Leaders and Instructional Coaches: 4 Essentials to Increase your Impact on Teacher Success

We have been coaches for as long as we can remember. As such, we have observed many types of coaching strategies and styles. Some effective, some not so much. In our opinion, the field of Education, like many fields, seems to be perpetually stuck in their own bubble in some areas, one of which is coaching. We wish other fields would reach out to education when seeking to “educate” others; likewise, we wish education would seek input from different fields when moving beyond their common areas of expertise – such as coaching and leadership. It’s not that there aren’t great coaches and leaders in education…there definitely are.  It’s just that they could be even greater.

Let’s talk about coaching. While standard to sports, it is progressively gaining greater attention in the fields of business and education. In fact, many leadership development programs in education are pushing school leaders to become “Instructional Leaders,” the description of which has many elements common to coaching (click her to read more on Instructional vs Organizational Leadership). We believe the term coach should be seen as fundamental to teaching and leadership as concepts core to coaching are at the heart of increasing performance, learning, and achievement. For each coaching “hat” we have worn, the same four essential elements from the field of Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) (the science of human behavior applied at work) remain key to coaching in any field, and are indispensable for impacting teacher success:

1. Pinpointing behavior and results – exactly what the person needs to do to reach a targeted goal.

2. Measurement – using data to help the person understand where they are in comparison to where they want to be.

3. Feedback – providing feedback to ensure the person knows they are moving towards their goal.

4. Reinforcement – helping the person experience positive consequences to motivate and propel the them towards their goal.

Whether you are a school leader, a business leader, or a coach, you have probably seen your fair share of leadership and coaching courses and workshops. Most of these courses probably illustrated some or all of the elements listed above…perhaps they didn't use the same lingo, but they were similar. Unfortunately, these learning experiences typically only present the “100,000 foot” view of how to effectively apply these elements to help individuals grow. Much of the coursework focused on “coaching” is related to planning, thinking, deciding, and reflecting on what to do. Now these are elements of coaching and leadership, but in our opinion, they are not at the core of achieving the greatest impact.

Pinpointing Behavior and Results

If change is going to occur, people need to do something more, less, or differently. When it comes to student achievement, if students are going to meet their potential, teachers must use evidence based instructional strategies as prescribed. One of the most common problems we have seen related to coaching instructional improvement in schools is either too many instructional behaviors are chosen, or the wrong behaviors are selected. When it comes to improving performance, our coaching approach starts with pinpointing behavior, a term that simply means defining precisely what behavior is desired. By pinpointing 1 or 2 behaviors at a time, performance can be accelerated by an exponential amount. Most schools have identified a framework of behaviors to select from such as those targeted in Robert Marzano’s well-known meta-analysis.

You may be saying to yourself – “easier said than done.” This is hard to do when there can be lots to work on! But here’s the thing. Going slow (i.e. only picking one or two instructional behaviors) actually accelerates performance. Have you ever heard the saying “if everything is important, nothing is important”? If teachers are working on too many of their own behaviors, nothing will improve. This is why it is important for leaders and coaches to assist teachers with selecting the “right” behaviors.

We suggest leaders and coaches help teachers start with behaviors that will be easiest to change and will result in the largest impact. It is not uncommon for teachers to pick the instructional behaviors they find most comfortable, not the ones that would most benefit the student at the time (see Stages of Concern research for more on why this might occur). This same scenario plays itself out as leaders and coaches tend to attempt to assist teachers with the instructional behaviors they are most comfortable with, not necessarily what might be the best for the teacher at a given time. Case in point. If a teacher has poor classroom management skills in a class full of “willful” students,, instruction and achievement may be largely impacted; however, leaders and coaches who are not comfortable with classroom management strategies will focus on some other skills or specific tasks. This results in teachers being frustrated, not teacher and student achievement. Finding instructional behaviors that will have a quick and meaningful impact for the teachers and students is the right place to start. If teachers can experience a positive impact as a result of the coaching they have received, they are more likely to try new and more complex skills and strategies put forth in the future.

