This was the first book having to do with "instructional coaching" that I read in preparation for the new role. I thought that it made several useful suggestions about how to support teachers as they make changes in their classrooms.
The book opens with a description of a school hoping to implement change. Reform strategies were selected including collaboration strategies and data-driven decision-making, teachers and administrators were trained and instructional coaching was made available, and programs were monitored. But, real change didn't happen. Student achievement didn't improve and significant changes didn't occur in classrooms. Why? And, what could have been done at this school to make all their efforts worthwhile?
This scenario calls to mind our exact situation at BHS. Because of PLA we're about to institute these same activities. So, how can we do them more effectively than the school described in the book? Obviously, this was an appropriate hook for me.
The book is separated into two parts. Part 1 deals with six key elements for effective staff development that can be differentiated to meet the needs of each teacher, just like we're supposed to differentiate instruction for each student. Part 2 deals with a model that helps identify patterns in teacher beliefs, needs, and learning styles in order to make differentiated coaching possible.
Chapter 1 What Do Teachers Believe? gives three of the six key elements of effective staff development: (1) Using a common framework for unbiased reflection on education, (2) Understanding teachers' strengths and beliefs about teaching and learning, (3) Providing information and evidence that can influence those beliefs. A story is told about Josh, the social studies teacher on a grade-level collaborative team. He listens to his teammates' suggestions for ways to differentiate his reading instruction, but he doesn't change. The point of the chapter isn't too judge him for being a poor teammate or teacher, but to examine why he isn't changing, and an answer may be that he sincerely believes that his methods are best for his students. Kise, who was Josh's instructional coach, notices that his beliefs are strongly connected to his strengths, and that his beliefs and strengths make up the core of how he views himself as a teacher. A teacher's beliefs come from different places--perhaps his own school experiences and the environment in which he teaches--but they are often connected to the teacher's strengths. So, asking teachers to change is downright threatening; the change may go against personal experience or the school's culture or the teachers' strengths.
Some questions to ask before embarking on teacher-centered staff development are: (1) What are the teachers' beliefs about how students learn? (2) How tightly are teachers' beliefs tied to their own strengths as educators? (3) What are the teachers' beliefs about their roles in student success? (4) What else keeps teachers from trying new practices? Teachers' beliefs need to be uncovered because ineffective beliefs will stand in the way of their ability to change. But how are teachers to uncover their beliefs and be open to changes if they are in a sense blinded by their own beliefs? A suggested answer is to make use of personality type, popularized through the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator tool (MBTI). Kise indicates that there are several good tools that could supply the framework for a discussion about beliefs, and that personality type can be used even without applying the complete MBTI tool. The point is that understanding one's own type and others' type can facilitate effective communication and reduce personal bias based on beliefs.
Returning to the story of Josh: in order to help him to change, his coach did a couple of significant things. She used the knowledge that her type was an exact opposite to Josh to make him aware that some of the students are his opposite too--they might enjoy activities that he's inclined to dismiss. She helped him to plan a lesson. When he implemented the lesson she was present to provide support including reinforcing the positive about what's happening (e.g., Josh's beliefs naturally led him to only note things that reinforced his beliefs, so the coach was able to point out other things going on in the room). She modeled how to facilitate learning stations, suggested organizing strategies, and shared feedback with Josh from his students. Next, she crunched the data to compare student achievement after this lesson to a previous lesson. All of this was to provide Josh with a positive first experience and evidence that contradicted his beliefs, which became the evidence he needed to form new beliefs.
Chapter 2 What Do Teachers Need During Change? begins with a story about the rest of Josh's grade-level team. They didn't seem to be changing anything either! Again, their instructional coach Kise asks why and decides that it may have to do with the teachers not receiving the information they needed. One teacher needed immediate applications (if she couldn't see how the information was immediately useful in her classroom, then she sort of tuned out). Another needed a vision for how each child will be affected (if a strategy might not work for every child or a specific atypical child in her classroom, then she dismissed it). Josh wanted details, not the big picture (if an idea didn't come with all details worked out so he could be confident of successful implementation, then he dismissed it). Kise lists several more "needs" that teachers may have when it comes to staff development and makes the point that if these needs aren't met, then change won't happen for the people "left out" by the process. Key element #4 (out of 6) for effective staff development is meeting the needs of each teacher.
