Coaching for Growth: Empowering Preservice Teachers Through Feedback & Leadership

PRESENTERS

Tedra Norwood

Tedra Norwood is a seasoned educational leader with over 20 years of experience in instructional leadership, organizational management, and professional development. She began her career in education with a focus on creating equitable and engaging learning environments. Over the years, she discovered that many leaders face challenges in cultivating meaningful connections and driving impactful change in their organizations. With her passion for fostering collaboration and empowering others through effective feedback, Tedra has dedicated her career to equipping leaders with the tools they need to succeed. Today, her speaking engagements inspire educational leaders and professionals to embrace innovative strategies, foster collaboration, and create lasting change. Tedra’s expertise has helped schools, districts, and organizations enhance teaching and learning, improve student outcomes, and foster inclusive environments.

Dr. Jennie Carr

Dr. Jennie Carr is an Associate Professor of Education, Elementary Education Program Coordinator, and Clinical Partnership Coordinator at Bridgewater College. Dr. Carr is a nationally recognized educator. She teaches methodology courses, directs a practicum experience, and supervises student teachers. Sher has recently published work in the area of instructional technology, virtual mentorships, kinesthetic math instruction, faculty/student relationships, STEM Pedagogies, faculty mindset, teacher candidate perception, and communication strategies. Dedicating 20 years to the field of education as an elementary educator and teacher educator, Dr. Carr is passionate about building relationships and supporting teacher candidates to provide them with meaningful authentic learning experiences they can take into their future classrooms. She serves as the NCAA Faculty Athletic Representative at Bridgewater College advocating for student athletes on her campus. Dr. Carr resides in Virginia with her husband and two children. She coaches her son’s travel soccer team, enjoys working out, and running Ragnar races.

Karen Andronico

A retired New York City Department of Education teacher and instructional assistant principal of 31 years, Karen made the move to higher education first as a full-time Assistant Professor of Education at the College of New Rochelle, NY. and now serves as the Director of Field Based Education and Accountability at the Graduate School of Education at Fordham University. In this capacity, she works closely with student teachers and their field specialists. In addition, she develops strong, mutually beneficial partnerships with Title 1 districts and schools that serve underrepresented and high needs communities. She is thrilled to share how she uses GoReact as a video coaching tool with a view towards improving teaching and learning. Karen earned her doctorate in Educational Leadership from the Graduate School of Education at Fordham University.

Philippa Huynh

Philippa Huynh has many years’ experience as an educator, teacher educator and programme lead, with a strong interest in how technology can support collaboration in teacher development. She is also a Doctoral Researcher, exploring professional socialisation and policy in education.

TRANSCRIPT

Jessica Hurdley:

I am pleased to introduce our panelists today. First, we have Dr. Karen. She’s the director of Field-Based Education and Accountability at Fordham University Graduate School of Education. Dr. Jenny Carr is an associate professor of education and Clinical Partnership Coordinator at Bridgewater College. Tedra Norwood is an educational leader at Brookhaven Innovation Academy, and we have Philippa Hoon. She’s the customer experience manager at Mosaic, and a former teacher and a doctoral researcher. Alright, so let’s jump in for our panel today. Let’s talk a little bit about the role of a mentor or coach. I think that’s going to give a good baseline for our conversation today. Sometimes this role can be more of an assessor focused on looking for all the things that the candidate is doing wrong, but on the other end of the spectrum, it can be more of a cheerleader. How would you define this role? Philippa, I’m going to have you go first if you can respond. I think you’re on mute.

Philippa Huynh:

Thank you. I’m really interested to hear that described as a continuum. Definitely. I think I would be more towards the cheerleader end, although I think there’s a sort of a need for balance. We’re looking to support and develop and nurture pre-service teachers, but at the same time, we also, there needs to be a little bit of grit, a little bit of constructive advice and support that draws them on that doesn’t just keep them in a comfortable place. So I think there needs to be something of a balance between nurture and challenge.

Jessica Hurdley:

Sunny, do you want to jump in there and we’re going to talk a little bit about the role of a mentor coach?

Jennie Carr:

Sure. So one of the things that I do at Bridgewater through integrating GoReact is assign GoReact through my students’ teaching experiences. And so having the opportunity to watch and evaluate them is irreplaceable for me. I can’t, in my role, go out and see the students all of the time. So GoReact gives me the opportunity to be in the classroom, if you will, with my students and support them. I agree very much with what Flippa said about the balance, but making sure, sometimes we love all of our cooperating teachers, but they just want to give that really positive feedback. And so it’s really important to make sure if they’re only getting that positive, that someone is there to provide them with some areas for growth, even if they’re a rockstar candidate, there’s always things that we can grow and improve on. So utilizing GoReact really helps me to tailor my feedback and provide effective next steps and action steps for the candidates to work on.

