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Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Compass PD Podcast Episode 41: Empowering Instructional Coaches in January
Discover how to navigate the complexities of instructional coaching in January with Dr. Carrie Hepburn and Dr. Stephanie Brenner as they share heartwarming tales and transformative tips. From celebrating life's milestones, such as Stephanie's sons' achievements, to addressing the challenges that coaches face, this episode is a treasure trove of insight. They peel back the layers of professional development, revealing "Empowering Coaches: A Monthly Journey to Transforming Minds and Unlocking Potential," the game-changing program tailored for educational coaches eager to enhance their craft.
Listen in as they tackle structured data conversations vital for academic triumph and delve into the art of resetting classroom norms to align with the year's educational goals. To leave a lasting impact on a million students in the coming school year, Stephanie and Carrie share the vision for early planning and the power of collaboration among educators and stakeholders. Prepare to be encouraged and educated with purpose and passion as we journey through the second semester.
Episode 32: Maximize Coaching Effectiveness at the End of the Semester
Episode 11: Got Data? Steps to Analyzing and Planning Reading Interventions for Our Youngest Readers
Hello, hello, hello. Dr Carrie Hepburn here from Compass PD. I am really excited because it's the beginning of the year 2024, that is, we're in January, and Dr Stephanie Brenner is joining me today. So, stephanie, how are things going in your world right now?
Speaker 2:Things are good. It's a hard to believe. Or halfway, oh three quarters of the way through January already. The first month is almost over, and there are some fun things happening this year and my, I think, I've shared with you guys before.
Speaker 2:My oldest son is a senior and so we have a lot of things that are lasts and that's really hard. It's a lot harder than you expect it to be. But then we also have some really cool firsts too. So right now, Kyle was asked, invited to be part of the pit for the school musical and that series of performances is coming up in a couple of weeks and he's I'm just like super proud of being excited for him because he's super proud and excited about it. And he said it's kind of a big deal to be invited to be into the pit because it's you don't audition you're asked to be a part of. So that's super cool. And then this year, already in January 2024, brought me the fact that I am now the shortest person in my house. Yes, so my youngest sometime during Christmas break bypassed me and he's incredibly proud of it. I'm not, yes.
Speaker 1:It happens. It happens and it's really important for, like being another mom of sons as well, I remember that's like a big milestone for the youngest boy to not be the smallest anymore. It's. It's like a competition thing who gets to be bigger and they're happy when they at least pass mom.
Speaker 2:Yes, and he, like he just keeps walking up to me and he's like I'm taller than you. Oh yeah, I'm like I get it.
Speaker 1:Yes, you are taller than me.
Speaker 2:You're taller than me, so I know. Happy for him, but not for me. You have a lot of big moments right now happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with where your boys are in their ages, where there's like a lot of, like you said lasts and first. Yeah, I think, as a mom, like nobody prepares you for your heart being ripped out of your chest. It's just like you feel like your heart is being ripped out of your chest as they get that independence and you're like, oh my gosh, like in education, when you're a teacher and a parent, your job, you're successful in your job if you've made them independent and they can do the things without you, and that sucks.
Speaker 2:It does Like. We're definitely experiencing that with my oldest because it's like he'll be 18 in a couple weeks or a couple months and where's the balance of? I don't get to say anymore, because that's hard to navigate. So if people have advice on that, I'm all in.
Speaker 1:We appreciate parenting advice.
Speaker 2:Somebody should start a podcast on that.
Speaker 1:That would be a great one. That would be a great one. I think people would listen to it. Yes, Well, I'm excited that you're here with us to share information to support coaches in January.
