The Art of Coaching Page 16
The lens of inquiry helps clients identify a goal area that they truly own and is not the result of external pressure. The questions for this lens can contribute to a goal that is strategic, meaningful, and relevant to the client.
The lens of adult learning is essential to determine a client's zone of proximal development (see Glossary). If we don't identify where a client is in her learning, we can't plan for and design the kinds of learning experiences that will help her meet her goals. This lens is invaluable.
As you create a work plan it can help to keep these three lenses at close reach and reflect on them as you move through the following steps.
Developing a Work Plan
Ten Steps to Developing a Work Plan
Identify areas for coaching: what's the big picture?
Identify standards and criteria
Determine a SMARTE goal
Identify high-leverage activities
Break down the learning
Determine indicators of progress
Develop coaching theories of action
Determine coach's goals
Compile resources
Present and celebrate the plan
Before I describe what happens at each step and offer examples of these conversations, I want to name an essential understanding when developing a work plan: although it is described as a sequential process, it is not. It is presented this way in order to explain each component of the plan's creation, but the process must also be flexible and circular. For example, you may guide a client through the steps of creating goals, first identifying high-leverage activities, and then while discussing the indicators of progress with the client, you might both realize that the goals need to be modified. In fact, at each stage of creating the work plan, the coach should reflect on earlier steps and consider whether the emerging plan makes sense. Finally, once the plan is created, there are many potential reasons for it to need revising, narrowing, or amending as the work with the client develops. Exhibit 7.1 at the end of this chapter is an example of a coaching work plan.
1. Identify Areas for Coaching: What's the Big Picture?
First we identify a couple of broad areas of pedagogical or leadership practice that our client wants to work on. For example, for a teacher, these could be within one of the following domains: lesson or unit design, teaching the Common Core State Standards, classroom management, academic language, checking for understanding, data analysis, classroom culture, routines and procedures, or others. A principal might want to work on distributing leadership, communication, professional development, resource management, building teams, accountability, inspiring and motivating staff, or his own emotional intelligence.
Coaches also need to take into account schoolwide initiatives or expectations about what clients work on. If, for example, a school is focusing on cooperative learning structures and all teachers are expected to use these strategies, we'll raise this matter with our client as a possible area of focus. A coach can also help bridge an external mandate with a client's authentic area of need or interest. For example, if we're working with a first-year teacher who is concerned about her classroom management skills, but who has been told to focus on cooperative learning structures, we can coach the teacher on the management strategies that will allow her to effectively implement cooperative learning structures.
If coaching is connected to broader school- or district-level efforts, there is a greater possibility that coaching will be reinforced in professional development sessions, peer observations, and the like, and that we can better support our clients. This can also focus and narrow the scope of our work—and, in general, the narrower the better. However, if clients feel forced by their principal or district to implement practices or policies that they don't believe in, this can be challenging. In that case, a coach should probably start with a goal area that the client is authentically invested in.
When we're helping clients identify these areas, we also want to ensure that they are high-leverage areas to work in. A high-leverage area is one that has great potential for improving the experience and outcomes of students, particularly those who are struggling the most; it is also an area that, if addressed, would positively spill over into other areas—it would leverage other improvements. Improvements in many areas of teaching and leading can point to this end, and a coach needs to use her own knowledge to ensure this alignment and also make this explicit with a client. We always ask, “And what would that mean for students if your work improves in that area?”
The “Areas for Coaching” Conversation
Coach:
It's been really helpful for me to learn about your school over the last month. I hear how much growth you made as a first-year principal, and I better understand the challenges you're facing this year. What are some of the leadership areas you'd like to continue working on that I might be able to support you in?
Principal:
I don't know. There are so many, I don't know where to start. I need to get better at managing my school's budget, I need to do more classroom walkthroughs, our professional development is not what I want it to be, and I think I need to find a way to manage my stress better. I also feel like I don't hold people accountable in the way I should. And my supervisor has told me that I take on too much and need to distribute leadership. Ah! What should I focus on—can you just tell me?
Coach:
This is an overwhelming job, I know. We're going to start with a couple bites at a time, and we'll determine some high-leverage areas to focus on. Answer this question without thinking too long: If you could develop your skills and grow in one of the areas you just named, which do you think would help you significantly as an individual?
Principal:
Oh, managing my stress, no doubt.
