The Principal's Handbook

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Principal's Handbook, your go to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.
From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work life balance, I'm Barb Flowers. We'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority.
Welcome everyone to the Principal's Handbook. I'm so happy to be here today with Karen Johannesson Brock, and she's been an educator for more than three decades.
She's consulted with hundreds of schools and districts to implement instructional coaching and design, as well as professional learning plans and school improvement plans. She holds an [00:01:00] undergraduate degree in special education and elementary education, as well as a master's degree in school leadership from Brigham Young University.
and a Master's and Doctorate in Educational Research Methods from Oxford University. She wrote the book, Coaching for Multilingual Student Success, Intentional Practices to Accelerate Learning and Close Achievement Gaps, which we'll be talking about today. So welcome, Karen, and thank you for being here.
No, thank you for having me. This is always a fun conversation to talk , to school leaders about what we can do to, to help teachers. I'm excited. Well, go ahead and start by talking to us about instructional coaching. How did you become so passionate about instructional coaching?
And, your book, it's such a great resource for how instructional coaching and professional development should look for adults. So why is it so important for adult learning? Yeah, thank you. So I, I stumbled across some research in The late 90s from Joyce and showers, [00:02:00] and they have been doing this research with, someone preceded them, but they've been this research has been going since the early 90s and they updated it and we continue to really benefit from it.
I'm really passionate about making sure that we implement it. And that Joyce and showers just, it's, it's a chart. People can , Google Joyce and showers and they'll find the. The chart that's that comes up every time it pops right up, but it's on implementation and it talks about if you just go to a PD and we've all done this, we go to a PD on that's just theory.
We learned about something. We think, yeah, I can do that. Okay, I'm gonna go back in my classroom. I'm going to do that. And, The implementation, what they looked at was, let's look in a month. Does it show up in the classroom? So there's the how much knowledge do you get where, you know, where are you with theory?
Where are you? With practice, but then is it implemented? , and their measure was, let's look at it again in a month kind of thing. , that's simplifying, but that's, that's basically the, the premise of that. And in a month, we don't see that showing up [00:03:00] in any kind of, , regularity in the classroom practice.
If you just go in and hear about something or listen to something or read about something. If you also get. Demonstration with it. So you read about it. You hear about it and you see it in action that just really ramps up your knowledge base. , and just you're level of skill.
But as far as. A month later, was it in the classroom? We've all done this. , you try something, you see it, you try it. It doesn't work the first time. It didn't work the second time. It's kind of abandon it. Thank God this doesn't work for me. , it's not really my personality. If we have an opportunity during the training.
And then after, in a setting with other educators to practice it, that bumps up knowledge base, it goes from something like 10 percent if you just hear it to 60 percent if you actually get to practice it in the session, write some lesson plans together, talk through, do some role plays, , whatever that can look like, but if that's something We typically miss in our professional development planning is now let's practice it.
Let's [00:04:00] do this with our peers. Let's write some lesson plans. So you leave with a plan to implement the next day. It ups our knowledge base. Skill goes, I believe, to 15 percent of what you learn comes into your skill set. And it starts to trickle to the classroom. Doing that practice takes it to 5 percent of what you learned.
You'll see in the classroom in a month. , and then by adding coaching a theory goes up to 90 percent your knowledge base goes up to 95 percent your skill goes up to 95 percent and it's 95 percent implemented in the classroom. 1 example that I can give with this was we did.
I had coaches work with every K3 teacher and we implemented a, phonics and phonemic awareness program. It was a pretty simple program. It was scripted. It was kind of a pick up and go program in terms of, how easy they made it for the teachers to actually implement. , and every teacher got a coach modeling it for a week.
So it's just a 20, 25 [00:05:00] minutes. modeling session in the classroom, but every day for a week, the next week the coach came in and co taught whatever part of it, the teacher wanted to do, , with the coach. And then the third week, the coach came in and helped and gave, gave some feedback to the teacher, but they, we also brought the principal around that third week and help the principal.
Understand how to look at the program. We didn't observe the teacher with the program with the intent of evaluating the teacher, but we said. Let me show you what's happening in this part of the lesson, what they're doing, what the kids should be doing, and let's look at the lesson plan during this part so you can see, and so the, the principals really ramped up their ability to evaluate, to observe, evaluate, and give feedback because they learned the program.