Speaker 1:We've been getting lots of really great feedback about how the podcast has been helping coaches. Many have mentioned that your podcast where you discussed difficult conversations episode 32, was really helpful for them. And then the support, which is so timely right now, from episode 11, where you were talking about data and all of the data that was coming in and being able to analyze that. Those were really game changers in their thinking. So I'll make sure those are linked in our show notes today and based on the feedback from the coaches, they state time and time again that they're continually asked to deliver professional development, support, data conversations and coach up administrators and like horizontally coach their colleagues, like the teachers, without any professional learning themselves, Like they're asked to do this but given no support, no training on how to do that.
Speaker 1:And I think what's so exciting is that you've designed empowering coaches a monthly journey to transforming minds and unlocking potential. It's an opportunity for coaches to meet with you and dig deeper into what we discussed on the podcast and then have like that small group support from you. Basically, like how this goes is districts pay for Dr Brenner to come to them and provide this kind of support for their coaches in person. But what we know is that not everyone can afford that, and what I know about Dr Brenner is she has a heart for coaches and she really cares about them. She's always like what are we going to do for the coaches? What are we going to do for the coaches?
Speaker 1:And so this empowering coaches monthly journey coaching monthly coaching is $30 a month. So for $30 a month you can have access to her brilliance. She wants to make sure that, if your school district can't pay for it, that it's affordable for coaches. So check that out. That'll be linked in the show notes. It's affordable for districts, but it's also affordable for individuals as well. So I think we can get started with the show. We'll get started on what's happening in January. So coaches right now have their first semester under their belts and they're preparing for January. What should be on their radars as a coach.
Speaker 2:Well, when I was thinking about this and like, oh goodness, two things immediately come to mind, while they're like a litany of things, but two things that come to mind right now. One is reviewing expectations and goals with teachers and the second is data, which really pairs well with what you were saying, one of the episodes that people really previous, episodes that people really liked, so happy to say. We'll dig into that a little bit more, that first thing being reviewing expectations and goals. So, as a coach with staff, this can look a lot of different ways. It could be that you're reviewing expectations in a whole group at a staff meeting or you're doing it with individual teams during their planning time or their PLC work time. How you're able to tailor that conversation and content will really depend on the setting. If you're able, if you're needing to do it whole group with all of the staff, then you're not able to tailor it to one grade level as, specifically, you're doing more whole, broad type of things Versus if you're in with one group of teachers, you can really hone in on a lot of different things that are important. And then some of the things that you might need to review what I would suggest the expectations that you could review at this time would be a lot of things related to curriculum and resource guidelines. So getting in this like monotony of this is how things are going and we're just like going and going and going where in now we've had this time off and it's a good time to come back and bring out things like what are the minute expectations for all of your different content areas and then classroom structure expectations. Where do you find your scope and sequence or your curriculum? What is the assessment schedule? Just to put these things back on people's minds.
Speaker 2:It's not, at this point of the year, not meant to be an in depth discussion because, assuming you did this type of thing at the beginning of the school year, it's just a reminder of those things so that, moving forward, they're knowing that that stuff is important and it helps ensure that you're in strong. It keeps the stuff that's really important at the forefront of their mind is a big deal and maybe even correct some things that had gotten a little loose at the end of the previous semester. Time that we can shore things up. If you are some other data type of things that you might review us your staff could be any district building or team goals that were established at the beginning of the school year. That could be big initiatives that were new at the year, so it's a nice reminder time to teachers that it's why.
Speaker 2:Why are we doing this? Why is this goal important? Why are we reviewing this data beyond someone telling you you had to? Why are we monitoring this information? Why are you working on this initiative and so on? The biggest takeaway I have for that is this review of things is that adult learners are learners and they really need to know why, like that big question, why and we can't forget that they need to hear things multiple times, just like kids, before things are internalized enough to where there's a true understanding, and I think that's missed a lot.