Jessica Hurdley:

Absolutely. Tedra, do you want to jump in next?

Tedra Norwood:

Sure. When I think of coaching, the role of coaching, the first thing I think is that it’s relational. It’s about supporting, having those relationships so that you can support them instructionally. You can provide professional development, emotional support as well, and build their leadership capacity. I agree with the ladies that there should be a balance, but in order to get that balance, it begins with those relationships. So to me, it’s about forming relationships and then modeling instructional practices and providing ongoing feedback and observing them with that feedback. I just believe that the foundation of it is building trust so that it can boost their confidence, the teachers or educator, whoever you are coaching and developing their leadership skills.

Jessica Hurdley:

Wonderful. Karen?

Karen Andronico:

Hi. Yes. We call field specialists to avoid the word supervisor, so it doesn’t appear to be evaluative in terms of feedback. They’re seen as coaches, mentors, and actual advocates for the teacher candidates. So we frame feedback as more of a two-way street with the field specialist guiding the students’ reflective process through programing and clarifying questions. So we try to make the student, the goal is to empower the student, give them voice in their own professional development. So through the probing questions, the candidate will indeed see that perhaps some of the students were engaged, but then reflect on the students that weren’t engaged and how they might reengage them. So going back to what RA said, and that for us builds the trust, engaging the student in their own professional development. So feedback is not something being done to them. It’s empowering them, empowering their voice, and they really need to know what the criteria is from the rubric that we use. So they are empowered because I remember my days in high school, I mean, I always looked at the feedback, but I remember getting papers back all marked up and read, and most of the kids just rolled it up in a ball and threw it in the garbage. So again, and that’s another discussion about reflection, what the student is going to do with that feedback.

Jessica Hurdley:

Awesome, awesome. That is a wonderful way how everybody described the role of the mentor coach. Jenny, I’m going to go to you for the first question here. Providing personal feedback can be really difficult, especially when you’re evaluating several students and they’re all making the same mistakes. How do you approach this?

Jennie Carr:

Yeah, so oftentimes in teaching we see the same things over and over again. A lot of maybe classroom management, possibly options, or even questioning for questioning techniques, how we would want our students to ask questions or respond to questions. So we have been utilizing the marker tools and the comment features a lot in Gore. React, saving some of those comments, utilizing them over again. If there’s a particular area where a student is doing something repeatedly, like I’ll use a silly one, like constantly playing with their hair or twirling or something. GoReact does give you the opportunity to create some of your own markers, so that way you can flag that regularly so that way you’re bringing awareness to the student and maybe some of those repetitive things that they might be doing, because when you’re videoing, you get to see everything, and so it’s really helpful to be aware of what you’re doing to try to improve on that for the next time. We use video in several of our classes repeatedly throughout the semester, so then students can grow from their feedback that they’re receiving, and we’re looking for them to improve in the next experience.

Jessica Hurdley:

Awesome, awesome. I love that you’re using those markers. They save so much time. Tedra, for the next question. What are some common signs that a team and organization or organization is operating in a state of disengagement?

Tedra Norwood:

Okay, sure. So to me, when you’re operating in disengagement, the opposite of disengagement of course is engagement. So when you’re disengaged to me, you’re in silos. An example would be working in silos instead of in collaboration. So when teams are working in silos, they’re working in a state of disengagement, they’re operating independently, acting like separate entities, which this can lead to poor communication. It can lead to missed opportunities, decrease in productivity. Kate Turner, she’s the director of motivational leadership. She said that working in silos is when a group does not want to share information or knowledge with other individuals that they work with. So an example of this could be a teacher who has her own homeroom, her own classroom, and she’s working to build up their test scores, build up their assessments, but in reality, the whole school’s scores are based upon the collective group and not just one individual classroom.

So working in silos can cause disengagement. On the other hand, collaboration, it accelerates growth and it also fosters innovation and creativity. But collaboration, again, as I said earlier, it doesn’t happen without trust. So when you have trust, you can also ensure more engagement. People feel safe to speak out about things and not feel like there’s going to be a consequence that happens if they say something that, or share an idea. A fact I like to share with people is that according to the Gallup employee engagement survey, four out of 10 employees agreed to the question, my supervisor or someone at work seems to care about me as a person. So if that’s true, if this number is doubled, it would produce a 41% reduction in absenteeism. So talk about having collaboration and trust to build that engagement. It really is important. It’s important because when employees know that they’re not just a number than someone is actually concerned about them as a person, they’re more likely to be advocates of that company or show up at work.