I love that because we, , recently got an instructional coach and we've been doing it with the science of reading and with all those new changes in structured literacy and it has been a game changer for teachers, but I would say it's also been a game [00:06:00] changer for me as a leader because like you're saying, She not only coaches the teachers on what they need to be doing, but she will talk to me about this is what you should see when you go in classrooms related to this program, or this is what a good instructional practice.
We also know that principals need to be sitting in all of that PD with teachers as well for it to be effective. Having that's important. And I've seen the coaching happen often enough where It goes from a teacher trying something to the difference with having a skilled educator, not an expert.
When I'm talking coaching, I'm not talking about move over, let me show you how to do it. Not like the student teacher model kind of a thing, but really just a colleague that has some time to be in your class and takes direction from you with, would you like me to model this part? Do you want me to take a small group while you do a small group?
Do you want me to just some ideas for what it would take for the teacher To make a few steps forward from wherever they're standing. And so it's the teacher is, the one saying, this is [00:07:00] what I need. But it's all embedded in the school improvement plan. So it's not just a general, Hey, what do you want to work on?
It's we as a school are working on this. And then now we're going to embed that into , from our school improvement plan. We make a coaching menu. We have all the different ways that a coach can help you implement this goal that we have, whether it's a strategy or a program or, or whatever it is that , we're looking to do, but just having another person with you in the classroom, to brainstorm with you and care about your class, like you care about your classes.
That is where coaching is really brings , that power. But to go from, an implementation that gets a few classrooms to an implementation that gets all classrooms and where teachers feel very confident that what they're doing is it was how it was designed and it's working for them. And that's that's when teaching is fun.
Yeah, and I think it goes back to, we've been taught gradual releases, a teacher that we teach. I do, we do, you do. And we don't do that in our professional development. I say [00:08:00] all the time, our professional development does not match what we say good teaching looks like. Right. Absolutely. And, you know, in fact, I was just in, a training with Doug Fisher where he talked about the, I do, we do, you do, but he added something that is in his charts.
It's been there for a long time, but, but it's kind of been skimmed over. It had kind of an aha moment for me because it's, I do, we do, we do together. And we often forget that we do together piece and that we do together pieces where cooperative learning comes in for students , but in, in terms of professional development, we do together is where coaching comes in.
And it is that piece that moves it. I mean, within, a couple of months, we had. coached in 400, , elementary classrooms and, no, not 400, 250 elementary classrooms. And we had 95 percent implementation within, within a couple of months because everybody had a coach. Yeah. And you think about how much PD that would take for that to actually [00:09:00] happen versus with coaching.
That is a high number of implementation. They had PD as well, but this is, this is the, finishing the PD. This is now come to your classroom and, let's do this together. It's the we do together part. Yeah. Well, I love that. And in your book, you talk about how instructional coaching specifically can help multilingual learners.
And so talk to us a little bit about that and just what you've found in that specific area. Right. Well, the, the thing that, as I dug into this topic, I've, I've been astounded by, Just looking at some of the teacher, , attitudes and comfort level with working with multilingual students, most teachers have had about 30 hours over their career to, to learn how to work with multilingual learners, simply insufficient, just absolutely not enough, , not surprisingly, about 70 to 75 percent of teachers feel uncomfortable in this space, and so that is a call for me, that's a call for coaching, , Luckily, I [00:10:00] think, , while our multilingual numbers are going up, so is our knowledge base as a nation, I think, on, the science of reading.
We need to first have a solid grounding in the science of reading before we can support our multilingual students. If we have a classroom that's really strong in the, , science of reading practices, then we just have some tweaks to do in order to move it into,, supporting our multilingual learners.
But if we don't have the science of reading solidly in place in a classroom, then, We're really struggling to support our multilingual learners throughout the rest of the day and this book talks more about how a coach can help the general education teacher. There's so much information and great things happening in the pullout support classrooms that we will send a EL student to during the day, but they're with the general a teacher for.
For five [00:11:00] hours, five and a half hours of the day, and we need to make sure that that's really productive and really supporting them. And so the coach can help the teacher tweak their vocabulary routine. There's usually we, have lots of different approaches for, Teaching vocabulary words, but to make sure that we're really intentional and we're, , using all the steps that the, multilingual learners need to use and , the program and the process that we have been really successful with has been most, , Dr.
Margarita Calderon's, , Work on she has a four step process that we've included a little bit in the book and then she's got I think she has something like 17 books. She's prolific and she has really helped this community. Oh, wow. But it's starting with background building background knowledge.
And then we move to a close reading. And then we move to dialogue. So that a cooperative learning process so that students are spending a lot more time talking and practicing speech and then [00:12:00] ending that process with writing some sort of writing and it can be short, it can be an exit ticket needs to be in full sentences.
That's one of the things that we really need to keep the rigor on. But it could be a longer writing process, a shorter writing process, but if students are continually throughout the day. Going through that process, if three or four times a day with different subject areas, they have the opportunity to get build background knowledge in order to be ready to read.
And then once they've read, so that they are now ready to dialogue. So that in the end, they're ready to write. And that process in place again, when we have that process in place, then we tweak it a little bit for the newcomer., and we expand and change the vocabulary, maybe do some pre teaching of vocabulary , or look at the passage and that we're having students is reading the, the barrier for the, for that student, then do we need to have them listen to it is,, then we can differentiate with the students that are actually in our classes, but having some [00:13:00] processes in place that we know work, , her process is in the, what's not worked, What works clearinghouse, it's one of the few processes that's actually research based and goes all the way through to, we have really good evidence that it works.
And I think the piece of comfort for teachers is that this process is essential for multilingual learners. But everybody really gains from going through that process. So it's not a, stop your teaching and do this. It is a make sure this is included in your general ed classroom all throughout the day so that you can adjust it for the student that's sitting in your classroom.
And I think that having coaching, especially in all areas, but with multilingual learners is so important because like you said, my teachers just lack confidence with teaching those students and they're always worried. Am I doing it right? Am I doing enough for them because, you know, if they're speaking a different language, they aren't up to pace with where the other students are.
But just that [00:14:00] immersion and being in there and like you said, Having all those science of reading things that we've been learning and the instructional practices helps them in the process of building vocabulary. And having things that help all students, I think is really important. So I love that. I love the idea of coaching to really help those Gen Ed teachers because yeah, you have an EL tutor who can help whole students, you know, for a little bit a day, but that doesn't help them throughout the day develop that language.
Right, we want to set goals where the multilingual student is learning at least 10 to 12 words a day in your classroom from a very specific vocabulary routine where they're actually using the word and speaking, and then they're reading the word, and they're dialoguing with that word, and then they include it in their writing.
So that's, that's the goal. happening all throughout the day. In order to catch up and close that gap, they have to learn 10 to 12 words a day. They have to read four or five patch or, or listen to the, it depends on where they are with their skills, but even listening, they've got to [00:15:00] gain knowledge from the written word three, four times a day.
And We should be dialoguing many more minutes a day , than we are, so adding some sentence stems and some structured ways for students to learn to talk to each other and, partner dialoguing, , just really helpful to put those structures in place so that, again, everybody benefits, but your multilingual learner needs it, must have it, it's absolutely important.
Thank you. imperative that they, that they have those opportunities and are practicing reading. And when we're doing those kinds of activities, perhaps for your grade level student, it is, it's a reading activity, but maybe not for all your multilingual. So your activity may stay the same, but your objectives and your, and your scaffolding will be different for your, your multilingual students.
Well, I love all those strategies for differentiating and working with the students. So we've talked about different ways to use [00:16:00] coaches in the building. How do you suggest that principals should utilize instructional coaches? And then what do you do if teachers are resistant to those instructional coaches?
The first, thing to do is to tie your coaching to your professional development plan. Your professional development plan should be based on your student data so that you as a school are looking at your data and saying, all right, this is what we're going to be working on.
We have to go from the premise that if our students aren't thriving and really making some good strides academically, then we have to change our instructional practices. Thank you. Not because we're not good, but because the students that are sitting in front of you today are different than the students that were sitting in front of you last year and they need different instructional strategies, they need different knowledge base and background knowledge, etc.
So we just have to keep pivoting. Every year. That's what makes teaching interesting and exciting is we're never done learning how to teach We've got a big tool belt and we just have to keep adjusting and keep using it [00:17:00] so we start with what does our data say our students need and That's where in the book I've got at the end of every chapter some discussion questions Specific to what are our multilingual learners?
Who are they? How are they now? What kind of supports are we giving them currently and are they working? Are we seeing the gains that we had hoped to see? , with, but schools also will have a, a dialogue where their, our math scores were terrible or we, you know, , we're always chasing something.
And so within, if it's math this year, then we do a full year plan for how we're gonna do math. And fourth grade math looks different than sixth grade math and looks different than first grade math because our data is different. So. What they need that's where we can really differentiate our PD is by is by using a coach.
So we start with creating a professional development plan for the year. That is not just a 1 hit wonder, but we're going all the way through the year and making sure that we have a professional development plan in place. And then. From that plan, as a [00:18:00] group,, we make, what does a menu look like for the coach?
And we have, teachers here, all the different ways you can sign up to use the coach. And the principle really is key here, two things, at the end of every professional development session, There needs to be an assignment and implementation assignment that everybody does. It's not optional. We opt out teachers.
We've opted out many, many kids. It has to be not optional. It has to be a implementation plan. It could be try this six times before, you know, once a week and then for the next six weeks, we're going to come back together and look at it. But there's an expectation and it's measured.
And that's the principal's role to make sure that we are trying what we just learned. And then,, also, I'd like you to work with the coach X amount of times, X amount of hours. Whatever that looks like, depending on what it is you're trying to do, and then give teachers choice for what that looks like.
So a teacher who's been doing this strategy for years and actually taught your PD for you her coaching or his coaching will look different than someone who is brand [00:19:00] new to the strategy, but everybody gets coached. This is not for the bad and the new, this is for everybody. And, really the most fun that a coach has is when they're working with an expert teacher.
Because an expert teacher is always a learner and so they want to be like, Ooh, let's try this together. If they have another adult in the room, then they're going to go and do something fun with that. So , it's the menu and it's the giving teachers options of what, but not if.
I love that because everybody does need coaching. I, I'm a strong advocate for leaders need leadership coaching. Everybody should have a coach to help them grow because we always need to be growing in our profession. And I even see when we're writing professional growth plans for teachers of what their growth's going to look like, unless they do something where they include the coach, it's never as good as those that include a plan with the coach, because They're getting that growth from somebody else and have accountability.
Yeah, and I mean, it so ramps up the speed. I've seen some different, , Kraft and Blaser [00:20:00] have some I think Johnson, , writes with them too, but they have, , some statistics, the way that they've talked, I kind of just summarize, and I'm sure that they would cringe if they heard me summarize in the way that I'm summarizing, but to make it really pithy, , yeah.
It's equivalent to about five years gain working with a coach and, and the speed at which you can change your practice and try something new and stay with it and try it the third or fourth time rather than try it a couple of times. It's just, it's remarkable. And What has been so fun is the more we expand coaching, the more devotees to coaching that we get teachers all the time and say, Oh my goodness, I had no idea that that would be so beneficial for me.
And, now once they've, once I've worked with a coach once, it's. It's inevitably they say, Hey, can I get a coach to, when is the coach coming for this? When is the coach coming for this? , we want to make it so it's a norm that of course you'd use a coach. Yeah. I love that.
Making it a norm because , as soon as they try it, then you get buy [00:21:00] in. Talk about coaching light versus coaching heavy. I've never heard of this idea and I was reflecting on this with our coach, you know, thinking about, does she coach lighter heavy?
And so can you just share with us what that means and what that looks like? I wish I could take credit for it. It is Joellen Killian and she. I wrote this article. It's free. So Google this. It's, it's a really important one to Google and maybe put it , in the podcast notes because it's the link it's, , coaching, heavy coaching, light reprise.
And she has it in learning forward and she had it originally in ASCD, but , it's free. It's out, it's out there and it's a page and a half and it'll change your coaching life. It really, , moves from the idea of relationship coaching, which, , seems to be something that. A lot of people think that that's what coaching is, , and, , she calls that coaching light.
