Assertive Coaching:The Essential Alternative to PD

Steve LeinwandAmerican Institutes for Research

NCSM Boston 2015sleinwand@air.org www.steveleinwand.com

Let’s be honest:

We are building and flying the coaching place at the same time

andMost of our passengers (colleagues) don’t have a clue why they are even

on the plane!

Consider:Tutoring vs. Teaching

Professional Development vs. CoachingYour choice: • A 4-hour PD session with me.

OR• A 4-hours of co-teaching – observation,

discussion, co-planning, debriefing, action-planning.

It’s a no-brainer if we are to make change!

So let me start to lay a foundation for assertive

coaching:

Question #1

Why would you tell a teacher whom you are coaching to differentiate,when you could be modeling differentiation in his/her classroom? (“who got the same answer in a different way?)

Question #2

Why would you tell a teacher whom you are coaching about missed opportunities (“why?”, a chance to probe, a representation),when you yourself could have done that during the lesson?

Question #3

Why would you talk about using representations in the abstract,when you could have drawn a bar model or silently gone to Desmos?

Question #4

Why would you ever observe an entire lesson,And not provide oral and written feedback, an opportunity to discuss the lesson, and begin to craft an action plan ?

Co-teaching without co-teachingInterjecting myself into the class

without being a distraction• “85”: The perfect moment, from the back of

the room for: “Really, why is that?”, “Hold it a sec, can you convince your partner that it’s 85? [PAUSE] Go ahead and try it.” (becomes great folder for discussion about missed opportunities and reasoning and alternative approaches)

Co-teaching without co-teachingInterjecting myself into the class

without being a distraction• While students are explaining or teaching is

talking away abstracting, slide up to the board or the computer and capture the explanation with a picture or a diagram. You rarely need to do anything else to get the discussion focused on what you’re written or drawn.

Co-teaching without co-teachingInterjecting myself into the class

without being a distraction• 2 and 2/3: [and from the back of the room:]

“Cool. Did everyone of you do it that way? No? Can you come up and show us another way? Anyone else?

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For example:

What is 8 + 9?

Vs.

Convince me that 9 + 8 = 17.

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8 + 9 =

17 – know it cold 10 + 7 – add 1 to 9, subtract 1 from 8 7 + 1 + 9 – decompose the 8 into 7 and 1 18 – 1 – add 10 and adjust or double - 1 16 + 1 – double plus 1 20 – 3 – round up and adjust

Who’s right? Does it matter?

What do you see?

What do you see?

Versus

Identify three things you see.Convince us.On your white boards, A triangle is:Compare to google/wikipedia

What is a triangle?

• a plane figure with three straight sides and three angles.

"an equilateral triangle"• a thing shaped like a triangle.

"a small triangle of grass"• a situation involving three people or things,

especially an emotional relationship involving a couple and a third person with whom one of them is involved.

• noun: eternal triangle; plural noun: eternal triangles17

It’s never good enough

Do it.

Now do it well.

Now do it even better.

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For example:Using models and representations

Siti packs her clothes into a suitcase and it weighs 29 kg.

Rahim packs his clothes into an identical suitcase and it weighs 11 kg.

Siti’s clothes are three times as heavy as Rahims.

What is the mass of Rahim’s clothes?What is the mass of the suitcase?

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The old (only) way:

Let S = the weight of Siti’s clothesLet R = the weight of Rahim’s clothesLet X = the weight of the suitcase

S = 3R S + X = 29 R + X = 11

so by substitution: 3R + X = 29 and by subtraction: 2R = 18 so R = 9 and X = 2

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Or using a model:

11 kg

Rahim

Siti

29 kg

Tell your partner three things you see here.

Which glass has more soda? What is your guess? Share your guess with your neighbor. and justify your guess.

What information is important here?How would you get it?

5.5 cm

7 cm

3 cm

10 cm

A Formative Assessment:

Now draw two glasses with different diameters and show the heights of equal amounts of liquid. Explain your reasoning.

