Schoolutions: Coaching & Teaching Strategies

S4 E2: The Art of the Classroom Visit: Insights from Morgan Davis on Effective Coaching Practices

• Olivia Wahl • Season 4 • Episode 2

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In this episode of Season 4, Episode 2, I welcome back Morgan Davis, a coach with Jeffco Public Schools in Colorado. Join us as Morgan dives into her insightful strategies for supporting teachers and fostering a thriving classroom environment. 🏫

Morgan shares her approach to starting the school year strong by visiting every classroom and integrating herself as a coach into the daily life of the school. Discover how she uses research-based methods to identify strengths and build on them, ensuring teachers feel supported rather than evaluated. 📚✨

In this episode, you'll learn about:

  • Morgan's Classroom Visits: How she makes initial visits meaningful and non-evaluative.
  • The Role of Coaching: Balancing support and observation without adding to teacher stress.
  • Confidentiality and Transparency: How Morgan maintains trust while navigating her supportive role as a coach separate from the evaluative role of administrators.
  • Effective Communication: Strategies for providing feedback that truly supports teacher growth and development.

Plus, get a glimpse into Morgan’s successful integration of new resources and how she bridges the gap between teachers and caregivers. Whether you’re a coach, teacher, or administrator, you’ll find valuable insights to enhance your practice and support your team.

✨Check Out Morgan’s Recommended Resources to Support Your Classroom Visits:

📣Episode Mentions: 

#EducationPodcast #CoachingStrategies #ClassroomManagement #TeachingTips #EducationalLeadership  #TeacherSupport #ProfessionalDevelopment #ClassroomVisits #TeachingResources #FlexibleTeaching #CoachingInEducation #TeacherEngagement #EducationInnovation #LearningEnvironments #EdChat #TeacherCommunity #InstructionalCoaching #EducationExcellence #TeacherGrowth #ClassroomDynamics #TeacherProfessionalGrowth #ClassroomDynamics #TeachingTips #ParallelPractice #Schoolutions #MorganDavis #MorganDavisConsulting #OliviaWahl

When coaches, teachers, administrators, and families work hand in hand, it fosters a school atmosphere where everyone is inspired and every student is fully engaged in their learning journey.

[00:00:00] Olivia: Welcome to Schoolutions, the podcast where education extends beyond the classroom. You'll leave each episode with coaching and teaching strategies that ensure every student receives the inspiration and support they need to thrive.

[00:00:29] Olivia: I am Olivia Wahl, and I am so happy to welcome Morgan Davis back as a guest on Schoolutions. Morgan is a coach with Jeffco Public Schools in Colorado. Jeffco Public Schools serves 81,000 students and 166 schools. Morgan, welcome back. I'm so happy to have you as a guest. It's good to see you again. 

[00:00:55] Morgan: Yes. 

[00:00:56] Olivia: I want to start every conversation by asking coaches, you know, who is a researcher or what's a nugget of research? That has really had your back as a coach lately. 

[00:01:03] Morgan: Yeah. Um, I have several go-to's that, that I, um, pick up. I, um, Jim Knight, Elena Aguilar, all sorts of different coach mentors. I also don't shy away from reading teaching books because I find that the parallels in my coaching work are often embedded in the books that we're studying alongside teachers.

[00:01:22] Morgan: But the one that's standing out to me right now, um, is, um, I learned about her through Jim Knight’s podcast. She's Haesun Moon, PhD, and she wrote Coaching A to Z: The Extraordinary Use of Ordinary Words, and I'm only just a little way through and her first, um, the a in coaching a disease is the word already. And what I love about that. It is exactly why.

[00:01:44] Morgan: Um, I go into classrooms at the beginning of the year, in addition to get to getting to know teachers better is I want to know what's already happening. So in our building, we've adopted a new literacy resource. Um, this year we're adopting a new math resource. And what I'm helping teachers to see is ways that their classroom is already setting them up to do the work of bringing on.

[00:02:10] Morgan: A new resource or, um, implementing a new strategy or a new practice or creating a different level of community within our math classrooms. All of those things are already in place. We're not making huge leaps. Um, so, Haesun Moon really called that out for me in terms of that's key as coaches, we've got to start from the strengths of our team and our teachers, these conversations.

[00:02:34] Olivia: I want to be laser line focused on one topic. They're going to be shorter episodes. And something I have followed with you for a long time is how you get right into the classroom at the beginning of the year as a coach. And you have blogs about it. We'll share that with listeners too. Um, but what is your strategy for getting into teacher's classrooms right out of the gate the first few weeks of school as a coach?

