Differentiated Coaching for Educators

"I plan. I go over the teacher guide carefully."
"Why plan? The students are totally unpredictable."
"Planning lets me know when to deviate from a plan."
"Who has time to plan? Besides, I've taught this before."

To plan or not to plan. Personality type theory, on which differentiated coaching is based, holds that some people are naturally inclined to plan their work or work their plan--known as "Judging" types, not because they are judgmental but because they like to come to judgments, or closure.

Perceiving types on the other hand like to stay open to perceptions--a plan can get in the way of spontaneous discoveries and conversations that can enrich learning. Both are equally important stances toward the classroom. Teachers naturally lean one way or the other--they have a preference, but all of us learn skills that help us shift to meet the needs of our students. (more…)

Frequently, I lead mathematics teachers through a problem from the wonderful site, www.nrich.maths.org, designed to help students develop mathematical conversations skills and value cooperative work. The problem asked participants to solve equations such as 19*24; 227 + 198; 57.6/2; 101*16*4, and so on, and then work as a group to agree on the most efficient method for each problem. For the first one, teachers often use the standard algorithm for multiplication. However, some will multiply 20*24 and subtract 24. Much faster. THEN the rest of the teachers immerse themselves in finding elegant ways to do the rest of the problems. They begin playing with the numbers. My favorite method is changing the last problem to 101 * (2 to the 6th power). The teacher who came up with it said, "It's really not a fast way but I can't recall the last time I was so engaged with an arithmetic problem!" (more…)

Yesterday, during the "live case studies" activity I use in most workshops, the Intuitive/Feeling coaches reported that their initial reaction to the Sensing/Thinking case study was so negative that they had to take a break from the task to process their feelings.

It turned out that several of them had had terrible grade school experiences in a classroom similar to the one described in the case study. Their personal biases--"This classroom is my worst nightmare"--blocked them at first from seeing the teacher's strengths and potential. Even after they started the coaching process again, they found it difficult to be effective because they wanted to fix everything about the fictional teacher at once!!

My aha: Our own hot buttons can interfere with our ability to help a teacher become all they can be! I plan to reflect on my own top worst learning experiences, building self-awareness so that if I see elements of those in a classroom I can filter my own reactions and still discover what the teacher is doing right.