In this episode of #coachbetter, Kim is chatting with Joel Bevans, ES Curriculum Coordinator at the International School of Panama. Joel has had a wide variety of experiences, including extensive work with Cultures of Thinking through Harvard’s Project Zero, and he brings them all together in his approach to school leadership and coaching. Our conversation highlights the importance of customizing your coaching approach for every school setting and individual teacher that you work with. You might notice a little bit of delay early on in the call, and some background noise – we had some internet challenges, but we powered through! If you’re interested in deepening your culture of thinking, through a coaching model, this is the conversation for you!
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Featured Guest
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SHOW NOTES
Background: Loved primary school (small school, close community) – loved it. Secondary school (bigger school, struggled with academics, but loved sports). COETAIL grad. Started as a supply teacher in London. Worked in the UK for 7 years. First international, ISLux, early childhood for 6 years “Activator for Thinking & Learning”. Now in Panama ES Curriculum Coordinator, working with teams to document curriculum & improve teaching & learning. Also a coach, going through coaching cycles. Part of the Teaching & Learning Team with a maths, STEM coach, under Director of T&L.
Building Rapport in your teaching community, what are your routines (walking the hall, eating lunch in the staff room) “The Coaching Bank” – how do you make connections with colleagues on a professional level, not just a personal one
All about relationships. Go slow. Spent a long time listening, finding out about the culture of the school, finding out the history. By listening you build an understanding of people as individuals, their strengths and weaknesses and how you can get the best out of them.
It’s challenging to come into a new role and figure out how it works. Going slow is crucial. Enables trust to come. Can’t coach without any trust.
Understanding that people have outside interests and lives.
How do you balance between listening & speaking up – especially when new and you have lots of great ideas?
If it’s an emotional subject or people are highly invested, that’s not the right time. You need to know when you have the opportunity to share your thinking. Has learned from his own experience of success and failure in the past.
What is coaching like at your school?
Director of Teaching and Learning, Maths K12 Coach, STEM Coordinator (not officially a coach), Gifted and Talented Coach gr 3-8, Director of Tech (not a coach), MS Curriculum Coordinator, ES Coordinator. Supporting individuals and teams through coaching cycles.
Struggle: What percentage of my time should be coaching vs coordinating? Beginning of the year, managed to go through coaching cycles in 3 grades, since mid-semester has been more challenging because of other demands from the coordinating side.
Planning ahead for next year to make shifts in timetable to make himself available in his timetable. Would like to have timetabled percentages to be coaching vs coordinating. Two days a week coaching, for example.
Tell me about Activator for Thinking and Learning. How do you bring that experience to coaching & curriculum coordination?
No subject-specific coaches, coaches support cultures of thinking. 4 coaches at the Lower School with 70% time table, with extra release time.
Role consisted of, among other things:
- Honing in on language that teachers were using, observations and feedback
- Modeling lessons with thinking routines
- Team Teaching
- Lead professional learning on Wed afternoons
Thinking Routines, Structures & Protocols are very helpful in making decisions and thinking about changes, and as a way to listen and ask the right questions.
Recently thinking about assessment. Ran 3 sessions for teachers. 1st was about feedback. Based on Kath Murdoch’s Power of Inquiry (have been reading that book as a book study). First gave them time to review formative assessment techniques. Second, thought about making assessment opportunities authentic, more real life and exciting for students, and give students more choice. Introduced GRASPs model to teams and completely redesign summative assessment, and link in to formative assessment that they looked at in the first part. Part 3 was getting feedback and refining that in team meetings. Teams have now created brand new formative and summative learning opportunities for students.
Cultures of thinking provides opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning in more authentic ways.
What structures are in place to make this depth of learning possible during the school day?
Great culture of learning already exists. Assessment training came up because of conversations with team leaders and admin team. Teams really got something out of it. Most powerful part was allowing people to get feedback from each other – connecting among grades.
Building a Culture of Coaching: Where/How do you start? Being an advocate for the importance of your role
Teaching and Learning Team is new, team is re-defining the culture and the roles of coaching.
Next up defining coaching.
What does data look like from coaching? What are you using to help motivate teachers to make improvements/changes? Assessing tech & tech integration, how do you give it value (teacher evaluation, teacher growth): “More Than Ticking the Box”
Feedback from the people you’re working with. As a coach, he would make an observation, look together with teacher at the data, and then make decisions about how to move forward. After a 4 week cycle of working together, they would see that they’re using different language, so that would be clear data about improvement.
Being the person to record the teaching experience is data, and doing so over time.
Working on a feedback form for people he works with. Cultures of Thinking climate survey for the whole school, to get an overview of areas of growth and areas of comfort.
Making time and making it useful data, to be able to look at it over time.
How do you start coaching cycles?
Depends. Sometimes it’s based on observations and feedback, but also times where individuals come to him with their own professional growth goals. Starts with an in depth conversation. Coaching role has two sides. There is a structured school-coach role, and more of an open your-professional-growth role.
Much depends on the person. If they are open for feedback for questioning, for growth, for learning. Any path to coaching can be successful. There is a huge power in individuals having a question they want to work through with a coach.
Instructional / Writers WOrkshop is more of his coordinator role, Individual Goals is more of his coaching role.
Are you finding any resistance? If so, how are you managing that?
It takes some people a little bit longer to understand what this person can bring. It comes down to being open, having the door always open, being lighthearted in team meetings, give space and time for people to share their thinking. Hopefully have developed a level of trust.
Help them understand that the role is non-evaluative. Understanding that the dual role of coach & coordinator (classed as admin), can cause some people to be reluctant. Might cause some people to think they’re being judged.
What’s one resource you would recommend and why was it impactful for your practice?
Bonus: Cognitive Coaching, Jim Knight Better Conversations
Level Up Your Coaching with The Coach!
If you are ready to dive deep into your coaching practice, to help you #coachbetter and build a thriving coaching culture in your school, please join us for our next cohort of The Coach!
Wherever you are in building a coaching culture in your school, The Coach will give you the strategies, skills and tools you need to make coaching a success and will empower you to confidently apply instructional coaching strategies in any situation – from building a coaching program, to having coaching conversations, to being a leader in your school community. We facilitate only one cohort each academic year so we can offer individualized support for each participant.
Coaches of all levels are welcome: you’ll start the program with a self-assessment to determine exactly what the next steps are for you!
Registration for our next global cohort opens once a year – check the website for details!
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