[00:03:03] Morgan: It's actually something that I didn't start out with as a coach. It was something I learned to do during my first, um, six years as a coach. I was in a building and Sam Bennett actually came out and talked to us about coach visits and coach notes. And so when I transitioned to a building as a coach, it was paramount to me that I start.

[00:03:23] Morgan: The way I want to continue. And so within the first day of meeting new teachers in my new building, I said, this is what you can expect from me. I'm going to be in every classroom by the nth day. And I've continued that tradition. So whatever Labor Day ends up being, I am in every classroom before Labor Day.

[00:03:41] Morgan: We start school within the first, um, usually two or three weeks of August. So sometimes it's the ninth day. Sometimes it's the 11th day, whatever it is. Um, I commit to every classroom by that deadline. I set a deadline for myself. And, um, I'm also really clear with teachers about why I'm doing that. And, first and foremost, the reason is I've got to know them to teach, to coach them well.

[00:04:08] Morgan: Yes, and I learned that also from Sam Bennett. Those are her words, right? To coach you well, I have to know you well. And not only that, I have to know you not in PD, not in PLCs, I have to know the ins and outs of your classroom community. So, super important to kick off the year that way. 

[00:04:25] Olivia: So then let's take us to beginning of the year.

[00:04:29] Olivia: Teachers are often overwhelmed. There's so much work to be done and it may feel like, oh, I don't want another grownup coming into my classroom. I want to just get community going with my kids. How do you make that outside of, you know, sending that note, here's why I'm coming with intention. How do you make it comfortable for your teachers that you're serving?

[00:04:53] Morgan: I think the biggest thing is to just do what needs to be done. So, I've been known to walk into a classroom in the middle of their literacy block, and what the teacher's doing that day is getting first graders logged in for the first time into their learning platform. Great. I'm an extra set of hands that day.

[00:05:15] Morgan: I've walked in when I thought it was going to be a math lesson, and teachers are doing a brain break, super. I'm doing all the moves and motions. I just become whatever needs to happen in the moment. So, sometimes it is sitting, um, at the carpet with kids. Sometimes it is listening to a turn and talk.

[00:05:34] Morgan: Sometimes it is very much the work that I will continue to do as a coach. For And sometimes it's not. I've walked in at the end of a read aloud at the beginning of the year where the teacher is tearing up and the classes enjoying the last few pages of a book together. All of those things, number one, get me back to knowing teachers better, getting to know their classroom community, um, let me know what's already in place in terms of the strengths and assets in that classroom that we can leverage as we continue to, to learn new things together.

[00:06:08] Morgan: All of it works. Teachers are very apologetic. Oh, I'm sorry. I know you came to. Nope. Nope. I came for this. I've got to remember, number one, how hard it is to be in the classroom. I've got to remember that it is a wake up call every August to me to remember how hard it is. And then I've got to remember that that's what teaching is.

[00:06:29] Morgan: And so I can't show up for the pre planned lesson or the, um, the lesson that we've pre briefed together. It really is just getting in to be part of the work. 

[00:06:40] Olivia: Yes. So you don't have a schedule then. You don't say, sign up for a classroom visit. 

[00:06:44] Morgan: So, no, I do put them on my calendar. I put everybody's math block on my calendar, um, over the last few weeks and was able to get into every classroom.

[00:06:53] Morgan: If I didn't get you today, it might be tomorrow. One thing I do, um, I am intentional about is I typically go to, we have an instructional leadership team, and I go to those classrooms first. Okay. And that then kind of puts the word out that, oh, she was in my room today. But those teachers have already kind of, um, acknowledged a different level of risk in being part of that leadership team.

[00:07:15] Morgan: So that's something that I am intentional about, but it wouldn't, um, it's not, um, Paramount that I do that. It just is another layer of decision making that I do at the beginning of the year. 

[00:07:28] Olivia: So then with that said, how many teachers are there in your building that you're serving? 26 classroom teachers.

[00:07:35] Olivia: How long is each visit?

[00:07:35] Morgan: Um, anywhere between 15 to 30 minutes, depending on what we're doing. Sometimes I get caught up. 

[00:07:42] Olivia: Sometimes I can't walk out. Do you have specific lenses that you're looking for when you go in? 