Not only does effective staff development require tailoring the content to meet teachers' individual needs, it requires differentiating the process. (This is starting to sound familiar, isn't it?) Large-group sessions, professional learning communities, off-site workshops, team-based initiatives, and differentiated coaching all have their place, but the only one of these processes that can meet the needs of all teachers is differentiated coaching. It is important to note the qualifier "differentiated" here because instructional coaching or mentoring can also be ineffective if they're not responsive to teachers' needs. Josh's team needed an instructional coach who was able to do the following: be a useful resource, be an encouraging sage, be a collegial mentor, be an expert. And their coach had to take on these different roles depending on whom she was partnering with.
Chapter 3 What Problems Do Teachers Want to Solve? begins with a story of another grade level team in Josh's school and ELA teacher Amy. Amy is having trouble with student behavior. So, her need is for the coach to support her in handling the behavior, and she is likely to dismiss other staff development and school initiatives because they aren't her most pressing problem right now. Kise helped Amy to define her problem and her definition changed from "The students are out of control and don't trust me" to "Students aren't engaged; their off-task behavior fosters lack of trust in the classroom." By more clearly getting at the root of the issue Amy's solution ideas will have more potential. And, it's important to recognize that one's solution set is very related to one's beliefs. A teacher may be out of ideas for handling a problem, but a fresh viewpoint from a colleague with different beliefs, and Kise would say a different personality type, can bring more ideas to light. Key element #5 (out of 6) for effective staff development is relating what is being learned to the problems teachers want to solve in their classrooms.
A coach helps teachers to gather evidence as they enact a new strategy by supplying materials, helping to identify questions to ask to find out if the strategy is working, and helping to interpret any measurements gathered. Teachers have very limited prep time so a coach can help get a strategy started by doing a lot of the grunt work needed to prepare for a lesson and may even need to model the lesson. Again, the objective is to create a positive initial experience for the teacher. At BHS we intend to use teacher data teams to examine classroom data and brainstorm strategies that will differentiate instruction for students. Teachers are going to have to be open to their colleagues' suggestions and implement them in their classrooms. I think an instructional coach can be very helpful during this process.
Chapter 4 How Can Teachers Collaborate? gives the sixth key element for effective staff development: deep, reflective collaboration. Kise identifies three levels of collaboration:
- Superficial. An example at BHS would be the 9th grade Academy discussions about specific students or to plan the chili cook-off event.
- Segmented. Examples at BHS would be team teaching a class in May Term or when the 9th grade Academy seeks to implement common expectations for student behavior.
- Instructional. I don't think this has been a regular practice at BHS, although there may exist a few teacher pairs or groups that engage in deep discussions about teaching and learning to unearth assumptions, gain from each other's natural strengths, share strategies and ideas, and learn what is possible in the classroom. Sometimes this is called reflective practice or critical reflection.
It is Level 3 collaboration that we're seeking to make part of the culture at BHS through several of the strategies of our PLA Transformation Plan including teacher data teams, a responsive lesson planning form that includes differentiated instruction and teacher reflection, instructional coaching partnerships, and accountability for these changes in the performance evaluation.
Level 3 collaboration
- Provides the necessary pressure and incentives to change and the support needed to do the hard work of changing (from Fullan, 2001).
- Allows the coordination of efforts to improve student achievement.
- Helps unearth patterns (e.g., maybe a math teacher assigns too many practice problems before students' fully understand a process instead of using a more distributed approach to practice).
- Improves student achievement.
Kise discusses what gets in the way of Level 3 collaboration and some reasons are: (1) a culture of silence that discourages teachers from talking about their classrooms or teaching, (2) the idea that teachers are individual entrepreneurs--as the "executive" of their classrooms teachers have a hard time accepting criticism without feeling their competency is being questioned, (3) teaching is creative expression, (4) a culture of secrecy--opening up to others is risky, (5) bias toward noninterference--for example, waiting for a teacher to ask for help, (6) lack of common goals and meaning, (7) intensifying work--"Hey, we want you to do all this wonderful collaboration, but we're not going to provide any more time to do it, and by the way we're cutting your pay this year due to the budget."
Kise says that learning collaborative skills takes time and effort, something that I think we'll all soon experience when we implement teacher data teams. The planning materials for data teams include a lot of information for team leaders and members regarding the skills needed for effective collaboration. Kise discusses much of this same information and adds to it her premise that a common framework for discussing teaching and learning is a must.
Part 2 Developing a Language for Change
Kise has mentioned "common framework" several times in Chapters 1 - 3, and it is key element #6 (out of 6) for effective staff development. The framework is what allows for unbiased discussion of teaching and learning. It needs to
- Describe teaching and learning in nonjudgmental ways. No one should feel labeled.
