Tips for Coaching Teachers - The First Conversation

Often, the hardest part of starting a coaching relationship with a teacher is figuring out how to start. There's much to be said about this, but here is some basic advice.

First of all, the first coaching conversation should happen before observing a class and the main goal of the conversation should be to establish a solid relationship. This can be done by talking personally a bit, sharing some information about your family and generally showing an interest in them as human beings. But the first conversation shouldn’t just be an informal get-to-know-you gab session. You also want to communicate that the professional side of your relationship is the core of your relationship and that you care deeply about helping them be the best teacher they can be for their students.

With this in mind, you should have two other goals for the first coaching session:

1)   Create a Vision for the Class – This vision is the big picture of what they want to accomplish in the year. It should include something about content mastery but, more importantly, it should describe how students are engaging with the material and how they are treating each other. It should say something about skills like critical thinking, communication, and collaboration. The vision can be framed by these two questions:

• What are the knowledge, skills, and mindsets that students will develop because of this class?
• What strategies will the teacher use to develop those knowledge, skills, and mindsets?

2)   Set Clear Expectations for the Coaching Relationship – This is incredibly important. Just as the teacher should have a vision for their class, the coach needs a vision for their coaching. Why are you in this teachers life, and how exactly do you intend to ‘coach’ them?

For this part of the conversation you should talk about how often you will observe them and what your debriefs will look like. Of course, you don’t always need to observe them to have a coaching conversation, and I find teachers often appreciate having sessions that are more driven by their own questions and reflections mixed in with the traditional observation-based discussions.

You also want to set clear expectations for your style of coaching. For instance, I like to make student work a part of most conversations. During observations I like to float around the room asking students what they’re working on, why, and if they can explain it to me. So I tell my teachers that I do all of this up front.

Then there’s the question of specific norms to guide your relationship. It’s incredibly useful to communicate these up front so that they can serve as a foundation later on. Here are a few I like to use:

Seek to Understand – I pledge that I will always seek to understand before giving advice. I prefer to listen far more than I speak in coaching conversations.

Continuous Improvement – Teaching is bottomless. There is no end to learning. We are not trying to journey toward some ‘best practice’. We are just committed to the journey of improvement.

Embrace Tension – This is one of my favorites and it’s incredibly important to bring it up at the very beginning before there’s any tension to be embraced. Discomfort is a powerful tool for spurring teacher reflection and having this as a central norm in your relationship makes that tool easier to use.

When this first conversation goes well, teachers start the year excited about their relationship with their coach. As the year progresses teachers don’t just feel supported they feel more values as professionals. And, of course, their students benefit as well.