Jessica Hurdley:

Those are incredible statistics. Incredible. Karen, let’s talk a little bit about peer feedback. Why are you an advocate of peer feedback and how do you use it in your program? Tell us a little bit about what research says about using peer feedback as well.

Karen Andronico:

Sure. Well, the research argues that feedback is most effective when it comes from multiple sources. So the comprehensive, this comprehensive model offers a balanced assessment for growth and improvement, and it helps students improve their instructional skills. Classroom management and professional development, multi-source feedback has shown to contribute to both increased self-awareness and improved performance, especially when the feedback is actionable and accompanied by a clear development plan. Feedback, as others mentioned, must be actionable. So I took a quote from, we use the, they call it the Danielson rubric. That’s what we use in terms of professional development criteria. So the quote said, under the component of assessment, it said, high quality feedback comes from many sources, including students. It is specific and focused on improvement. So on the Danielson rubric, in terms of teacher performance in the highly effective range, the teacher is using multiple sources of feedback to the students.

The teacher is giving feedback, the students are self-assessing and they’re getting feedback from their peers. So we have adapted that model of multi-source feedback with the field specialist, the student, and the peer in the model. I mean, we could add the instructors, but at this point it’s limited to that. So in the student teaching seminar, we actually, and of course we use GoReact solely for our observation cycles and feedback. What we do, and I’ve done this activity and it’s very engaging for the student candidates, they will choose a slice, a 10 minute clip from one of their videos, and I have the protocol. I’m not going to read the whole thing, but basically they will choose a partner. I allow them, of course, there has to be trust in the classroom that has to be developed, but they choose their own partner to work with, and they each choose a 10 minute clip, which represents an area that they’re working on from the rubric.

An area of growth, it could be classroom management, it could be higher order questioning and discussion, it could be any of those. And of course, they’re going to set norms and ground rules and make sure the observation data remains confidential. So for example, the person asking for feedback specifies the area they want feedback in. So let’s say they might say to their peer, can you please track the kinds of questions I ask? Are they rote questions? Are they open-ended? Do I provide enough wait time? Do I call on the same students repeatedly? So we train the students to take low inference notes where there’s no evaluative measure to them. It’s just what they see the teacher doing and what they see the students doing. So they exchange with each other what the focus is going to be. They take about 10 minutes to watch the video and take notes, and then they share the data with one another in a very, I have the protocol in a very positive and non-evaluative manner built on trust, and they make the observer and the observer think of different strategies, or they may say, well, you know what?

I need to research more discussion strategies because only the same two students had their hands up. So what I noticed is that the students were extremely engaged in this process, and they said from reflection afterwards that they really got a lot out of it, and the feedback was very useful to them. So that was kind of like a pilot, so to speak. So again, based on the research and our experience with that multi-source feedback, including self-assessment, that’s the motto of feedback that we have adapted.

Jessica Hurdley:

Awesome.

Karen Andronico:

Sorry.

Jessica Hurdley:

It sounds like too, that multi-source feedback that you’re speaking about and coaching helps really stem the collaboration that Tedra spoke about as well, which is always just fantastic.

Karen Andronico:

You,

Jessica Hurdley:

Philippa, I’m going to go to you for the next question. One of the most challenging things for a teacher in training is the Gulf between their starting point and what they perceive the right way to do things is as a mentor, how do you approach this challenge?

Philippa Huynh:

Well, I’ve spent 10 years in teacher education, both as a mentor and also as a program lead, and I’ve seen a lot of policy come and go over that time. Initially when I started working in the classroom with pre-service teachers, I was grading them and they were very sort of prescriptive rubrics and then that it may be different in the uk, sorry, in the us, but in the uk, that has definitely gone Now, we don’t grade them anymore until the end point, or we don’t grade them at the end point. Actually, it’s a pass fail, but my relationship to those pre-service teachers has changed over those 10 years because initially I was assessing them, but over time I’ve been working more on developing them. And what I have found is that my role is just as much about calling that person’s identity into being as it is about making sure that they are developing pedagogically. So really what I found most useful is this idea of looking for the little green shoots of practice in the classroom that are promising, that could be a strength for that teacher, and really building on those green shoots. So I kind of take the inspiration, if you like, from special provision or special education where you start with the actual individual. Really start with the individual. Who are they? What are they bringing to the classroom? What are their strengths? How is their personality interpreting into that room and taking that at the starting point.

I feel that it’s really positive to build on that rather than holding them against a rubric or holding them against a standard and trying to support them to reach that standard. If I start with what they can do and where they are, like Tedra said, building that relationship, giving that person the sense of what they could be, the confidence, the belief, and start with their own strengths and their own abilities as the foundation and build on that. I’ve found that much more constructive, and I’ve enjoyed it more actually. As a teacher educator, I’ve really enjoyed it, whereas initially, I would often feel conflicted having to grade, having to hold them to account. I really have seen a shift through policy and through practice in the classroom, a real shift in my relationship to those pre-service teachers.

Jessica Hurdley:

Awesome. Now, when you’re not using a rubric and whatnot, even if you’re not doing that, teachers really need to understand the connection between what they do in the classroom and what the pupils are doing in the classroom as well. How do you get them to that point without using that assessment?

Philippa Huynh:

Well, that’s quite a complicated question, but what I find is that pre-service teachers come in and the research shows this as well. They come into the profession with a clear idea of what a teacher is and what a teacher does. And in those early stages when they’re in the classroom, you see them going through the motions of teacherness. So circling, circling the room, looking over children’s shoulders, maybe making a comment, maybe looking at the work. But I find that if you really interrogate that, that actually what that is is a behavior, a learned behavior from their own experience of being a pupil in a school, from media depictions of what teachers are and what teachers do. And a lot of my work has been to bring some of those unsaid things into the light, really get pre-service teachers to think about why they’re doing what they’re doing.

What is the value of this? What is the impact of this going to be on children? Are you going through the motions or are you thinking about the, is this a deliberate act? And if it is a deliberate act, what are you hoping to achieve as a result of that? And I find that that’s something that pre-service teachers really struggle with. They find it really, really difficult, and it isn’t a given. That ability develops across the teacher development year or longer. If it’s a longer program, it’s not a given that develops without real quality, high quality coaching.

I think it’s perfectly possible for pre-service teachers to get to the end of the year without really, and be pedagogically sound, but without really making that connection between their role and the impact on the children. So I suppose your question was how do you do that without a rubric? I think it’s a lot about those analytical conversations, really developing the analytical skill in pre-service teachers, getting them to think about the why and not just the what. And again, it does go back to what we said about relationships. You’re building that relationships, building those professional conversations and equipping them. I mean, I’m always really, really conscious, as I’m sure everybody here, is that at some point, those previous service teachers go out into the profession and they don’t have me anymore. They don’t have the mentor anymore, and they need to be able to continue to develop professionally. And I think that that skill, if I can support them to develop an analytical skill, then that will take them forward. Not that they’re always going to be self-developing, but hopefully they’ll have some skills to question their practice and to seek advice and seek feedback and seek further coaching if they need it.

Jessica Hurdley:

Awesome. I love that you said it’s not necessarily all about the what, but the why. I think that’s something that really helps students in their intentionality in the classroom too. Karen, you use a lot of self-reflection in your approach to student teachers, not just the peer review, but the self-reflection as well. Why do you use that and what have been the benefits of that in more of that collaborative approach of feedback so far?

Karen Andronico:

Sure. Well, I’m going to start with a quote from John Dewey. We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on the experience. And again, I’ll go back to the days when I witnessed, including myself receiving feedback and doing nothing with it or not knowing what to do with it. And that’s where the self-reflection piece, it’s like, what do I do with all this feedback that I have been given? So feedback without reflection doesn’t lead to goal setting and improved practice. The teacher candidate should be encouraged to reflect upon the impact of his or her instruction upon student learning. So if we’re doing this, what was the impact? Or as Felipe was mentioning, to be analytical about practice in terms of, but that’s what we’re here for, to have an impact on student learning and achievement or whatever area we’re working on. So reflection is almost non-negotiable in that sense.

And the field specialists, how do we promote it by asking those. Some students are able to reflect at first glance at their video recording, but the field specialists also promotes reflective practice by asking those probing questions I mentioned before, such as, how did your planning and preparation for this lesson lead to desired results if it did, and did you notice any students who were not engaged in the lesson? Could you note any reasons for this? So how did you plan with knowledge of your students or didn’t you, and how meant you reengage them? So there’s so many probing types of questions that the coach could be asking to get the student to really deeply reflect on the why did I choose this strategy for this particular group, and how did it work? Because what’s the point in using a strategy if it’s not going to have the impact on student learning that the desired impact?

So again, because of the reflective process, which really has a emphasis on goal setting, it’s not just to reflect, it’s what’s my next step to improve my practice. Many students have been able to, when they meet with their cooperating teacher and their field specialist and themselves, many of them have been able to realize the measurable goals they set for that specific observation. And again, I don’t know how much more time I have, but in terms of the use of, are we talking about the use of react in the reflection in this question or that’s for another one?

Jessica Hurdley:

Oh,

Karen Andronico:

Okay. So again, through GoReact, the student and whoever else is looking at the videos can really track student progress along the way in terms of during a semester or even during from one observation to the next. And it’s such an inTedractive platform where students could actually watch their video and before the field specialist or anyone else or a peer makes comments using markers, the student can themselves do the initial response and self assess, and then the field specialist can give feedback. If they do a peer coaching, we could have the peer, they invite their peer to watch their video. So again, there’s so many ways to involve the student voice, responding to others’ comments. We have them write a reflection, write on GoReact, just removing the timestamp and using a comment box. So there’s always a reflection written on GoReact. And that’s what I love about the whole platform is that there’s a record of their improvement and their engagement in their own professional development, and they can see whether they are moving forward or what else needs to be done. But I feel that just receiving feedback even from various sources without the reflective piece, doesn’t move them to that higher level of improving their practice and owning it.

Jessica Hurdley:

Absolutely, absolutely. Tedra, can you walk us through one or two of the practical strategies you recommend for fostering open communication and mutual respect?

Tedra Norwood:

Sure. Well, first of all, to me, communication is the first step to connecting with your team. So by making communication a priority, you build trust and you create a safe space for ideas and feedback and collaboration. So to do that, one thing is you could do is establish regular check-ins so that they’re familiar with you every time you come. You’re not just coming in to observe every time. So what that looks like for me is, well, as a building leader, each morning I would just walk through and check the temperatures of the teachers, hello, how are you today? Learn something about ’em. When you walk into their classrooms early in the morning, you can kind of get a feel of how their day has started. So regular check-ins builds that communication. It makes them feel comfortable with you coming in regularly so that when you do come in to observe, it’s not oh a surprise.

Another thing is to foster an open door policy. So as a leader, often if my door was open, teachers could come in at any time and have a conversation and just chat about something that was going on in their classrooms. If the door was closed, it was usually closed because I was in a meeting or something was going on. But that open door policy also works both ways. Mike Rutherford, who is the author of the Artisan Teacher, he did a workshop with our district and it was talking about coaching and feedback, and he shared that when you enter a classroom to observe, you should stand back and just take in the climate of the environment first nod to let that teacher know that you’re there, to show that you are respecting her space because that is her space, and that creates a mutual respect. Also, another idea would be to encourage that honest dialogue. So be truthful, be constructive in your criticism, but also when you go in and model, let them be honest with what they observed from you. Leaders circulate, communicate, and connect. So we connect with our heart. So when we connect with our heart, we’re going to lead with empathy, which guides us through this journey of the coaching, so we understand the needs and the emotions of the staff and the students. We listen actively and we show genuine care, which allows us to navigate those challenges with compassion, strengthening those relationships and promoting a supportive atmosphere.

Jessica Hurdley:

Awesome. Awesome. Now, Jenny, I’m going to go to you for the next question, and you have found the precise, timely, and constructive critiques are really the secret sauce to success in coaching. Can you explain these a little bit more and kind of talk through also how you’ve standardized some of your rubric based feedback?

Jennie Carr:

Yes. So one of the things that we do that I do at Bridgewater with my students, which may be a little different, is I have my students self reflect on their videos, but I actually have them come into my office and we watch a lot of their videos together, and it’s very time consuming, but I find it to be one of the most powerful experiences for my students because of exactly what you just shared about it is timely. I try to do it within seven days as much as possible, if not sooner, based on the student’s busy schedules to meet with them. I want to inTedract with them about their experience. We watch it, we pause the video, we talk about their observational focus. So for example, all of the students will select an area that they would like feedback on because we all know in teaching, there’s a lot of things that we could certainly focus on, and sometimes that can be really overwhelming for candidates.

So we will have our students typically pick one area that they’re looking to grow in, and then try to focus the feedback, their areas of strength and their areas of growth on that intentional area. And I find that to be really helpful. My students are always very nervous to come in initially, and I’m always like, we see each other every day, and they’re like, I just don’t want to watch myself. I’m like, well, we’re going to do it anyway. It’s going to be just fine. And then they always leave being really grateful for the opportunity, just for the conversation and just that back and forth to talk through the things that they did really well and to talk through maybe the things that they could improve on. And just to have that dialogue, I think is extremely helpful to them. And then they’ll take that information into their next experience, their next course, their next assignment, depending on where we are in the cycle of this semester.

Jessica Hurdley:

And you’ve standardized those rubrics across all of the courses that they would take too.