Your turn:

So?• Order from smallest to largest and justify

• What is the height of Glass 3?

• What is the volume of each?

• If Glass 1 has volume V, express volume of Glasses 2 and 3 in terms of V

• When Glass 1 is ½ full, the height of the liquid is 3 cm. What are the heights of the liquid in Glasses 2 and 3 when they are ½ full? 29

So what I’ve learned and advocate:

• It’s about the kids, not egos or thin skins• Of course we need to build “relationships”

and trust, but “that wasn’t good enough” and “here is what is looks like” are often hard but necessary

• Coaching as co-teaching • Written action plans with specifics are non-

negotiable parts of the debrief

PAUSE:

A Perspective and Some Coaching Frames

orWhy Coaches are Indispensable

A Progression of Insights• We are charged with making math work for a much greater

proportion of students.• But typical instructional practice of showing, telling and

practicing to get “right answers” only works for about 1/3.• To complicate matters, today’s world requires reasoning, solving

problems, constructing viable arguments (SMPs).• Thus math classes must reflect a different set of instructional

practices – productive struggle, alternative approaches and multiple representations, discourse, explanations, conjectures and justifications (MTPs).

• But, this is different, difficult to do, requires time and risk-taking. • Which is why we must have collaborative structures and

coaching to support envisioning, practicing and providing feedback as we raise quality and impact.

So there it is:

Coachingand

Collaborative Structures(about what?)

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A Coach’s Field of Activity

The heart of ensuring instructional quality and producing high levels of student achievement includes four key elements:

• A coherent and aligned curriculum that includes a set of grade level content expectations, appropriate print and electronic instructional materials, with a pacing guide that links the content standards, the materials and the calendar;

• High levels of instructional effectiveness, guided by a common vision of effective teaching of mathematics and supported by deliberate planning, reflection and attention to the details of effective practice;

• A set of aligned benchmark and summative assessments that allow for monitoring of student, teacher and school accomplishment at the unit/chapter and grade/course levels; and

• Professional growth within a professional culture of dignity, transparency, collaboration and support.

(What, how, how well and with what support to do it better)

People won’t do what they can’t envision,People can’t do what they don’t understand,People can’t do well what isn’t practiced,But practice without feedback results in little change,

andWork without collaboration is not sustaining.Ergo: Our job, as a professional, at its core, is to help

people envision, understand, practice, receive feedback and collaborate.

What we know(but too often fail to act on)

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Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All

Mathematics Teaching Practices

• Establish mathematics goals to focus learning. • Implement tasks that promote reasoning and problem

solving. • Use and connect mathematical representations. • Facilitate meaningful mathematical discourse. • Pose purposeful questions. • Build procedural fluency from conceptual

understanding. • Support productive struggle in learning mathematics. • Elicit and use evidence of student thinking. 36

The You-We-I Instructional Sweet Spot Tell (Do Now) Discover Show * STIMULUS * ExplorePractice * FOCUSED Q’S * You-We-YouI – We – You Think/Talk/Share

Record/Display Mult Reps Discuss Alt Aps

Task Try Out/CheckProblem * DEBRIEF *Claim (Exit Ticket)GraphEtc. Guided by: Why? How do you know?

Convince Us? Explain that please? How can you picture that?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - OUTCOMES: Empowering Productive Struggle

Engaging Problem SolvingLearning ReasoningConstructing Viable Arguments

PD that models instruction• Stimulus

• Focused Q’s• Think/Talk/

Share• Record/ Discuss

• Try out• Debrief

• Co-taught mathematics lesson observed by entire department

• Overall reactions; What appeared to work and why? What adjustments or changes would you suggest?

• Record answers on flip chart• Which comments, insights, suggestions

are most important and why? Public reactions

• What two actions will you now take?• In summary, what did you learn as a

result of this activity?

So let’s focus in on coaching:

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My coaching touchstones

• Was there opportunity for the students to learn? Why and why not?

• What evidence was there that the mathematics was in fact learned?