Speaker 1:Yes, I want to pause you for just a moment in this because, really, these things that you're talking about, like reviewing these expectations, what you're doing for the coaches this year is helping them think through a system. These are the predictable things that happen throughout a school year, and so you're developing a system that is predictable for the people that you're serving and I think something that we'll see, and we've been doing tons of system work and districts like helping them rebuild systems. It's been really hard for people to have, if they didn't have systems in place, develop them. But those that did have systems in place prior to COVID, they're really struggling getting back on those systems Like this is how school goes If you don't have those like curriculum and resource guidelines, those expectations for minutes, the expectations for what class looks like, for like the workshop model or what from bell to bell looks like in secondary.
Speaker 1:You want to have some of those expectations of what does instruction and student work look like and that scope and sequence. Where are we? How are we doing on our pacing? Do we? You know, in some places they don't have a scope and sequence. So you know, thinking through that and then that assessments, that it's just very visible. These are some of the systems. If you don't have that, maybe in your building as a coach, you're trying to build some of that, though that it does, you know, make those expectations visible, so we prefer it coming from the district level and then the coach is supporting that. But what I'm hearing from you, dr Brenner, are like you're helping them create their system of how school goes, again and again.
Speaker 2:Right and that it's also to the classroom. Teachers should be doing those same things with their kids now that they're back to, so they come back from an extended break. It's what are the routines of our classroom. Don't forget. I want you to do this and you put these things here. This is how you turn in your work and this is how conversation looks in our classroom. So you're resetting those kinds of things in their classroom. So, as the coach, we need to reset those same kinds of things with our staff to everyone's back on the same page or back to being really tight in our expectations and our instruction, so that we can end the year really strong. Yes, thank you. Yeah, so I mentioned two things you could review expectations and goals, and the second thing is data.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what I have found is this time of the year is a lot like the beginning of the school year, where coaches and teachers are overwhelmed with data because universal screening data has been updated. Around this time, curriculum assessments are being done like if it might be like a standard assessment or a benchmark or end of the unit assessments. Report card type of assessments are happening. Progress monitoring data go up, dating all of this stuff like classroom visits up. All those things are coming to a point, and so it's. We have our beginning of the year, now we have our mid year data, and I think that tip or strategy I would offer, as for coaches, is like, where do you start? I guess is the question, and what I like to think about is what is the thing that you're going to share with teachers? And then I think that we need to really determine what data you have to share with teachers and then think about how can you make it most meaningful to their everyday life and their everyday teaching. For example, if I have to share updated universal screening data, what I really want to do is talk about the numbers and any changes that they see. I need them to know exactly which students the data represents. That might look like some kind of sorting where teachers can quickly see who, based on the current data, where students falling, so who's meeting benchmark, who's not meeting benchmark, and, within that, have a way of noticing which students changed. So this kid is now meeting. This group of kids are meeting benchmark. This group of kids are not meeting benchmark within the group of kids who are meeting benchmarks, and so these particular kids made more growth than we expected. These particular kids did not make the growth that we expected for each category of meeting or not meeting the data.
Speaker 2:Having that done ahead of time is really important, because what I have found is that it's most successful when you share data like that so that you can start thinking about how can you take the time. I'm going to step back. I want the student data, the numbers, things sorted already ahead of time so that in the meeting I can plan for an ethic coach, I can take the time to explain what each part of an assessment or the data tool that I'm looking at, what that is actually measuring. So at the coach I'm thinking about I need to share the numbers, but then I'm also thinking I need to give the teachers background on this assessment.
Speaker 2:So questions that you can answer might be like what is this particular assessment looking at? It might be a standard or skill. What are the expectations for that part or that assessment? So it's like kids should be able to fill in the blank. Another question is why is knowing this information or why is this being assessed important? So we want kids to be able to do this so that they can fill in the blank and I think, like the fourth question would be what do you see most often in students who do well on this assessment and what do you see most often in students who do not do well? So you're thinking of what behaviors or strategies can you notice of students while they're doing this assessment? Kids who do well, kids who are not doing well.