Coach:
OK—let's consider that one possible area for us to work on. From my experience coaching leaders, building capacity in managing stress does make a huge difference. Now what about your students? If you were to develop your capacities in another area that you named, which might make a big impact on students?
Principal:
I can see how my leadership in all those areas affects kids, but I think if I were able to do more classroom walkthroughs, instruction would improve and that would benefit kids.
Coach:
Tell me a little more about that.
Principal:
Well, I think part of the problem is that I just don't know what's going on in classrooms. I'm embarrassed to admit that. If I had a better sense of what my teachers were struggling with, I'd also be able to deliver better professional development and I could give them more feedback. I feel confident in my ability to give teachers feedback. I think I've also been reluctant to distribute leadership because I'm not sure who is a strong teacher. I think I definitely need to get into classrooms more.
Coach:
That's great to hear that you feel confident in giving feedback. And gathering more data on what's going on in classrooms is definitely a high-leverage area to work on. Let's hold those two general areas as possibilities for our work this year.
2. Identify Standards and Criteria
In conjunction with the conversation about goal areas, we'll need to determine if there are external standards and criteria that we could, or should, use—standards or rubrics of effective teaching, evaluation tools, administrator's leadership standards, or externally mandated improvement plans. These tools can be useful if they are developmental and growth-oriented, if the criteria are clear and concrete, and if the client feels they are authentic. However, if the client does not feel that the tools are valid or feels that they could be used for punitive measures, then we should use them only to the extent that we must. This can be a tricky negotiation. Coaches will need to explore how to make something like an improvement plan that has been handed down from the central office as meaningful and relevant as possible.
If measurement tools for teaching or administration don't exist, then a coach
can select a tool with the client or create a new tool. Measurement tools can be helpful for framing a goal around practice, but are not essential.
3. Determine a SMARTE Goal
Administrators: SMARTE goals are useful to guide the work of teachers, teams, and other staff working in schools.
SMART goals are gap-closing goals: We use them to attain a result that is different from what currently exists.
O'Neill and Conzemius (2006, p. 43)
Once we have identified one or two high-leverage areas the client would like to focus on—and whether we can use measurement tools such as standards or rubrics—then we'll work toward developing a goal. Unfortunately, teachers and principals may have had negative experiences with goal setting. For example, educators are often asked to create annual goals, which are submitted to a supervisor in the fall and are filed away and never discussed. Coaches need to know if the client has any distrust or cynicism about goals, and if he does, you need to address it. Creating goals with a coach should be invigorating. It's another step in supporting clients to envision and describe the improved-self they'll work toward. In the process of creating the goals, we also want to foreshadow how goals will be used and how often we'll reflect on them; this is important to get the client's buy-in.
In order for a goal to be an effective tool in a client's transformation, the goal needs to be a good goal—a “SMART” goal. Jan O'Neill's and Anne Conzemius's (2006) book, The Power of SMART Goals, is an essential resource at this stage of coaching. While the term SMART goal has been around for a long time, these authors define the acronym as strategic and specific, measurable, attainable, results-based, and time-bound. Some organizations have added an E to represent equitable, thus the SMARTE goal.
Strategic and Specific: A strategic goal is aligned, when possible, to larger efforts—to a school or district's goals. A strategic goal is also one that, if reached, will make a significant difference to students. In order to help a teacher or leader determine a strategic goal, a coach needs to apply his knowledge of content and instructional practice or of leadership practice.
A specific goal is focused, narrow, and targeted. It is the difference between “I will teach reading comprehension” and “I will teach students how to summarize nonfiction text.”
It's essential that the goal be articulated as a change in teacher or administrator practice—not as improvement in student learning. We want to create goals that are fully within the sphere of influence where our own learning and growth are found. We want to articulate the connection between how our growth in practice will affect students' growth—and it's fine to include goals about our hopes for students' results when we meet our goals—but our client's goal always needs to be about her own practice as a teacher or leader.
Measurable: A measurable goal is critical. When our goals are not measurable, they can feel frustrating and unreachable. Many people have made goals to “get healthier,” but without any specific, measurable ends, we often fail. In schools, it can be equally hard for teachers and leaders to recognize their growth and success because this element of a goal has not been articulated. When writing a measurable goal, be sure not to use any adjectives or adverbs as descriptors—those words create judgment- and opinion-based goals, and fact-based goals will be much more helpful here.