[00:07:48] Morgan: Um, throughout the year my lens will change, but at the beginning of the year it is really just, um, getting to know you and your classroom community better, getting to know the resource, and then the third is I'm looking for things, um, that are already in place.

[00:08:03] Morgan: So, for example, with our new math curriculum, we spent time in August learning about talk moves, intentional things we can do as teachers to, um, enhance and encourage collaboration among students. So, my goal wasn't looking necessarily for. evidence of that training. My feedback to teachers were here are the ways your classroom community is already contributing to collaboration and communication within math.

[00:08:31] Morgan: So it really isn't, there's no look for is document. There's no, there's no walk through form. It really is just here are the things that we're going to be studying this year. Here is how you're building or you're Classroom community that you're building is already doing the work. 

[00:08:48] Olivia: Okay. And so then after, so you leave a classroom and then you give yourself time to just get a drink of water, go into the next, do you send a follow up email to the teachers that day?

[00:09:00] Morgan: While I'm in class with them, I leave them a little note, a thank you for letting me join in with whatever it was. Um, and then I do follow up with a more elaborate coaching note, one that says, um, again, thank you so much for having me in your room. Here are two or three things that I noticed and how they are already setting you up for success this year.

[00:09:20] Morgan: Here's a few questions that I have that you're welcome to respond to. Things like, um, these will sound familiar as well. Things like, What are you curious about? Right? Like, what do you notice about kids? Um, one that I incorporated this year, um, because we're implementing a new math resource; after implementing a new reading resource is, How does this beginning compare to other beginnings you've had before?

[00:08:47] Olivia: That's a good question.

[00:09:46] Morgan: So, then teachers can choose among those questions and get back to me. And sometimes it's in passing in the hallway, sometimes it's in an email reply, um, sometimes it's not at all. I'll be honest, like sometimes teachers are overwhelmed at this time of year, and it is one more thing to reply to me.

[00:10:03] Morgan: So I just take note of that and incorporate it into our next time together. 

[00:10:08] Olivia: Got it. So you give yourself about two weeks to see a get into every all 26 classrooms. And then how do you use that information to plan your next coaching cycles? 

[00:10:20] Morgan: So what's really nice about those is, um, they're also connected to what teachers have told me is already important to them.

[00:10:27] Morgan: So, um, having done this now, this is my fourth year in this building. It, it helps me to, it reminds me. Of who I'm working with. Like, teachers are incredible, right? They sure are. Two ways that those visits have immediately paid off for me are in our professional learning communities. I'm able to say, oh, so that reminds me of when I was in your room, right?

[00:10:51] Morgan: We were doing that thing. And it gets conversation talking about things that are more concrete than just, The general feeling of what we're doing in classrooms. The other one that it's paid off for me, I've never done a parent night before, but because we're bringing on this math curriculum, parents wanted to know what was happening.

[00:11:11] Morgan: What are you doing to our children? Right? And so I ran two nights of parent seminars during our curriculum or back to school night. And we had probably 200 parents show up across the two nights. And again, I was able to say, Hey. This is what it looked like in a 5th grade classroom yesterday. This is what it looked like in a 1st grade classroom.

[00:11:32] Morgan: So, whether it's parents or teachers, right now, I'm the bridge across the system. So even in professional learning communities, I could say, I saw that in your room yesterday. If I didn't, I can say, Can I share with you what 3rd grade's doing? Can I share with you what 5th grade's doing? Right? We are learning so much so fast that it's impossible for that to permeate the system without my role in helping to make those connections.

[00:12:02] Morgan: So 

[00:12:03] Olivia: that I want to pause there. That is such a beautiful image. You are the bridge because you truly are. You are the eyes and ears of goodness that can pollinate and share all of the magical things that are happening. And I also appreciate that you can be. I'm going to use the word buffer, but you can be, um, a support buffer, like almost bumper bowling.

[00:12:28] Olivia: Sometimes those questions that teachers have to field from caregivers feel like attacks, feel like we have to bristle with, um, defensiveness where, you know, if you're, In that parent, um, meeting with them and they're asking you questions about the curricula or what's happening, you can explain and offer those multiple lenses of how you see it impacting Children at different grades.

[00:12:54] Olivia: That's brilliant. I love that idea. 

[00:12:56] Morgan: Yeah, it was new for me this year, but it definitely paid off. I don't know how I would have fielded all the questions that they had if I hadn't been in classroom seeing it myself. I think that's something I did learn in my previous position is I can't expect to coach something I'm not actively a part of. I can't coach them in math if I don't know what math lessons look like. 

