administrator and the coach in our nicest politest way just sit down shut up and watch You know, just see see what see what's going on.

And so we would have the, the debrief after and, my personal philosophy is I don't care how bad the lesson sucked. I want this debrief to go in such a way so that you want to meet with me again. You're willing to meet with me again. But I would have, I'd be in the debriefs after a teacher. Again, I taught a lesson that didn't go so well.

I don't count anything in the last century. I'm going to count like from from 2007 on there just haven't been administrators that have gone through the system and have been instructional coaches and were successful as instructional coaches versus becoming an instructional coach just to move up the administrative ladder.

In the author's thinking, and I can share it. Look at me, right? As you, Sam, this is the part where I tell you how smart I am, right? It's some, or we watch the Olympics and what do we see? We see these judges giving subjective ratings of dives and stuff. They're not talking about what was effective.

And That is not the best starting point for a conversation with that teacher. It is and we have to get rid of that external consultants like you and I who have been doing this right and have seen success in our own coaching and in coaching schools. I think that's the role. We play of course, you know, there's other schools that might try to do it internally and they can do it, but they don't have that vision.

You know, that first coaching cycle. It's, it's not a complete guide to everything you do as a coach, but it's so important to set that up so that you have an opportunity. To to influence later nobody influences nobody makes a teacher better I mean maybe a little bit, you know after after one meeting the only time a teacher gets Better after one meeting is that they're already real good and it's something tiny or they're not very good at all and you can give them one thing that has impacts so much that have the leverage over the entire, the entire being in the classroom.

Zach Groshell: Maybe we're sounding similar in how vague we are with, like, in that, in, like, you know, we're saying developing a coaching culture. What does that mean? And how do we get them to move forward, you know, step by step? I just think maybe it's, maybe we need to communicate this better that we're really for me, it's narrowing it down to two things that conversation is going to be productive if you do these things.

And I'm ready to go. Great, right? I have I'm belong here. I, you know, I have someone who's supporting me, who's celebrating me. And I know I can get better by doing this one thing because I talked about it. I verbalized it myself with this person, you know,

No No, they would know better by then And they know that it's going to support the culture of Of the, whether it's the professional culture, you want to call it a coaching culture, whatever it is, but where, where teachers are, are supporting one another,

Gene Tavernetti: my feeling is that it's so difficult for the, for the administrator to do that, because they do have that evaluation component that they have to do, they have to, you know, that's, you know, if you're, if you're a new teacher, maybe it's twice a year, you come in, and it's very difficult. to, for the teacher to separate.

Oh, I'm just going to reject it. So there are principals who have told me that they have been successful coaches. And again, I'm looking at something, you know, that they, I don't know where they get the time number one, because you can, you can give some tips. You could give some tips. You could set them up with another teacher.

Zach Groshell: Yeah, I guess there's just some administrators tell me that they split up the staff between them and their vice principal. Half of my load of observations is evaluative and I can say I am only in an evaluative capacity in these discussions. And then half of my load, I'm going to tell you again and again, I, you know, I'm not your evaluator.

So I always try, like, how can you do them quicker? How can you get AI to do some of it for you, right? How do you, how can you get through them? So that you can focus on coaching. But yeah, it's tough. So, I think we're kind of agreeing here that sort of a combination of that full time coaching role Alongside some external coaching support, I think maybe that's for me, that's the full package.

Zach Groshell: Love it. So we talked about a bunch of different coaching models. If you've stuck with us this far, we are doing we're doing a series called Thinking Out Loud, where we talk about different things around leadership and instruction and coaching. Gene, it was so nice to have another one of these.

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.