Attainable: Goals need to motivate and make us stretch, but they also need to be attainable. In order to support clients to create an attainable goal, a coach needs to have a good sense of where a client is in terms of skill development—we need to have ascertained his zone of proximal development, and we need to help him see what's just a few leaps out of reach. A coach must understand the dimensions of the gap between where our client is in a strategic area of practice and where he wants to get to. It's our responsibility to determine what it'll take to close this gap and to identify how much focus, time, energy, and resources we can put into helping our client close the gap. This is a tricky balance: we don't want to aim too low—we must have high expectations and believe that our client can make remarkable accomplishments, but we also don't want to set someone up for failure. This is why creating a SMARTE goal is much easier if there's a rubric and criteria to use; then a teacher can self-assess and identify an attainable stage that she'd like to reach.
Results-Based: A results-based goal compels us to explore the impact the goal could have. We can ask our client, “Imagine you've met the goal. What is the result?” This can help us distinguish between a process goal—“I will teach a unit on persuasive writing,” and a goal that has a clear result—“I will give feedback to my students on a weekly basis that results in 95 percent of my students producing a persuasive essay that scores at least a 4 out of 5 on our rubric.” A results-based goal means something to children, it can't be accomplished without teacher learning, and it is motivating.
Time-Bound: A time-bound goal is framed within a specific time period. A teacher, for example, may decide to improve relationships with families by having parent-teacher conferences. The difference between a time-bound goal is clear when we compare these two goals: “I will have parent-teacher conferences with all of my students,” and “I will have one parent-teacher conference with the parent(s) of each of my students within the next two months.” A time frame builds accountability and commitment. It helps us determine exactly what we need to do in order to be successful.
Equitable: An equitable goal is one that addresses the needs of students who are not succeeding, whose needs are not being met, or who traditionally have been outside the sphere of success. The entire goal itself might be aimed at supporting a population of students who are struggling—for example, English language learners or students who have learning disabilities or African American males—or there can be an element of the goal that specifically focuses on a segment of the population. The purpose of including this element in the goal is to bring focus and awareness to students who need additional support. A transformational coach is intentional about interrupting patterns of inequity and supporting the students whom our system has failed. This is another moment when a coach might apply her own knowledge about the experience of children at a site or in a district to guide a client through this process.
The most effective goals are those that focus on a clear change in practice. Some clients may want to focus, for example, on increasing their emotional intelligence, developing better relationships with colleagues, or managing stress. While these are worthy aspirations, when establishing a goal it is more effective to settle on an instructional or leadership practice that can be measured precisely. Emotional intelligence, stress, and relationships will arise in conversations about goals—most likely these will be key areas of growth to address in order to meet goals—but they should not be identified as the end goal.
A client can also create subgoals under the main goal. For example, a principal may decide that his end goal is a highly functioning leadership team. In order to meet this goal, the principal may need to set a subgoal about communication. He may recognize that he needs to communicate in a way that invites others to take leadership and expresses his receptivity to other ideas. This principal may know that he won't achieve his larger goal without working on these areas, and in that case he should formulate a subgoal. This kind of subgoal, however, is hard to measure—it is very subjective, but it is worth naming because this can be the zone in which transformational change happens. Subgoals about emotional intelligence and relationships are also hard to measure. Naming these areas as subgoals gives us an entry point into these conversations while also saving us from gathering hard evidence to prove that the goal was met.
The “Goal-Setting” Conversation
Creating a goal is done in collaboration with a client. Like all coaching conversations, it is also an opportunity to coach and continue building trust and, like all conversations, it helps to prepare beforehand (see Chapter Thirteen).
The following is part of my goal-setting conversation with Teresa, a first-year tea
cher. (We didn't have a specific performance rubric to use.)
Coach:
Today we're going to try to determine a couple of goals for our work together this year.
Teacher:
I need to be more organized. That's my goal. I'm a disaster all the time.
Coach:
Teresa, if you were to meet this goal and become more organized, what would that look like?
Teacher:
I'd always be able to find my papers. I'd have file folders set up, systems to track information, and the surfaces in my room would always be clear. I'd feel so much better.
Coach:
How would that affect students?
Teacher:
Well, I'd be calmer. I'd be able to find things fast and could give them back all the work they've turned in.
Coach:
How would that affect their learning?
Teacher:
I often lose work they've turned in or sometimes their tests. I don't have a good system to keep track of how they're doing. So if I was more organized, I'd be able to give them more timely and accurate information about how they are doing in my class.