Jennie Carr:

So we utilize a rubric and evaluative rubric based on the consortium that we are a part of, and have integrated that rubric into courses that would like it to be included in there. Faculty complete the rubric. And actually, this is solely because I attended this exact session, I think last year at this time. So I attended a session at React with Jessica, and she was talking about this, and then immediately in the session I was like, Jessica, I’d like to do this at Bridgewater. How can we make this happen? So she and I worked over the summer to sort of standardize and bring our student teaching formative evaluation tool into GoReact. So that way we can use it in a variety of ways. Our students can self-reflect on the tool, so they really understand what they’re being evaluated on their college supervisor if they’re in student teaching or their course instructor can evaluate them. Again, same tool. And then also the cooperating teacher can evaluate the student on the tool all at the same time. So it’s really helpful.

Jessica Hurdley:

Awesome, awesome. Keeping with the theme of high quality feedback, Philippa, how can a program ensure high quality feedback without losing the individuality of the approach? You’re on mute. You’re on mute. Philippa,

Philippa Huynh:

Sorry. I really love the warmth and the passion that’s coming through from all the other panelists about their practice. It’s great. It’s great to be here and talking to you about this. It really is. It’s so important that we don’t compromise quality. I think there is a sense sometimes that a focus on the individual can possibly mean a compromise and quality, but I don’t think it needs to be. I think it’s good to have a clear either a rubric or a clear outline of what that teacher is aiming at, but it’s important to understand that everything that teacher is learning to do is going to be interpreted through the lens of their individuality.

There’s a real emphasis in policy currently in the UK and potentially in the US on pedagogy. I think there’s never been, I dunno if this is controversial, but I don’t think there’s ever been such a prescriptive approach to teaching and learning in the UK as there is currently in policy. And there is a danger there that the individuality takes second place to repeatable practice in the classroom. And that bothers me. And I really work hard to make sure that that teacher is well equipped, well equipped to understand what effective teaching and learning is and to reproduce appropriate pedagogy in the classroom and do that effectively. But also to understand that they are an individual and they are delivering that as an individual with their own particular strengths and their own particular enthusiasms and interests. So again, it’s about really privileging the voices of trainees. I think Karen referenced this earlier, it’s so important that that person doesn’t feel that they are simply reproducing practice, that they are actually autonomous, that they have agency, that they have choice, because that’s what’s going to retain teachers in the profession. We want them to be motivated to have a voice, to be able to develop as professionals, to develop an identity, a really strong professional identity that is uniquely theirs, and that they are able to contend with different demands of policy and different approaches to teaching and learning because they have a really strong sense of their own professional identity and individuality.

Jessica Hurdley:

Absolutely. Tedra, you mentioned cultivating a space where team members feel valued, engaged, and motivated in our previous conversations. What are some concrete ways leaders can do this on a day-to-day basis?

Tedra Norwood:

Sure. So for one, you could model collaboration practices. How do I do that? You would demonstrate that your collaboration by working alongside the staff, the members that you are coaching on projects and encourage team-based approaches to problem solving. One way we did this was we had teams come together during their common planning time and we would set it up so that they could go and visit a classroom that had a teacher that was showing proficiency in that standard. So they all chose a standard that they, well, we all chose a standard that we felt everyone could improve on, and then we worked together. We had them go. I as the leader went with them and we went into that classroom and then did what someone mentioned earlier. We took those high and low inference notes. We came back and we discussed what we saw as a team, we collaborated.

So we are modeling that collaboration, also investing in their professional growth. When we support continuous learning by providing professional development opportunities and mentoring, that goes a long way. We put money towards something, it shows that we care about it. There was a very famous person who said, show me your budget and I’ll let you know what you value. So we as leaders have to invest in that professional learning for people to make them feel like they belong or feel valued. Also, celebrating achievements along the way and recognizing their efforts. So for example, I heard a lot of people talking about having those conversations and people may feel nervous when they come in, but when you go back and you have that observation later on and you see improvements, celebrate it, celebrate the team accomplishments, recognizing those efforts, it builds the confidence of individuals and commitment, encouraging them. I like to say, send people out on top, celebrate their contributions, help them finish well. And when we do that, they become ambassadors for us for what we’re doing to help them along the way.

Jessica Hurdley:

Absolutely. Absolutely. So we’re going to pivot the conversation a little bit. We’re going to talk a little just for a minute about GoReact. Karen and Jenny, you both use GoReact quite extensively. And Karen, you have created a standardized model for effective feedback in relation to your rubric. How has this really helped provide equity and feedback among your students? And also, how has this supported your efforts around coaching peer feedback and self-reflection?