[00:13:21] Olivia: That's, it's everything. Okay, so then let's go to, um, one other piece of this that I always have struggled with. We're calling these classroom visits, and often admin, administrators, leadership team, they're going into classrooms.

[00:13:37] Olivia: It's not really a visit though. And there's that weird juxtaposition between evaluation and coaches are not evaluative roles and buildings. So how, again, do you set the tone that these classroom visits as a coach are not evaluative? 

[00:13:55] Morgan: Yeah, it's interesting because this year in our district, they've amped up how much they want administrators in classrooms and they're calling their visits classroom visits.

[00:14:07] Morgan: So. That was my first, uh, yeah, that was my first reaction was, um, you can't be doing classroom visits. I'm doing classroom visits. We have to keep this very separate. So in our building, I can speak to how it, it played out. Number one, I had already set that this was an expectation, so it wasn't new that I'd be in classrooms.

[00:14:27] Morgan: Okay. Um, and, My purpose for being there wasn't new, but this additional frequency of administration in classrooms was new. So we created a really quick graphic in to create transparency. My job is to identify and highlight things that you're already doing and connect you to the research. Their job is to be looking for elements of the teacher rubric and other things that they're going to call out specifically.

[00:14:54] Morgan: That is their lens for looking and it's always Transcribed It always can be tied to your evaluation. So we had to be very clear. The other thing I had to up my ante on this year was I had to remind people about confidentiality that when I'm in classrooms, my visit is not a source of information for administration visits.

[00:15:17] Olivia: You're not a spy, Morgan. Right? 

[00:15:18] Morgan: Right. And so I just had to remind people because otherwise, um, It's just another adult in your room, right? And we tend, and the lines tend to get really blurry. So we had to be really transparent about them, um, the purpose for them. And we'll continue to. The other thing we had to be really transparent about.

[00:15:37] Morgan: Um, intentional. That was our calendaring so that I wasn't walking out. They were walking in. So we did some calendaring. I said, I'm going to be in these great levels this week. So they knew hands off. Um, and they also prioritize my visits first, which I thought was said a lot about their value of coaching and that feedback that's at the beginning of the year.

[00:15:59] Morgan: That's reinforcing what's happening before they go in with any lens that may be misconstrued as evaluative.

[00:16:07] Olivia: So you just gave some great, uh, topic ideas for a principal coach meeting conversations to kick off the school year. Um, I just want to remind every listener that we have two previous. Interview conversations that rocked my world.

[00:16:23] Olivia: Um, you were part of season two, episode 14. You're a part of season three, episode 33. So listeners, please check those out. Morgan, you are a wealth of support as a coach. And I also know you have resources. You have a blog that I lean on often. Um, It's About Making Space, and you have a couple of blog entries around classroom visits that we'll tuck into the show notes.

[00:16:50] Olivia: Um, what protocol do you use for the confidentiality? 

[00:16:55] Morgan: I'm not a protocol necessarily, but, um, I, I, we talk about, like, What direction feedback goes and feedback can come to me from admin right if they want to share something with me that I can receive that information, but feedback does not go the other way.

[00:17:12] Morgan: It's a one way street. It can flow to me, but it doesn't flow past me from teachers. So hopefully that maintains. That safety in confiding in your coach about things that you're grappling with that you don't necessarily want to be public, um, in terms of your evaluation or your, um, standing in, in classroom performance.

[00:17:33] Olivia: I appreciate that Morgan. It is always powerful to be in conversation with you. So thank you so much for taking the time during your day to jump on and share these great strategies. Yes, thank you so much. All right. Take care, friend. You too. Schoolutions is created, produced, and edited by me, Olivia Wahl. 

[00:17:55] Olivia: Special thanks to my guest, Morgan Davis. Also, a big thank you to my older son, Benjamin, who created the music that's playing in the background. Don't forget to reach out to share your coaching and teaching strategies by leaving me a voice memo at my website, oliviawahl.com/podcast by leaving me a voice memo at my website, oliviawahl.com/podcast, or sending me an email at schoolutionspodcast@gmail.com

[00:18:17] Olivia: Make sure to tune in every Monday this school year. You will get strategies from coaches, teachers, administrators, and families about how they're collaborating to ensure every student's success through creating engaging learning environments. I can't wait to have you join our conversation next Monday.

[00:18:36] Olivia: See you then. Take care.

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