Speaker 2:So, taking that a step further, get teachers to start thinking about. What do they see in their whole group and small group instruction? So, in the kids who are doing well, what behaviors and strategies and evidence in their work are you going to see kids who are not doing well? What behaviors and strategies are you going to see in their work, in whole group and small group instruction? And then, finally, as the coach, I am trying to answer this like the most important thing what do I, as the teacher, need to do or can I do in my everyday instruction to help students not performing well and to push those students who are doing well? So I know the kids, but I need to get to the conversation that helps them know the things they can do to push kids further. This is the part that's missed most often in a data conversation.
Speaker 1:Well, as you're talking, the best data conversations are when it's set up and ready for teachers. We're seeing more than ever that our teachers are pulled in a bazillion directions and they don't have time to do this, so we're telling them to do it. Like leadership is like, oh, we're doing PLCs and you should be doing all these things, yeah, but the reality is it's not possible. It's not possible for them to do the kind of work that you're saying. As a coach, we could do this work and really have meaningful discussions and impact instruction, so without it, these meaningful discussions and instructions not being impacted, right?
Speaker 2:Right and so, like, as the coach, how I plan to structure that time with teachers is going to make it go well or not. So the planning you do on the front end of it is really important, and so I was. I started with having a protocol or a system that you use that you can quickly identify which kids were talking about, and just giving that to kids ahead of our teachers, ahead of time, helps you get the conversation moving, because then they're not like trying to click in and find this go, do this login Right so they can see what kids were talking about. Just give them ahead of time. And then, if you have you're thinking in the meeting or as the coach, the process I'm going through is like, okay, I'm going to identify my kids and then I need to start during this time, I want to answer those questions for teachers like what is this assessment looking at? What are the expectations for this? Why is knowing this important? What do you see most often in kids? What might you see during small group and whole group? And then, okay, what am I going to do for them every day in class? Because that's the meaty part, but you have to have. You have to have a structure for the meeting or a protocol for the meeting. That let's get there.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that helps me be most successful in those conversations is that I set a timer, like we're going to spend four minutes identifying the kids we're going to spend. I have these four or five things that I want to kind of like throw at you. It's what is this assessment looking for? What are the expectations? Why do we need to know this? And then, at four minutes, I'm going to go give you all of that, then get into the strategies of I'm going to. These are the behaviors I'm going to see and this is how I know if they're doing well or not. I'm going to see this in small group and whole group, and now this is what I'm going to do. So but and then I structured that part of the time for, you know, like 15 minutes, because that's the meat that I want us to have and sticking to that time it helps teachers know too we're not going to get bogged down in this other part. That doesn't. Let's get to this part.
Speaker 1:Right and I think coaches need to have right now on their radar that that takes a lot of time To go through that data, get the data and prep, and so it's really important that they Communicate with that, that with their administrator, the teachers that they support, that they need and deserve the time To be able to gather this so we can have successful PLC time with teachers or successful meetings and impact that instruction. So that's another thing that's like coming out to me like yeah, and that's a really predictable problem.
Speaker 2:Carry, I mean not having the communication of. This is the data I need. I have a time frame of when we need to look at the data so that it is immediate and, yes, because that data it's outdated and so you don't want to make instructional decisions about data that's too old. Yes, you need a real you and your administrator, the coach and administrator and teacher leaders like Need to have good communication about when is this happening, whose role is to get this done, and like has to flow really well, so that, but that's something you need to. If you don't have it established already, these are things you can think about starting to Establish, so that's simply, you do have them established.
Speaker 1:Of it. What are some predictable problems they're going to face right now?
Speaker 2:The one that we just mentioned is the. The time commitment that it took, it takes to get all that data Going and the coordination making sure everyone knows their role, the expectation and Communicating this is happening when this is happening is one. The other thing that I Think is a huge struggle for a lot of schools that we service is Right. There is a huge disruption to schedules due to weather, like right now. My kids have a snow day today and other holidays. It's really predictable. Because of it, it's hard to get into a flow of the day and the weeks. It just feels like things are really choppy and when you're here for a day, you're not here for a day, or and then you're out for a holiday or a weekend or extended weekend. It just is hard to keep track of where you are.
