Theory vs Practice

In my role as a literacy instructional coach, I am fortunate to have access to more professional development than I did when I was teaching in the classroom.  Some of that access is available during the school day; much is available outside the school day.  When I was in the classroom, I rarely took advantage of professional development outside of the school day because I simply had too many other things to do to maintain that classroom, including the obvious:  lesson planning and assessing.  My nights and weekends used to be filled with these two tasks; they are now filled with listening, watching, or reading anything related to improving literacy instruction in the form of webinars, books, blogs, and articles.

Balancing Theory and Practice

As I prepare to wrap up my third year as an instructional coach, I continue to reflect on how I can manage a balance between theory and practice.  I have the advantage of being steeped in theory, with less access to practice, or applying that theory.  In other words, all information about the best way to provide effective literacy instruction sounds great, but applying it to the actual classroom setting is another story all together.

I am fortunate to be able to attend many weekly PLC (Professional Learning Community) meetings with teams of teachers where I often share “golden nuggets” of information about approaches to literacy instruction, but I have to confess that I often worry about how teachers perceive me and how I might lack credibility in their eyes.  I do have 22 years of teaching experience prior to coaching, but unless I am involved in teaching via a coaching cycle or other means with a teacher(s), I don’t get to apply the learning that I have gained since taking on the coaching position.  If I am not intentional about getting into classrooms with teachers, I will most definitely lose credibility.  As an instructional coach, the best way to maintain credibility with teachers is for me to roll up my sleeves and do the work right along side of them.  More important than maintaining credibility, of course, is our ultimate goal:  improved student learning.  I wrote about this concept in a February 2021 blog, My Coaching Beliefs:

When coaches and teachers come together to engage in a coaching cycle, their end goal is increased student learning.  Both coach and teacher come to the table with a set of skills; their work is done side by side, with neither being the expert.  The coach is not there to “fix” the teacher, but rather roll up his/her sleeves and do the work with the teacher.  The coach’s role includes, but is not limited to:  asking questions that focus the work on student learning; structuring the work with a backward design format; identifying learning targets connected to standards; helping the teacher collect baseline, formative, and summative data; modeling effective instructional practices; and co-teaching.  From The Essential Guide for Student-Centered Coaching:  What Every K-12 Coach and School Leader Needs to Know, “Yet when coaching focuses solely on improving instruction {rather than a focus on improving student learning} the focus is on implementing a certain practice, strategy, or structure.  When this is the case it’s easy to lose sight of the real goal, which is student learning.”

Coaching Cycles

As a coach, I possess a skill set and can bring my “expertise” to a coaching cycle.  At the same time, I’m always in a position to reflect, learn, and refine my practice as both a coach and a teacher.  I’m so thankful for the teachers that participate in coaching cycles with me!  Selfishly, I gain as much, or more, from the coaching cycles as the teachers do.  What I love about a request for a coaching cycle is knowing that the teacher recognizes “you don’t have to be bad to get better”  (more to come on this golden nugget in an upcoming post!)  These teachers are not concerned about a perception that they are a bad teacher because they are looking for outside support, they are concerned about improving student learning.  Again, the ultimate outcome of coaching cycles is that our students are the true benefactors of the work that happens within the cycle.  Students benefit from the collective thinking of teacher and coach, two people thinking through the Plan, Teach, Assess, Reflect cycle, as well as the co-teaching that occurs where there are “two sets of eyes” in the classroom.   The collective planning, teaching, assessing, and reflecting ultimately result in high levels of learning.  In The Essential Guide for Student-Centered Coaching:  What Every K-12 Coach and School Leader Needs to Know, Diane Sweeney and Leanna Harris remind us that “Student-Centered Coaching is driven by seven core practices that are all about keeping student learning at the center of each and every conversation.”

In addition to improving my knowledge about effective literacy instruction, I continue to build my knowledge about the importance of building relationships with students and attending to their social emotional learning needs.   This knowledge is put to the test in most, if not all, coaching cycles.  Every classroom is comprised of great students, many of whom present challenging behaviors.  We know about the importance of connecting with kids, using calm and quiet voices, and maintaining consistent expectations and consequences, but that knowledge quickly gets challenged when working with a student or group of students who struggle with maintaining appropriate behavior.  Again, if I were not able to work side by side with teachers, but instead gave support from the sidelines, my suggestions about behavior approaches would be fraught with implausibility and would be tough to heed.

Speaking of coaching cycles, I am wrapping up a coaching cycle with Mr. Blanchard, a 2nd grade teacher in the Ft. Madison Community School District.  Mr. Blanchard’s 2nd graders are doing some amazing things with with “The Secret World of Pollination” Module from our EL Education curriculum.  They are using a Stop Motion Studio app as part of integrating computer science with English Language Arts.  These incredible 2nd graders are demonstrating the pollination process:  they have drawn background pictures and pollinators (bees, butterflies, wasps, flies, beetles, or hummingbirds), they have shown their pollinator moving pollen from flower to flower, a seed dropping, and a new flower growing.  In addition, they have narrated the whole process!  Check out these photos from the 2nd graders working in the Richardson Elementary STEAM Lab: