Leinwand Summary Thoughts What I learned about strengthening coaching in work with the Leona Group on August 20-21, 2013

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And a new one: Give us time to think!

Co-teaching without co-teaching Interjecting myself into the class without being a distraction “85”: The perfect moment, from the back of the room for: “Really, why is that?”, “Hold it a sec, can you convince your partner that it’s 85? [PAUSE] Go ahead and try it.” (becomes great folder for discussion about missed opportunities and reasoning and alternative approaches)

Co-teaching without co-teaching Interjecting myself into the class without being a distraction While students are explaining or teaching is talking away abstracting, slide up to the board or the computer and capture the explanation with a picture or a diagram. You rarely need to do anything else to get the discussion focused on what you’re written or drawn.

Co-teaching without co-teaching Interjecting myself into the class without being a distraction 2 and 2/3: [and from the back of the room:] “Cool. Did everyone of you do it that way? No? Can you come up and show us another way? Anyone else?

Coaching Debriefing Discussion Questions 1.What I really liked was…. What was really impressive is when… 2.So tell me what your learning goals were for this lesson? 3.What your plan for meeting these goals? (that is what activities, problems, tasks, questions) 4.How well do you think your goals were achieved? 5.What would you do differently?

And this discussion usually leads to insights and ideas about: The four key elements of an effective lesson: 1.The Math: leaning goals, appropriateness, the big ideas, connections, common errors and misconceptions. 2.The Tasks: that is the tasks, problems, activities and their richness, alignment with the goals, their appropriateness, their sequencing. 3.The Instruction: how the tasks are orchestrated and conveyed: directions, grouping, who is doing the work, scaffolding, reviewing and debriefing. 4.The Assessment: the evidence that is gathered to determine how well the learning goals were met.

And based on this discussion: A clear action plan that is roughed out orally at the end of the discussion: – No more than three items – Based on the identified needs (the math, the tasks, the instruction and/or the assessment – For example: You talk less, expect students to talk and work more You work on on-going cumulative review to launch lessons You identify stronger tasks and I’ll help you You start employing exit slips You read…… (that I’ve attached) and we’ll talk about this next time A follow-up – Thanks for letting me observe and discuss your lesson yesterday. – As I said, I was really impressed by or pleased that you…. – So we have a record, there are 3/2/1 things we agreed constituted our action plan and what I’ll be looking to see when I next see you. – Thanks again for remembering that we do all this hard work to make a more positive impact on our students’ lives.