Today we held our first Twitter chat under the resurrected hashtag of #isedchat. "We" are a group of coaches who got together around some questions that we shared about coaching, and decided to explore them together.
Coaching the change involved 6 pretty wide ranging questions:
What current pedagogical shifts have caught your attention recently?
What strategies can we use to shift culture and model innovation and change?
How do you nurture reluctant teachers to integration?
How to promote inquiry over advocacy during coaching. What questions can you ask to promote teacher inquiry and ownership?
Empowering a community of learners and sharing the love.
If you could shift one aspect of your current role what would it be and why?
#1 Pedagogical Shifts
It seems like more of us are talking about different and exciting learning models that are being tried in our schools. More PBL, #20time, #geniushour, student agency as a priority, #ampedprg, tons of great stuff that is happening and is healthily coexisting with traditional models. The path that leads to more of this kind of learning and opportunity must run through a supportive and involved administration, one that models and champions all efforts to give students more ownership of their own learning path.
#2 Strategies to shift culture
The importance of leadership came up again in this question, as well as who you work with and what kind of work you do with a teacher depending on their level of comfort and willingness to engage.
#3 Reluctant teachers
This piece of the chat was all about nurturing relationships, and really reinforced the notion that our job as coaches really is all about relationships.
#4 Inquiry over advocacy
How can you make your conversation about discovery and questioning, rather than simply coming up with answers. I find it so difficult not to try to suggest solutions to everything, and that is the very essence of all of this! Coaches need to ask the questions that will allow teachers to explore their ideas and begin to construct their own answers.
#5 Empowering community
This part of the chat was dominated by the idea that a school hashtag, and what it can do for a school in terms of community, brand, and celebrating awesomeness.
#6 If you could shift something in your role...
This one resonated with me because we are in a real moment of transition here at TAISM. We have been 1:1 for almost four years, and teachers are very well trained up, but we do not have a culture of innovation yet. In pockets, we are exploring, but I feel like the time has come for us to begin to look at new ideas. Much of this depends on us coaches, we need to shift the perception that we are trainers, to the idea that we are co-planners and co-learners.