There's no real research on that. That's going to make a difference. We're looking for implementation coaching. And so that becomes coaching heavy work has to have a goal. , and [00:22:00] we start when a teacher says, Hey, can you come out when they'll grab a coach in the hall? Can you help me with this?
And the coach will say, yes, let's set a goal. And once we have a goal and usually a coaching cycle takes about. six weeks. If we're going to change an instructional practice, it takes a good six weeks. It doesn't mean the coach is in there all six weeks, but they're checking in over a six week period.
And it's, it takes that long to, to move. Some things are very quick practices with a little tweak, but usually we're looking at about a six week process So , the coaching, heavy coaching light moves it to, what are we trying to implement?, what do we need to do within the goal?
How do we track the goal? It just, it puts some partnership language so that we're really both on, board with making sure that it gets implemented. Yeah, and I love that idea of the difference between relational coaching and really getting something implemented in that implementation coaching.
I think that's a good way to look at it and kind of evaluate what, you know, [00:23:00] principals, coaches are doing and what that looks like. One of the things within that was, A lot of times we get the message of first get a relationship so they can trust you and then move forward.
Well, the fastest way to trust is credibility. And so putting a, putting a goal in place and really being helpful in that first or second session, your trust is there. Yeah. That's a great way to look at it. One more question for you. What would you say to a principal? If they said, I don't have a coach, my district won't get a coach.
What suggestions do you have for them here? Coaching. Ideally, we all have a coach , and starting with peer coaching and moving to getting an instructional coach, I would say, read the research, , go give your district the research. Teachers need coaches, but you can within your PLC or , within your school teams, set up.
a plan so that everybody gets a partner. And again, if your professional development plan has an [00:24:00] implementation assignment at the end of that plan, then people can sign up for each other, choose the person you're most comfortable with, and we can create menus, of what will your partner be working with you on and you needed to get a roving sub and cover people's classes so they can really work with each other and have some a day where you or a couple days in a month where you sign up with a okay we've got we've got Two subs today.
So sign up for a block and you and your partner can do some working together. , it can be done and we start somewhere and that's an easy place to start is if if we have a professional development plan that is intending to have implementation in every single classroom and I will always say it is a school wide plan.
So of course it's differentiated for different grades, but anytime we say we're going to start with first and second grade and move to sixth grade. Every sixth grade teacher knows you're never coming for them. By the time it happens and it's [00:25:00] different people. So it doesn't overwhelm the school to say, we're all going to be working on this.
And you look at the data and say, this is what we're going to do in sixth grade for, for math this year. And this is what we're gonna do in first grade. And it's going to be different and that's okay. We're all going to do it every month, whatever the, it is for your, for your differentiated grade level assignment.
Yeah, and I love those suggestions for getting, peers to work with teachers and having a buddy and all of those things. We do that in my school. We have a reading coach, but not a math coach. So I have a teacher who's really good at math and he loves to model lessons and things like that. So that is a good method, but I think like Karen said, it's really important.
Look at the data and this book has some great research in it that talks about why coaching is so important, what it does for kids, how it's so important for adult learning. So if you Don't have a coach. I would try to advocate for one because it really can be a game changer for your teachers and for yourself as a leader.
Well, and I think that a surprising outcome with [00:26:00] implementing a coaching plan is that the morale goes way up. Teachers love teaching and they love working with the coach because it reminds them of the fun of teaching. And so it just brings a burst of energy into your school again. Well, Karen, thank you so much for being with us today.
It was great to have you and just listen to your expertise on instructional coaching. I think it's such an important topic. Again, check out our book, Coaching for Multilingual Student Success, Intentional Practices to Accelerate Learning and Close Achievement Gaps. This book is a great way to get more information on instructional coaching and looking at how you can create those professional learning plans for your building and differentiate PD.
Is there anything else you wanted to add? Just that, if you are a school that is working, that is struggling to serve your multilingual students, this book really can help you walk through some of the questions and dig into [00:27:00] your data and look at, is our professional development plan deep enough or thoughtful enough that we are always hitting our multilingual learners and making sure that they are further down the road.
All right. Well, thank you, Karen, and thanks for joining us on the podcast. All right. Thank you.
Mhm. Mhm.