ICT Leader Teachers Workshop - Coaching

At the heart of coaching is really listening for what is not being said or what the real message is being said. As a coach you need to ask the questions that may require help rather than fix it strategies.

This workshop is fantastic for my coaching inquiry focus.

When approaching someone with something have evidence base, before approaching the problem.

Discussed how I had used 1:1 strategies by planting a seed and then getting them to share it with another person. Getting them to be empowered to share with someone else.

Key Points in the Reading
How to talk so Teachers Listen

• Relationships making it safe to deal with people providing Differated Support
  
• Coaching/Collaborating/ Consulting

We may use one stance or can move between the three depending on the person and situation. The skill is to know when to use in what situation.

You can't coach someone who doesn't have the skill, coaching is the way you question and find out what is already there. Person you are coaching is doing most of the work

Collaborating working together to get to a joint understanding.

Consulting you are doing the work as a leader.

So where to from here?

To work through the three phrases and decide what situaton is right for each person. With a goal to be in the coaching mode.

Changing My Teaching Style

After a lot of thought I changed my teaching style to the facilitator. This meant good bye to groups and hello to teaching students the skills for learning. So it means that each day we begin with looking at the tasks and breaking down what it is that I need to learn in order to complete the tasks over the next week. We still do writing, reading , maths and inquiry.

By planning the tasks for learning it has guided my teaching but also allows more time for conferencing to meet the students needs as well as being able to target learning areas.

Today I felt a state of discomfort and was ready to go back to groups and maths being done at maths time rather than students having choice over when they want to do things.

After calling a meeting and asking the kids what they thought. They wanted to carry on with the new system. They were honest that they found time limits hard to stick to. We decided that I would provide them with a print out of the learning tasks as they find it hard to look at all of the tasks online.

After lunch today we sat down and went through the learning in each of the tasks. Highlighting what it is that we may need to learn. Students reflected on how they needed to take responsibility for their learning and they felt that the new system allowed them to feel in control of their learning.

I think for me as a teacher I was concerned that I wasn't doing what I needed to. But on reflection now I had not thought through the process of how this could pan out. I expected the kids to be able to do it. By going back to a pen and paper timetable and unpacking the tasks and the learning. I feel better and the kids are more confident.

Next year I would like to spend the first two weeks just breaking down tasks.

On Friday I am going to go through the tasks that I have set with the kids and ask them what I need to teach them to plan the following weeks teaching.

We plan together!