- Be strengths-based, emphasizing how each person teaches and learns rather than placing limits on what they can do.
- Describe what learning style a practice will reach.
- Apply across cultures and to both adults and students.
- Provide bridges among varying staff development efforts.
Chapter 5 A Common Framework--Creating a Climate Where Change Is Possible discusses reasons why Kise's recommendation to use the personality types from the MBTI tool is a good framework. She says that people display normal differences in how they: (1) Gain energy, (2) Take in information, (3) Make decisions, (4) Approach life. All of these are key processes in education. Acknowledging and responding to people's types informs coaching needs, leadership development, teambuilding and collaboration, teacher and student learning styles, reflective practice, and classroom management and student interactions. Type theory has some overlaps with Gardner's Multiple Intelligences (Gardner, 1999), Experiential Learning Model (Kolb, 2000), and Mind Styles (Gregorc, 1999).
When I started into reading Part 2 I recalled a rather silly, in my opinion, PD session we had at BHS many years ago in which we classified ourselves as orange, blue, green, or whatever color people based on our personality traits. I can recall many teachers commenting afterward about how useless that PD was. But like a lot of our PD in the past, we might not have felt that way if anything had been done to carry forward those ideas. When I think more deeply about it, there was probably value in knowing my tendencies and knowing that I think and act differently than others, but the value would have come from our school making a concerted effort to do something with that knowledge, for example to inform how we collaborated with each other or how we developed lessons to meet varied types of students. Needless to say, we didn't do that.
The first personality type preference pair that's introduced relates to how one approaches life. We can measure ourselves on a continuum between Judging (J) and Perceiving (P). Judging has to do with a preference for planning work and working the plan (it's not about being judgmental, but rather preferring to come to judgment (closure) on things). Perceiving has to do with a preference for staying open to the moment (it's not about being more perceptive, but rather preferring to continue to perceive (gather) more information). Neither is right or wrong or better than the other, they are simply preferences. Having said that, apparently research shows that 80 - 85% of principals prefer judging, compared with 60 - 65% of the general population. I can imagine the feelings of conflict and stress that could be created when such a principal "imposes" practices in the school that aren't in line with some teachers' and many students' basic outlook on life. A Perceiving teacher might feel straitjacketed by a principal's idea to use a common lesson planning form, and the principal could be oblivious or just not understand why there's an issue. Kise identifies several implications for instructional coaching based on this difference between J and P.
The second personality type preference pair is about how one is energized. This time we fall on a continuum between Extraversion (E) and Introversion (I). Extraversion has to do with gaining energy through action and interaction--the outside world (it's not about sociability, extraversion isn't the same thing as being an extrovert). Introversion has to do with gaining energy through reflection and solitude--the inner world (again, this isn't about being socially introverted, it's about a preference for gaining energy). Generalities apply to either preference that have implications for many things in education: team meetings, classroom expectations, staff development, reading and writing. I think I tend toward Introversion, and it sometimes is enervating for me to be in meetings with those Extraverts who talk all the time, don't listen for understanding, and change their minds constantly when I'd rather go off by myself to think about things.
The third type pair is about how one gathers information and the continuum is between Sensing (S) and Intuition (N). Sensing is about first paying attention to what is, to information you can gather through your five senses--the facts. Intuition is about first paying attention to what could be, to hunches, connections, or imagination. Again, I can easily imagine areas for conflict and stress in classrooms when an Intuitive teacher gives an open-ended assignment to a Sensing student who has a need for clear directions. Or think about our departments and data teams--what may happen if the science team, for example, has three Sensing teachers and one Intuitive teacher? Does great care need to be taken in this team to keep things fair and unbiased?
The fourth and final pair is about how we make decisions: are we Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)? Thinking has to do with a preference for making decisions through objective, logical principles (it's not about being unfeeling). Feeling has to do with a preference for making decisions by considering the impact of each alternative on the people involved. Research indicates that 75 - 80% of principals have a preference for Thinking (I wonder what Suzanne's preference is?) and so here again is potential for stress when Feeling teachers are hit with some of the strategies in our Transformation Plan.
