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Most of what you are going to be doing is data collection.
So you might need to coach on what data to collect. Matching that data to an intervention.
You may need to coach on the frequency of collection. That's a big one for
the teachers I work with. They think that they can't
collect data more than once a month or once every-other-week. Until we start talking about the number of data points.
Set targets.This is a huge one.
And sometimes this is a district philosophy and sometimes it's an individual philosophy.
In your districts, do you set your targets
based on grade level, or based
on instructional level? Grade level? Okay.
(It's a little bit of both. It depends on the student
and where they're at.) Okay (For some that we know for a fact that they
can't meet that grade level target and we are suppose to back it
down and we are supposed to indicate that in the IEP that we did that.)
Okay, so, depending upon the student, students are already
identified, most likely, instructional level. If they're a pre-referral, probably
a grade level? (Grade level per referral) Some other things that you might be coaching on is choosing and conducting interventions.
Really getting in and I think you talked about this, focusing on that area of
concern, not what I have on the shelf.
"I have a group that is already doing this, so John can go with that group."
Scheduling it, we just talked about that, really trying to think,
"How can this teacher, a gen ed teacher, fit time to do an intervention in the schedule?"
Adjusting it based on the data. It doesn't seem to be working.
What can you do? Do we need to throw something more on it? Do we need to take something away?
Maybe there's too much going on in this intervention?
And we really now know that we need to drill down to this portion of it. Fidelity.
Some how we need to know that the intervention is carried out in the
manner it's supposed to be. Problem solving teams is another one that you might need to do a lot of
coaching in. How do you run that problem solving process?
Who's there? There's some schools Special Ed does not
have access to problem solving team, Because they know they can
fix it and work there. If there's
a process, are you supposed to have/come with data?
or are you supposed to come after you've done everything and then be told you have to do more?
Documentation. Building your district
forms somehow, so that the documentation is
very out there. Teachers know exactly what they need to
bring, when they bring a student to a problem solving team
Districts are slowly, but surely, developing those forms. Sped Forms has some things in it
lots of stuff or not and then problem statements. Which are
a lot of these things we'rs going to be talking about in the next couple of days, bringing problem statements.
What really is the student struggling with?
Communication. You have a speaker, you have a message, you have a listener, there's interference,
there's a perceived message and a feedback. Speaker,
message, those are pretty obvious, what's happening? The listener
"The inability to listen
may be the most costly of the human relations skills to be without."
"When I listen with great care,
the person I'm speaking with almost always becomes a much better listener."
So, you were listening with great
care, you can be modeling that back to
that person. Interference, sometime it's very visible.
You're trying to talk to the teacher and they've got a whole class sitting there.
Sometimes they are looking at their computer, whatever happens to be.
There may be some things that you'd might not see. That teacher may have gotten
a call, that warning, that their mother was just sent to the hospital.
It's being a very stoic teacher and not saying anything.
But that's obviously on their mind and whatever you are saying is not
totally getting in. So that's an interference that you might have. There is
always some interference, it is just not always as obvious.
So you just have to make sure that you are in tune as much as you can.
That interference is going to impact the perceived message.
So you need to
that's what Kiera, Kevin, Chris can paraphrase back, or asking those questions to
make sure that what you said Is what they heard. And what you meant is what they heard.
and then make sure you have that feedback. Listening is an
overt act of will and skill. Coaches have to make a
conscious decision to listen attentively We are all
multitaskers, and this age of technology has made us worse.
because we think that we have to be constantly
connected with everything. So really making
a conscious effort of "I'm putting my phone in my purse, I'm not going to take it with me.
Whatever, if it buzzes, I'm not going to watch it
and look at it. Make sure you have that.
Remember that part of listening is projecting that you are listening, that body language.
If they see you doing this or checking this and
slyly checking your watch under the table,
they're going to know that you're not listening fully. "Silence yourself
and attend to others" is Covey, and Covey is one of my other people that I like a lot
who does the Circle of Influence, Circle of Concern
and then the message in that is most
the one in the teacher's mind, not in the coaches mind. Why is that?
(It's about the teacher?) Yep.
It's about the teacher. It's about the person you are working with. "Time to change varies
from person to person" Obviously, that's true. These are the
stages of change. The ones with the asterisks (*) are the ones
where you're going to really need to coach a little bit more.
So "Precontemplation", they're just kind of thinking about
"Oh, I might need to do something different" Once you start
really delving in and really deciding to make some things in "Contemplation",
thinking about that, you probably have to coach some more.