Karen Andronico:

Sure. When we just implemented GoReact almost six years ago, I, as the administrator, was able to go in and look at the different types of feedback that the students were receiving. And I must say I was almost appalled because none of it, very, very little of it would have led to self-reflection, would have led to a measurable goal or even a next step. It was very not evaluated in the sense with a rubric, but oh, I really liked the way the students decorated the bulletin board, something like that. I mean, everything was, I like this. I like that from the perspective. And there was no, I didn’t see any next steps or any room for any kind of self-reflection. And maybe one or two might’ve said, I really liked the question you asked, but that was it. Why did you like it? Was it open-ended?

And more how many students actually responded to the question and what kind of responses did they give? So the feedback was very, very poor. And this really the fact that GoReact and we say rubric. We don’t score the rubric. We use it kind of to build a common language so that the student understands the components or the parts of whatever goes into effective practice. So if we’re looking at classroom environment, we had a marker for that. So we created the markers based on the rubric, but not so much to give a score, but just to build that common language so every student understood what the criteria or what they always say, show a model of good work. And we did with the field specialists, I did a lot of training with video, and they had to build a common language as well to use with the teacher candidates.

So I felt that it was really needed to create a model for them to understand the expectations of feedback, that the student can connect the common language with what was important for teaching and learning, and then be able to have next steps. So for example, the model that I created, and again, I’m not going to have a checklist, but it did involve first identifying a marker. The markers, every one of our markers in our library was connected with a component and criteria of our rubric that we use the observation rubric. So it would have to include the marker, so the student knew exactly what we were talking about was this classroom environment, was this questioning and discussion, was this assessment, was this student engagement? So they would immediately understand the language and what that looks like. We had to do training. What does student engagement look like?

Does it mean when I walk in, everyone’s quiet working on the same worksheet and there’s no noise and everyone’s is that engagement? No. Also, we ask that they would cite evidence, low inference notes from the video. So again, not to give abstract feedback, even though one of the feedbacks might’ve been, I really liked the question you asked. What question was it? I don’t know what question you’re talking about. So it was provide the evidence. So if the marker, for example is three B on the Danielson, higher order questioning and discussion techniques, I might write, you asked a higher order question, how do you know Joshua was a good friend? Cite two pieces of evidence from the text. And then I would write, I didn’t write, only two students responded. I just very objectively wrote, two out of the 12 students responded. And so again, marker low inference note, and then let’s use the language from the rubric.

Okay. The teacher attempted to ask some questions to engage students in thinking, but only a few students are involved. So again, I’m not giving them a score, I’m just using the language from the rubric so they could see where they are in terms of the rubric. You asked a great question, but what about the discussion? Part two students responded, and that did not lead to a discussion. And in addition, the teacher assessed the responses by saying, good answer. Oh yes, that’s good. Did not redirect the responses back to the class to engage students in a discussion. Did not say, how many of you agree with Joey? The teacher assessed all the questions, and that was directly from the rubric. So the actionable next step. So it’s very simple marker, low inference note with evidence based on that particular area, and then an actionable next step.

So we decided to increase student discussion and then to give a specific strategy, implement a turn and talk, and then you either can model it on glory Act, the field specialist can model it or have a link from YouTube or an article or however they want to do it, maybe implement, turn and talk or use accountable talk stems for the students to use. I agree with Joey’s because, or I’d like to expand on Joey’s answer or I had a different answer. So again, it’s the marker, the low inference notes and the language from the rubric to see where the gap may be or maybe there isn’t a gap. And then if there’s no actionable next step, what’s the point in giving feedback? And then the student would take that feedback and then they would reflect on what they might do the next time and also self-assess.

So that was basically provided, and at first, hardly anyone was using markers. And then I think we just went over, Jessica and I just went, reviewed some of the data and the jump in the use of markers and the use of comments. It just jumped dramatically. And we’re not saying it has to be exactly like that, but the student needs to know where they are, where their performance lies in relation to the expected outcome or whatever you want to call it. And what do we do to close that gap? What research based strategy could we come up with? Or do you want to go back and research student discussion techniques and then we come back and have that conversation, are we going to get more students to talk to one another? Okay. Thank you.

Jessica Hurdley:

Perfect. For the next set of questions, I’m just going to ask if we can speak to ’em about 30 to 45 seconds each, only because I want to get through those questions and leave a couple seconds for our q and a, if there is any questions from our audience. And we’re going to jump to more personal success stories. Jenny, I’m going to go to you first. Can you give an example of success you have seen in your program from employing the techniques that you talked about today and your use of GoReact?

