Tips, Tools and Techniques for Starting the Year Off Right Back to School: What’s a Coach to Do?

List As a teacher beginning the school year what are you most worried about?

Pair /Share Turn to your partner and share your list.

Today’s Targets What will I learn: I can learn five strategies that will help me build relationships the first two weeks of school. How will I show I learned these? I will share what I tried at our first coaching cohort meeting.

Strategy #1 Meet and Greet During pre-school workshop week, try to meet each teacher informally. Stop into their room as they are planning and organizing and find out what they might need. Ideas might be: Help designing seating charts Ideas for first day of school activities to build relationships Strategies for keeping track of students on IEPs and their accommodations. Help putting on locker tags. Bulletin board ideas. If you are in a large school be sure to check in with your new teachers first! This includes those new to building but not new to the district.

Resources Go to Reading, Management Ideas, First day Activities for lots of ideas on how to build relationships that first week.

Strategy #2 Lunch with the Newbies Plan a lunch date with your new teachers toward the end of workshop week. This will give you a chance to find out what is going well and what they still have questions about. When you schedule the meeting, let them know that you will be gathering their additional questions at this time so they should keep a list. New teacher mentors could attend as well so that the new teachers see they have two “go to” people.

Strategy #3 Team Time Plan to rotate through team meetings/PLC meetings sometime during the first week. Introduce yourself and provide teachers with a list of how you can support them: Find Resources Sub for them so they can observe another teacher in their content area Help with lesson planning Support them with a particularly challenging class or student Observe them and have a coaching conversation If your principal has given you a focus area, be sure to share this. Also share how they can request coaching. Most people use a simple system.

Strategy #4 Plan Professional Development Think about what kind of professional development you want to offer. Is there a book study you could lead during lunch or after school? Better Learning by Fisher and Frey Summarization in Any Subject by Wormeli High –Impact Instruction by Knight Notice and Note by Beers and Probst Could you share a quick tip at each faculty meeting? Would it be worth surveying the staff to see what they would find most beneficial?

Strategy #5 Be Visible Once the first week of school begins, be visible. Spend some time on hall duty getting to know students. Build relationships during lunch time. Try to drop into each classroom and stay just a few minutes. Leave a note or some positive feedback.

Purpose of Coaching The purpose of coaching in Rochester Public schools is to support teachers in delivering high quality instruction to all students in order to accelerate achievement.

Coaching Model The instructional coaching model that we use in Rochester Public Schools is based on the work of Jim Knight from the University of Kansas. It may include: A pre-conference meeting ( in person or via to discuss what the teacher would like the coach to focus on during the observation) A visit ( coach will take notes to help guide the coaching conversation. The notes are not shared with anyone and are destroyed following the conference) A coaching conversation

The Conversation General opening question: What do you feel went well during the lesson? * Coach may provide data from the observation to support what the teacher noticed as strengths. * Coach may ask follow up questions If you could rewind the lesson, what might you do differently? What is one goal you have for improving your practice? How can I help with this? We will discuss this more at our first session!

New Teacher Orientation New teacher orientation is August 19 and 20 at John Marshall High School. We will begin in the cafeteria. Take two minutes to review the schedule.

The Role of the Instructional Coach Attend Tuesday, August 19 th and Wednesday, August 20 th Sit with the folks at your building and build relationships with the new teachers. Keep a list of questions that you will follow up on if there are questions they have that you cannot answer. The time you attend for new teacher orientation can be flexed during the school year.