That's where you kind of thinking about "What action would you do?". Then you have to
coach them on how to prepare. Once the "Action" is starting
you're going to need to be in there. And "Maintenance" is where we often
forget that people need coaching. Maintenance is where in
Jim Knight's research, you don't have coaching, they start
"retweaking" it back to their old practices, back to their comfort zone. So when that teacher is
working, it's become part of the routine, to make sure
we keep going in there and monitoring that.
And then "Termination" is when the changes just become
part of their nature. You still need to kind of
think about that. Maybe once a year, kind of check in and see "How is that change working?"
Listening strategies, that inner silence.
Your in harin. Listen to contradictions to our
assumptions. You assume this teacher
doesn't know how to do data collection, but then she starts
talking, and it's like " Hmm, she knows some things
but she may not know how to actualize those".
So, maybe she knows all about it, but she doesn't know how to actually do it.
Make sure you're clarifying. Paraphrase back, have them paraphrase.
Make sure that you are saying the same thing. Another thing with clarifying, is making sure that
the terms you use, you both agree on the definition. Progress monitoring is one.
We don't always agree on formative assessments.
It's amazing the different definitions of a formative assessment.
Make sure you ask questions. You need to
practice listening every day. And then you also need to
practice with terrible listeners. How many of you have teenagers at home?
I would listen to them. probably watch
them listening to you, as you are doing that.
And listen for the feelings, as well as the underlying message.
Biggest thing is you can't be somebody you aren't.
So, be yourself.
You already are a respected person in your district, or you would not
be here. You're already a person who's knowledgable
about change and about SRBI process, and so on,
or you wouldn't be here. So, be yourself. Stick to your principles.
Ask questions. Get support, and
allow that support. We are
leaders in our districts. And so sometimes we think that, "Well I can just
do it. I can do this. I can barrel through, I can
mull through, I can, I'm going to do this. I don't need anybody else. I can do this stuff".
Don't be stubborn. Allow to help you. Allow for mistakes
and learn from those. Be patient,
it's going to be a slow process as you're learning this material
it's going to be slow and it's going to feel like you're never going to know it.
But these guys will tell you that you eventually do. And then,
make sure you keep the focus on the student. That's why we're here, is to
improve the student's success. It's not to make a
difference in my life, it's to make a difference in that student's life.
Become that positive defiant person. So ask the answer to the questions.
Don't sit and come in with a script of questions you have to ask.
Ask those ones that prompt and come up as you're going
through. When you see something happening, ask about it.
"Gosh, tell me why you're thinking that?"
"Tell me where you got that information from".
"That's something different that I understood".
"Where did you learn that from? I need to research that".
Because it is amazing on how teachers can read research or
pseudo-research, and it becomes a gospel, or they
misinterpreted what the research has said. Don't be a whiner.
You can whine to us, you can complain to us. When you need that session
(laughter) call one of us and
let it out. You can't do it to your colleagues that you are working with.
You guys who are a team, you can do it to each other (laughter).
But to the rest of our colleagues, we can't. Count something that is interesting to you and you will learn something interesting.
Count the number of teachers that you are working with.
Count the number of graphs that you saw in a day.
Count the number of students who've
improved on their benchmarks.
Show yourself some of those things. Write something. The published word,
it's a declaration of membership in your community,
and willingness to contribute something meaningful to it.
Terry is writing something with Jackie and a couple other people are working on
a new year a template. She's showing her commitment
to the team. Our problem-solving group is,
because the leader is/ had too many things on her plate, what we're working on
building a problem solving process and some things in schools
for helping problem solving. So we're going to write about that. That's where the Wiki
can be a place to go. There's a place that you can put things on the Wiki
of "This is a thought of mine, I'm kind of thinking about that, I need
feedback". Once you put it down,
it becomes a little more permanent, and a little bit
more important to you. I write my grocery list before I
go to the grocery store. Once I've written it,
I rarely look at it once I get into the store.
But I've written it down, and so I've kind of internalized it a little bit.
Now I have a friend who writes her grocery list in the order of the aisles
Ah, well, that's way too organized for me.
I write it as things run out at home.
Change, so look for that opportunity to change, that's why you're here.
And this is another quote from Gawande; "Find something new to try,
something to change, count how often you succeed and how
often you fail. Write about it. Ask people what
they think. See if you can keep the conversation going.
And those are some of the
sources that we used that I went through.
I also brought
one of the DuFour books, I didn't have that one, this is on common
grounds and problem solving teams. I often reference this book,
if you are doing anything in reading, excellent book on
The Evolution on Reading and Reading Instruction.
It's a little heavy (laughter) a little.
But really if reading is not your forte, or something that'
you're extremely interested in and want to learn more, it's a great book. This is another one on professional learning communities
that works pretty well. Also look at the resource list that we'll
show you as the day goes on.