Speaker 2:Having a Really clear scope and sequence from your curriculum yeah, knowing really Having a really clear understanding the what are the overall big ideas and objectives of your curriculum and the units Can be incredibly helpful when you have to make decisions because at some point like third quarter is at an end or this some trimesters at an end and I've got to get done, or else nothing, I'm not going to meet my end of the thing.
Speaker 2:So I had really hard decisions that I need to make as a coach. Spending time visiting any of those proficiency scales or rubrics, progressions and continuums that are related to assessments and unpack standards will be really impactful and helpful for teams as they're making those decisions about a Lessons got to go and Decide what lessons going to go, and that's how I rely on my unpack standards and my Continuums and my proficiency scales and rubrics, because that's the big ideas of the unit and I need to make sure I'm meeting the big idea right. I think this time of year it's just the with that is that you have to maintain the focus and keep this sense of urgency going, because the winter is just like blah and it kind of just feels like it's monotony and there are winter blues and it just feels like you have this false sense of plenty of time but all of a sudden we're done. It's gonna be March before we know it and you didn't get as far as you needed to get because, right, choppiness of the schedule was like really misleading. I.
Speaker 1:Agree, those winter can kind of like slow things down, which it naturally does with the. We want to stay inside and we're wrapped up in warm things and and all of that. So we do have to keep that sense of urgency because we can make Like significant growth. Yeah, in the next several months, like a lot can happen if we don't take our foot off the gas. Yes, I'll keep that play. What tipper reminder would you like to share with coaches?
Speaker 2:Before you know it, the end of the year is going to be here and You're not gonna really know how you got here. So I think that, starting in January and February to outline Plans for end of the year procedures and systems that you know are going to be coming up, especially if there are new things you want to accomplish. Now is the time to get feedback and input from classroom teachers, administrators, specialists in the building, so you can make a very strategic plan and it doesn't happen have hazard in a rush all at one time, because you forgot about it and it's April and we didn't realize. Yes, crazy as it seems, we're at the time where you need to start making the plans for end of the year procedures and systems. That's my tip.
Speaker 1:Well, that's interesting. I recently recorded the podcast for curriculum, professional learning assessment instruction leaders and in there I was telling them the work that you're doing now is really setting you up for next year. The work that you're doing is setting the tone, for you're kind of giving them glimpses into, like for you guys, you're giving them glimpses into what the end of the year is like and what predictions of, or foreshadowing, what's going to happen next year. So that work is important to start now, so that it's not a surprise and things haven't just been changed, or or you're prepared. Just the feeling of things not being rushed and intentional and prepared helps create that safe space for our teachers and our students.
Speaker 2:I agree, and what I would add is that it is when we don't rush, we don't wait till the last minute, we're able to get feedback and input from a lot of stakeholders in the building and that helps the process of making something go well, and you said, the perspective of a lot of people. It helps everyone feel like they had a role in the decision making and it wasn't. Some things aren't done to them, things are done with them and with very specific purpose that they had input in. We're not able to do that if we wait till the last minute. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:It's not and people can tell yeah, I mean those that we serve can tell when we aren't, when we're rushing through and it's not as detailed or as thought through as it should be, honestly. Well, thank you so much for sharing your brilliance with us. I love seeing you here, with you. I love having you here. It's always so much fun. As PD community, we are asking you to help us reach our goal of impacting education by reaching the learning of one million students during the 23-24 school year. You can do that by liking and subscribing to our podcast, sharing it with a fellow educator and giving us a review, so we would love for you to do that. If you have something you want us to talk about, let us know. We are here to serve. That's really our mission is serving educators. We want to just tell you to take care and stay inspired, Compass PD community and have a great day.