This course was definitely challenging. Between juggling the intensive workload and fighting back the tears when my hard work did not excite teachers as much as I hoped it would, I walk away from this course physically and mentally exhausted. Still, the drama was worth the learning - Looking back on my understanding of professional development before this session, I lament all the eye rolls and inattentiveness I am sure clouded my countenance in many a professional development workshop in my day. I think back, too, on the heckler that shamed me into quitting presenting at the Teachers Leading Cobb conferences, and I now understand the jaded rationale that, to him, justified his heckling. I see large groups of educators who feel as he did--as he probably still does--ignoring potentially helpful information because so many change initiatives fail and are replaced within a few years, each crammed down their already-constricted throats. Still, I cant help envisioning grunge-rock teenagers with earphones plugged tight to drown out any possible education they may receive when I think of the lack of enthusiasm I faced this semester in the field.
During my coursework, I found three standout assignments particularly poignant. The first was the coaching game in which players assume the role of a newly-hired instructional coach. The purpose of the game is to practice reading into social and other cues in order to determine how best to get staff interested in working with the coach. I took care to finesse staff with actual power and informal power first in order to gain footing, making sure along the way that I also made myself personable and inviting to the rest of the staff. I was ultimately able to convince seventeen staff members to work with me, a number I was proud of despite it taking a(n elapsed) year to earn. In game play, much of the data gathering and background work was done for me, and the frustrations were short-lived and easy to overcome; still, the game made the difficulty of an instructional coaching position salient to me, and my field experiences this semester cemented that understanding.
A second standout assignment was the coaching journal. All the theory reading and idealistic imaginings of what coaching would be like is fun and all, but really working one on one with a teacher in the thick of a harrowing semester made it obvious to me that a personal demon i will need to defeat in the field of professional development will be my own inclination to control implementation of ideas. When all the horse-leading in the world doesn't make the horses drink the water, I feel a lot like Adam Sandler yelling at a golf ball to just get in the hole.
Even so, my coached partner was willing to do everything in his power, but as a co-teacher who does not write the lesson plans, and as the one responsible for quickly differentiating instruction for often-absent special education students, he was unable to make significant changes in the mode of instruction. In light of these hurdles, we created and he implemented a simple but powerful tool (explore that strategy here), which became the focus of the third and most memorable assignment from this course: the technology workshop. Teachers with complete lesson planning power were invited via several means to my workshop. Five showed up, and three of them showed mostly because they are my friends. While I certainly appreciate their support, the obvious disinterest and, in some teachers' cases, straight snub, made the struggles of an instructional technology coach incredibly real.
Coaching adults is no easy job. Still, I can see it being intensely rewarding and powerful for school culture and student learning. Maybe it could even feed those grunge-rock teenager-teachers a Snickers to knock the hangry out of them. Maybe they can begin to see their own learning as inspiring, as interesting, as worthy again. It's worth it to try, for sure.
During my coursework, I found three standout assignments particularly poignant. The first was the coaching game in which players assume the role of a newly-hired instructional coach. The purpose of the game is to practice reading into social and other cues in order to determine how best to get staff interested in working with the coach. I took care to finesse staff with actual power and informal power first in order to gain footing, making sure along the way that I also made myself personable and inviting to the rest of the staff. I was ultimately able to convince seventeen staff members to work with me, a number I was proud of despite it taking a(n elapsed) year to earn. In game play, much of the data gathering and background work was done for me, and the frustrations were short-lived and easy to overcome; still, the game made the difficulty of an instructional coaching position salient to me, and my field experiences this semester cemented that understanding.
A second standout assignment was the coaching journal. All the theory reading and idealistic imaginings of what coaching would be like is fun and all, but really working one on one with a teacher in the thick of a harrowing semester made it obvious to me that a personal demon i will need to defeat in the field of professional development will be my own inclination to control implementation of ideas. When all the horse-leading in the world doesn't make the horses drink the water, I feel a lot like Adam Sandler yelling at a golf ball to just get in the hole.
Even so, my coached partner was willing to do everything in his power, but as a co-teacher who does not write the lesson plans, and as the one responsible for quickly differentiating instruction for often-absent special education students, he was unable to make significant changes in the mode of instruction. In light of these hurdles, we created and he implemented a simple but powerful tool (explore that strategy here), which became the focus of the third and most memorable assignment from this course: the technology workshop. Teachers with complete lesson planning power were invited via several means to my workshop. Five showed up, and three of them showed mostly because they are my friends. While I certainly appreciate their support, the obvious disinterest and, in some teachers' cases, straight snub, made the struggles of an instructional technology coach incredibly real.
Coaching adults is no easy job. Still, I can see it being intensely rewarding and powerful for school culture and student learning. Maybe it could even feed those grunge-rock teenager-teachers a Snickers to knock the hangry out of them. Maybe they can begin to see their own learning as inspiring, as interesting, as worthy again. It's worth it to try, for sure.