By Jill Jackson
Now let’s move on to the “what” of quality teaching: the instruction and content. Delivery of instruction and preparation and planning are the two components of improving the quality of teaching. I have had the opportunity to coach thousands of instructional coaches in prioritizing their efforts so that they can have the biggest impact. Besides forgetting to coach classroom management first, I see a second common error: Coaches jumping right in to what the lesson looks like when the teacher is teaching the kids.
What coaches are missing is this: without a strong focus on preparation and planning, we are always going to be doubling back and trying to fix a preparation problem. Preventive coaching is a much more efficient and effective practice for teachers and students. We must put our instructional focus at the point of lesson inception: the teacher’s plan book, as most lessons are made or broken during the planning and preparation time.
I want us to make a distinction between planning and preparation that I believe to be very important: planning is figuring out what we’re going to teach; preparation is figuring out how we’re going to teach it.
I find that we are pretty darn good at getting the “what” in the plan book (for example, in Monday’s plan box I write something like: Teach “We, the People,” p. 74). But when it comes down to really thinking through how I’m going to get kids engaged in that content, what questions I’ll use to get them discussing it, what kinds of responses I want them to have during the discussion, how I’ll scaffold for my English language learners, preteaching parts that are particularly difficult, and who will partner best together … well, a lot of that happens as an afterthought.
The lesson is made in its preparation phase. And boy, we are missing a huge opportunity if we fail to coach teachers in how to prepare their lessons.
I was recently working with a group of middle school teachers on designing lessons that are aligned to the Common Core State Standards. One teacher said, “Oh, I love it when I have a teachable moment … I love it when a student says something that really sparks my ideas, and we got off in a direction that I didn’t even see coming! That’s the best part of teaching!”
I disagree.
What concerns me about teachable moments is that they are wholly and entirely based upon the student’s bringing up that particular topic or idea. It’s not planned for, and if a student doesn’t spark that particular teachable moment for the teacher, then the kids in that class don’t get that instruction. And that’s a problem!
Instead, what we need to do is make sure that our coaching efforts are focused on how to create lesson plans that ensure teachable moments will happen for all kids—every day and on cue. Once we’ve orchestrated the structure of the lesson, the next coaching focus can be on how efficiently and effectively that instruction is actually taught to real-life kids.
The “aha moment” that I hope you’re having as you read this is: I’ve got a whole lot of work to do as I coach teachers before I should begin working on the actual delivery of the lesson. In fact, if I focus only on delivery (and avoid classroom management, engagement, and lesson preparation and planning), I might be treating a symptom, not the deep-rooted area in need of coaching. I am my most powerful as a coach when I am working at the very heart of what constitutes quality instruction.
While you may have been hired as coach to work on a particular initiative or focus area, each and every coach must start here, in this order:
1. Classroom management
2. Student engagement
3. Lesson preparation and planning
4. Delivery of instruction
Of course, some teachers will be working at the classroom management level for months, while others are at the lesson preparation level. But everyone moves through these four areas.
When I hear leaders, coaches, and teachers say, “Oh, it would be much better if the coach could just be in the classrooms pulling groups of struggling kids,” I realize that there is naiveté about the impact that coaching can have. This is short-sighted thinking. Of course, it would be great to have a coach in your classroom pulling your five lowest performers. It really seems like having another adult in the classroom, allowing you to lower your group size for a half-hour a day, seems like a good idea, but most often that’s just another “symptom” fix. Lowering the class size doesn’t mean that the management, engagement, preparation, and delivery is going to improve. In fact, I’ve seen very well-behaved and engaged classes of 40, and very poorly behaved and disengaged groups of three!
Management, engagement, preparation, planning, and delivery are what matter in getting students to master any type of new content across all content areas. And in order to be effective, coaching must be organized around these components.
Jill Jackson is known for telling it like it really is as she works to simplify and demystify the oft-confusing work of school improvement. She recently wrote Get a Backbone, Principal! 5 Conversations Every School Leader Must Have Right Now and blogs at www.jackson-consulting.com Mondays and Thursdays.
