Last week I had my second 1-on-1 coaching experience as the "coachee". It was definitely a bit odd to be on the other side of coaching, especially since the last time I was coached, I was still in the classroom. In the role of instructional coach, I spend a lot of time with teachers, administrators and at times, other coaches. I am constantly running into ideas that would be awesome to try out.
One of the large differences between coaching and teaching is the time structure. When I ran across a great idea on Twitter or a blog as a classroom teacher, I knew immediately where I could fit that into my curriculum. I knew which topics a strategy would blend with, and whether it was an idea I could adapt to fit multiple spots in the content. I knew what I would need to do with my kids to prep them for the new activity or strategy. If it didn't work, my resilient kids would just roll with it because we were always trying new things, keeping class interesting. Coaching is different.
Throughout my day, and a whole lot more at night, I run into ideas that I'd love to implement with my teachers. My district has been awesome in providing support for instructional coaches. We have monthly meetings, established relationships with other coaches in other buildings and have been provided with coaches of our own. I get so many great ideas, but unlike the classroom, it isn't immediately obvious where they all go, or what will work with my building.
Enter the coaches. I was fortunate enough to have 2 coaches come out and help me out. Through discussion, they both were able to elicit information and ideas from me that I would have been completely unable to do in isolation. It was masterful. The process has helped me to come up with actionable steps to help me implement some of the great ideas that are out there. It has helped to push my thinking, to prioritize and to act. I'm hoping that this blog will soon be replete with strategies that I can turn back to in the future so that when I run into great ideas, I will have an archive of ways to implement them, just like my days back in the classroom. My first attempt in implementing my own new learning will be in helping teachers incorporate some small group instruction into their current teaching style, as discussed and prioritized with my coaches!