• What worked and was worthy of praise?• What didn’t work and why?• What opportunities were missed?• What growth nugget can I end with or leave with

the teacher?

My coaching frame:

The four key elements of an effective lesson:1. The Math: leaning goals, appropriateness, the big

ideas, connections, common errors and misconceptions.

2. The Tasks: that is the tasks, problems, activities and their richness, alignment with the goals, their appropriateness, their sequencing.

3. The Instruction: how the tasks are orchestrated and conveyed: directions, grouping, who is doing the work, scaffolding, reviewing and debriefing.

4. The Assessment: the evidence that is gathered to determine how well the learning goals were met.

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Pre-lesson planning:• What’s your goal? Let’s be clear and specific.• What tasks will support that goal?• Who will do what, when and how?• What evidence will I collect to inform me about

student learning?• What are the big ideas, common errors,

misconceptions?• What to focus on and what to skip and how to deviate • How to chunk• How to connect• Other ____________

Coaching Debriefing Discussion Questions

1. What I really liked was…. What was really impressive is when…

2. So tell me what your learning goals were for this lesson?

3. What your plan for meeting these goals? (that is what activities, problems, tasks, questions)

4. How well do you think your goals were achieved?

5. What would you do differently?

And based on this discussion:• A clear action plan that is roughed out orally at the end of the

discussion:– No more than three items– Based on the identified needs (the math, the tasks, the instruction and/or the

assessment– For example:

• You talk less, expect students to talk and work more• You work on on-going cumulative review to launch lessons• You identify stronger tasks and I’ll help you• You start employing exit slips• You read…… (that I’ve attached) and we’ll talk about this next time

• A follow-up e-mail:– Thanks for letting me observe and discuss your lesson yesterday.– As I said, I was really impressed by or pleased that you….– So we have a record, there are 3/2/1 things we agreed constituted our action

plan and what I’ll be looking to see when I next see you.– Thanks again for remembering that we do all this hard work to make a more

positive impact on our students’ lives.

So let’s observe and critique Steve and Eddie

Viewing lens: What did I do effectively. What would you do differently? Why?

The follow-up e-mail:

Mini-dialogue #1

• Coach: Have you considered trying ________?• Teacher: Yes, I tried that, but it didn’t work.• Coach: ________________________

Mini-dialogue #2

• Coach: Have you considered trying ______?• Teacher: I already do that. (conversation

over)• Coach: ______________________

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Instructional EffectivenessMy Bug-in-the-ear experience last week:• pictures, graphics (parallel # lines)• contexts (ramps and supports for similar triangles)• estimating (more than 10 or less than 10)• student engagement/talk• debrief/evidence of learning• vocabulary – see, show, picture, ask• Big Ideas vs. answers and skills• Planning (flow of problems, tasks, activities)

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AssessmentShifting our focus from how well was it taught to

how well was it learned!• You try it – white boards, clickers• Pause, question, answer, display• Exit slips• Common errors and misconceptions• Warm-ups• Quizzes and unit/chapter tests as basis for

selective reteaching• Awareness of state test strengths and weaknesses

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Questions

1. What is your greatest challenge as a coach?

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Questions

1. What is your greatest challenge as a coach?2. What changes would allow you to be more

effective?

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Questions

1. What is your greatest challenge as a coach?2. What changes would allow you to be more

effective?3. What do you do to address the need for your

own professional growth and development?

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Questions

1. What is your greatest challenge as a coach?2. What changes would allow you to be more

effective?3. What do you do to address the need for your

own professional growth and development?4. From your unique perspectives, what actions

would most help improve the teaching and learning of math in Tacoma.

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Next steps: Taking Risks It all comes down to taking risks

While “nothing ventured, nothing gained” is an apt aphorism for so much of life, “nothing risked, nothing failed” is a much more apt descriptor of what we do in school.

Follow in the footsteps of the heroes about whom we so proudly teach, and TAKE SOME RISKS

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Thank you and

thank you for the indispensible work you do.