Well, a little bit of math will quickly figure out that with four pairs and two choices per pair there are 16 personality types (I bet some of you non-math folks thought 8, right? 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16). I think I tend toward being ISTJ (Intuitive, Sensing, Thinking, Judging). Here's what Appendix A, which has charts with all sorts of useful generalities for each of the 16 types, says about me:
- Strengths: hardworking; stable; sensible; improving what works; being consistent; structuring routines; covering basic skills, essential ideas, and the curriculum thoroughly
- At my best in the classroom: assignments that allow for objective grading and clear expectations; good directions and step-by-step instructions; structures that help students follow through; pencil/paper drills, predictable elements to assignments; teacher-led discussions emphasizing factual information
- Stressors: interruptions; uncertainty; trying to do too much at once; when something goes wrong despite tremendous effort; lack of respect from others for hard work
- Needs during change: clear connections between current practices and new ones; information that answers all questions; careful attention to implementation details--schedules, costs, responsibilities
I guess those who know me can evaluate how well I classified myself and if these generalities really apply to me.
Chapter 6 Learning Styles and Coaching--An Effective Alliance begins by returning to the discussion of teacher beliefs. A "teacher's educational beliefs are to a large extent bound to their personalities" (p. 102). Our beliefs come from how we learn. So, all of that general knowledge about the 16 types can be very helpful in schools especially in differentiated instruction and differentiated coaching. A coach can help teachers "reframe resistance to new ideas in terms of personality strengths and biases rather than rights and wrongs" (p. 105). So, change can be less threatening.
Implications for Reading & Writing: Research demonstrates that Intuitive students tend to outscore Sensing students on reading tests. It's not that they are more intelligent, but that the test is in the "native language" of Intuitives. A Sensing child needs to do more translating, which takes time. Intuitives might write better reflective papers, but Sensing students might write better itemized lab reports.
Implications for Math & Science: Research shows that math teachers have a preference for Sensing and Thinking. So, Feeling students may be disadvantaged. Or, consider how an Intuitive Introvert (IN) might feel about a hands-on activity when she would prefer to just "see it in her head." Just like with reading, Intuitive students do better on standardized tests. And the same for science (it's sounding like school is pretty frustrating for those Sensing students who are slower at picking out main ideas from reading and who appreciate hands-on activities). A study of alternative schools demonstrated that 90% of their students were Sensing--they failed in the regular system because most teachers and learning environments don't meet them at their needs.
The rest of the chapter details what all of this personality type information has to do with instructional coaching and how a coach can use it for staff development and support of teachers. Since all of this is an overwhelming amount of information, I liked Kise's suggestion to implement this in phases: (1) Learning Styles--IS, IN, ES, EN, (2) adding Judging and Perceiving, (3) adding Thinking and Feeling.
Chapter 7 Coaching Your Whole Staff for Change
Chapter 8 Differentiated Coaching for Teachers--the Power of a Strengths-Based Model
Chapter 9 A Framework for Solving Problems
Chapter 10 Organizing Staff Development Efforts in the Same Backpack
All of these chapters apply the theory of Types to those six key elements discussed in Part 1 of the book. I particularly appreciated a section about Difficult Students (pp. 180 - 182). First, the majority of disciplinary referrals in schools are in situations where the student and teacher are of opposite personality types. I think we can now see why this might occur. It goes beyond just "clashing personalities" and encompasses all those areas for potential mismatch in the classroom. Being aware of this is a first step to coming up with a solution set of strategies for increasing engagement and decreasing problems. Second, research (Tannock and Martinussen, 2001) has shown that neither medication nor traditional behavior modification go far enough in improving academic achievement of students with ADHD. Instructional practices that do help match the type-based strategies for Perceiving students. Good advice is given about avoiding "sparkers" which may lead some students to "go off" or escalate an issue, and if there's anything true about this personality type stuff, then we can know a little about the root causes of what makes these students seem so defiant. The point isn't to excuse poor behavior, but to use awareness and knowledge to more effectively manage teacher-student interactions.
All in all, I really enjoyed this book. Of course, it is right on topic for what I'm currently interested in. Would teachers who aren't moving into an instructional coaching role like the book and find it useful? I think so because it provides so much valuable insight into why we (teachers, students, administrators) think, believe, make decisions, and act as we do. It also provides useful instructions for the sort of collaborative experiences we're asked to create at BHS. What is the role of teachers? What is the role of a coach? How can their partnership be made most effective and both can avoid feeling threatened and uncomfortable by the "newness" of this sort of work in schools. It's not about criticizing and finding fault with what one is doing in the classroom, but about partnering to increase the size of a solution set, having support, and using a mindset (framework) to avoid bias and missed opportunities.
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