Jennie Carr:

Sure. So one of the things that I mentioned earlier is when I attended this session last year, we talked about common rubrics and implementing them across our experiences. And so no matter what program you’re in, what licensure, all of our candidates have the same rubric, the same assignment, which has been really helpful for all of our supervisors, all of our students and all of our programs to have common assignments, common rubrics, just that consistency. This is also really helpful for our students who are on campus and our students who are taking an out of the area placement or student teaching at home. We want for them to have that same personal touch and that same feel that our students are having who are on campus. And so I think that that has been really powerful for the consistency aspect.

Jessica Hurdley:

Awesome. And Karen, thank you so much for sharing your model. I know in addition to that model, you and I talked about a culminating an assignment that really utilized peer review and was engaging. Are you able to tell us a little bit about the success that you’ve found from that assignment?

Karen Andronico:

Sure. So the culminating assignment for the entire semester was for the students to write a self-reflection based on the feedback that they received, the multi-source feedback they received from their field specialists, who was their mentor, field specialists, their peers, and their self-assessment and reflection. And so I know time is limited, but we had an outline. And what they had to do is reflect upon how they use that feedback toward their professional growth and goal setting, and how are they able to master their goals, reach their goals, and how they’re in progress. Their performance, their practice improved over time. And so over the entire semester, they review all the feedback that they received and they connected to the rubric criteria. And the results were incredible in terms of how they really owned the whole process of now taking that feedback, reflecting on it, and turning it into actionable improvements goals. So that assignment really showed us. And then what they did was at the last paragraph, they would set a goal for the new semester because we have two semesters of student teaching.

Jessica Hurdley:

That’s amazing, Karen, and a true testament to all of the work that you’ve put in to creating the format for your supervisors, for your clinical instructors as well as your students. Philippa. Can you share an example of a new teacher that was able to be successful by building on the small strengths and growing from there?

Philippa Huynh:

One teacher that comes to mind is a lovely pre-service teacher who was very conscientious and was every reading I gave, she read and read in depth and really analyzed and understood. She was very, very committed to her knowledge of the evidence base. She was also very, very good at delivering on the instruction. So all of the pedagogy that was discussed in training would then appear in her practice in the classroom. But the thing that she found most difficult was the relational aspect of working with children. So she found it hard to read the room and to be responsive and to be flexible because she was delivering rather than relating. Now, if I had gone in with feedback about that, I think that she in particular would’ve found that quite demotivating, a little bit crushing because of the extreme methods that she was putting into developing as a teacher.

And so I absolutely had to begin with those small signs. So I noticed that you are really warm in the classroom. I noticed that you’re really encouraging. How about we take that encouragement and make it really, really specific so you are praising the behavior, the attitudes, the learning attitudes that you want to see in the classroom. If you start with that, just think of really specific praise that you could use, and let’s think about the impact of that on the child, what the difference is between just simply warmth and encouragement. You’re doing really well, and actually I loved the way that you really focus there. I love the way that you really concentrated and that you’re ready to learn. And she was able to take that because she was great at responding to instruction. She was able to take that forward because I’d highlighted to her those green shoots of things I wanted to had started to be able to see and believed that she could then build on. And I saw real results in a student that otherwise found it a little bit tricky to relate to others in the classroom. And by the end, she was a more well-rounded teacher as a result.

Jessica Hurdley:

Yeah, cultivating those strengths is so important, and that’s amazing that she is a very well-rounded teacher. Tedra, are you able to close us out here? And can you give an example of a school leader who used relational coaching and saw significant growth as a result?

Tedra Norwood:

Absolutely. First of all, great leaders are coaches. They spend that time having frequent conversations with team members about their growth and performance. So I can just remember a situation very similar to what Philippa just described. I remember having a second year teacher who was still in novice at her craft, but she wanted to do better. And so as her instructional leader, I did go in initially at the beginning of the year, and I had those observations where I did some notes and we had conversations and we looked at the rubric, if you will, or looked at where she would like to end up by the end of the year having some of the same situations Felipa described, just had some strategies, but was having a hard time producing them with the students. It was almost like, I’m going to use the word that she used herding cats in her words, trying to get those instructional strategies out, but with students with different personalities.

And so after I had that conversation with her, I then turned it over to the coach and they had a year of coaching, ongoing coaching, feedback, modeling, practicing conversations. By the end of the year, I went in to do her formative evaluation, and we did have a one-on-one feedback at the end of the evaluation, and this teacher went from needing some development and instructional strategies to being proficient in instructional strategies. Why? Because one, she had a desire and to that ongoing relationship with the coach and myself as her leader and constant feedback, and she, as a result, showed some proficiency there.

Jessica Hurdley:

That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Well, thank you all for your amazing insight and your valuable nuggets that I know so many people that have joined today will take with them.