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PIIC PLO Reflections & Lessons Learned

Tima and time again I would say, “Where is the professional development for Instructional Coaches?” As coaches, we seem to always be the giver of knowledge and then are left to our own devices to teach ourselves. Sometimes that is fine but I never knew what I was missing until I was given an amazing opportunity to be involved in PIIC, Pennsylvania Institute for Instructional Coaches. At PIIC we meet with other Instructional Coaches within our county and learn best practices for coaching teachers. This year I was selected to represent our district at the state PIIC conference which takes place three times a year. I have come to learn many lessons.

Lesson #1 – Networking and Collaboration are Key to Enhancing My Skills.

I am energized sharing ideas with other coaches and hearing from them what they are doing. It never ceases to amaze the ideas I come away with from these conferences. This time around my sessions were around Collaborative Lesson Planning, Growth for ALL looking at DOK in content areas and using a step by step process to analyze tasks, The Energy Bus and getting your building on the bus, Data Collection Tools for coaching conversations, etc. The best part is that ALL resources and presentations are available for us to use with other coaches and teachers!

Lesson #2 – Be Grateful.

I am SO fortunate to have a support system of other coaches within my district AND county to reach out to. There are some coaches that are literally on an island because they are the ONLY coach in their district. Principals of some of the coaches I met do not offer a lot of support or don’t even value coaching! WHAT!?!?!? I can do what I do and have become a leader among other coaches ALL because my principal works with me, listens to me, and allows me to do the job I was hired to do!

Lesson #3 – Go Where People Live in Order to Coach Them 

I love Twitter! It’s not a secret. I tell everyone. I want everyone to be with me! When we started the school year, there were 3 teachers on Twitter. As we close the school year we have 36 teachers signed up! Yay! That sounds great however, out of the 36, only about 12 actually use it. Don’t get me wrong, I am SO happy with that! My teachers do not live in Twitter.  It is not being used to REALLY benefit teachers the way it could. So where do they live? They live on Facebook. They live on email. They live face to face. So I need to go where they live. The end goal to share and collaborate and to develop a PLN. I was introduced to a session on Google Communities and I definitely want to explore this more. Maybe this where all the places the teachers live connect?

Lesson #4 – Not Everything Needs to Change/Happen RIGHT AWAY! 

I think now that I am coming to the end of my second year as a secondary instructional coach, I am ready to refocus again. Year one I learned. I learned A LOT! Year two, I started to put somethings in place, including a coaching schedule to follow the PIIC BDA cycle. Year three, my focus will be on getting into classrooms. I feel like this is a natural progression. I have made connections and built relationships with teachers over the past 3 years and I understand the secondary mentality a bit more. I have to slow down and revisit topics and lead change, not expect change tomorrow. A session I attended around a book called The Engery Bus was all about getting people on the bus! One of the rules is to not waste time with people who are not on the bus! I’m going to focus on those that want to learn and change and innovate! I’m getting excited and energized just typing this! Eventually change will come!

Lesson #5 – Nothing is done and finished! 

I will add to this list. The type A in my is kinda cringing leaving this unfinished and unpolished. 😉

 

 

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Trust, Skepticism, and Innovation

I have a whole lot of questions and not many answers… This ride of coaching teachers and guiding them to best practices is tough work some days.  My thoughts are choppy and I fear it will resonate throughout this post but it takes me awhile to process and it’s sometimes hard to get things out. I’ve been thinking a lot about change lately. What it takes to facilitate change and how it looks to support it…
trust /trəst/
noun – firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.
What a tricky word… What a hard thing to when over and over you have been betrayed. Do we betray teachers? Do we disrespect teachers? Do we even trust teachers?
I will be the first to admit that I trust easily. Unfortunately I have been burnt many times by doing that but I won’t live my life being a skeptic. However if you beak my trust, it doesn’t get earned back easily, if ever.
So what if principal after principal breaks a teacher’s trust time after time?  What if coach after coach breaks a teacher’s trust again and again?
Do we need trust in order to make a change? A change in ourselves, our teaching, our actions? I feel like the answer is yes and when all else fails if we feel there’s no one to trust… we should be able to trust ourselves, except when we can’t.
Earning trust is hard work but rewarding when it is achieved.
Best compliment of my week was from a teacher that has been around for a long time and is actually ready to retire next year. In reference to me and the work I’ve been doing with the teachers she said, “For the first time I really feel like someone is listening to us.”
I am earning trust.
skep·ti·cism /ˈskeptəˌsizəm/
noun – a skeptical attitude; doubt as to the truth of something.
Can we be so skeptical that we get in our own way? Can skepticism be an internal barrier to becoming an agent of change, a innovator?
And after that complement was said, the next teacher said, “We shall see. I’ve given up that things will actually change. I am so skeptical that things will get better and that people will actually listen, that I’ve given up on hoping it will happen.”
I do not have her trust
in·no·va·tion /inəˈvāSH(ə)n/
noun – the action or process of innovating, a new method, idea, product, etc.
I keep trying… I keeping proving that trusting me will bring change and innovation.
I am doing things that are missing from professional development for teachers. We are talking about boundaries, external and internal barriers, prioritizing tasks, self-care… Wait, will these help their students become better readers and writers? Will this help their students ace the state exam? Who knows, but it WILL give the students a better, stronger, less stressed human being standing in front of them so I am willing to take a shot. My guess is that it is certainly worth a try because change never happened by doing the same thing… Trust me.
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Hello world!

Well, I am blogging…

Not sure what that even means excepts that it is highly recommended and is supposed to improve my ______?!?!? (Insert whatever, mood, instruction, reflectiveness, relationships, etc.)

I’m excited to start this adventure! I have been exploring a lot of professional development effectiveness rubrics/protocols/documents. My current reading is surprisingly put out by our government and blogging about what you learn seems to be the highest level of effectiveness. The Online Professional Learning Quality Checklist can be found here.  (Careful, you may think you have online professional learning figured out and that you’re doing a great job… what until you read this!?!?) Apparently getting 2 of my retired teachers on Twitter and actually tweeting is a low level of effectiveness/quality.  Wha wha… sad face.

Back to the drawing board… but isn’t that what this journey is all about!?!? Celebrate the small successes and keep moving forward! Here goes nothing! I hope you stick around for the ride!