Measurement

It is evident to many that the field of education often puts far too much energy into measuring results, and not nearly enough energy into the behaviors that obtain those results. When it comes to instructional behaviors necessary for effective teaching, we continue to be surprised (and disappointed) to discover that most coaching programs do not focus on how to collect data on instructional behaviors beyond anecdotal or survey data. Similarly, we have found that most educational leadership programs do not teach leaders how to use measurement to influence teacher instruction beyond evaluation and rubrics, both of which leave something to be desired.

The best way to measure is through cold, hard data. We mean numbers! There are many teacher behaviors that can simply be counted, but are not. Instead a rubric is used, or anecdotal notes are taken to be discussed later with the teacher (more on this shortly). Let’s take managing response rates, for example. This questioning strategy has been shown to have a huge impact on student engagement and achievement. It is fundamental to the learning process. And it’s easily quantifiable. Leaders and coaches can easily obtain a baseline (i.e. the teachers current level of performance) by simply counting the number and type of questions asked during a pre-determined period. We have observed teachers the more effective teachers asking an average of 4-6 questions per minutes when introducing material. This frequency of questioning is supported by some of the research so it provides some sort of standard to work towards. Simply making a tally mark on a sheet of paper can serve as a good data collection tool to measure the teacher’s questioning rate in comparison of the standard. And if rigor is to be measured, coaches and leaders can use other methods such as coding questions as 1, 2, 3, 4 to represent the rigor of the questions based on Webb’s Depth of Knowledge.

A quick word of caution. Unfortunately, measurement is used far too often in many fields to demonstrate a performer is not measuring up. This is why so many folks don’t like being measured! It is important that measurement be used to demonstrate growth. A simple graph demonstrating an increasing trend line can be a nice way to combine pinpoint, measurement, feedback, and reinforcement in one shot.

For most people watching that little trend line move towards an established goal is often very meaningful to a performer. It let’s them know what they are doing is working and motivates them to keep doing it. Let’s talk more about feedback, then we will delve into the all important concept of reinforcement.

Feedback

Feedback is fundamental to all learning. Without it, nothing changes. If you are a leader or a coach reading this, you might be thinking “well no duh…everybody knows you have to give feedback!” Actually, your thoughts are likely far more intellectual. We shouldn't impose our thoughts on you. At any rate, here is another big problem we see in education…the timing of feedback. Feedback isn’t just “whacha say, but how and when you say it.” Let’s say we have decided to drive from Florida to Massachusetts for the first time ever. In fact, to make it a real adventure, let’s pretend we’ve never left our city. Now let’s apply some of the concepts we have discussed above to our trip. First, we’ve already pinpointed a goal - arriving in Massachusetts. We’ve pinpointed behaviors, driving our car for example, stopping for gas at specific points along the way, and tracking our journey using GPS.

We even have a form of measurement that shows us progress towards our goal…the GPS tracking. Now imagine beginning your trip, but the GPS only comes on every hour to provide you feedback on your progress. Are you with us here? As soon as we left our city we’d likely be lost! Why? Immediacy of feedback is necessary for performance acceleration. Learning is accelerated by accurate and frequent feedback. Feedback should tell the teacher where they are in relation to the behavior and result goal. Moreover, it should be provided frequently enough to help them get there without getting lost. This is why pinpointing, measurement, and feedback are critical to increasing your impact on teacher success. Just like driving a car, if you do not have all the functions working correctly, how can you get to your destination?

Unfortunately, feedback during instructional coaching is typically so far removed from the actual instructional behaviors being coached, that the return on coaching investment is greatly reduced. It’s like the GPS telling the driver to get off on the next exit after the exit has been passed…10 exits ago! Immediate feedback is a vital component to helping teachers grow. When we say immediate, we mean “real time” is best.

The further feedback is removed from the actual occurrence of the instructional behaviors, the less likely the feedback is to have an impact. Leaders and coaches in education need to seek out ways to provide immediate feedback. This can be as simple as giving a thumbs up when a teacher does something correctly or pointing to a teaching aide on the wall as a prompt. There is emerging research on the use of Bluetooth technology for providing immediate feedback to teachers in “real time.” This allows the teacher to have their own personal “coach in their ear.” Think about the potential!

Reinforcement

Let’s go back to our trip analogy. Imagine we had all of the above…the GPS is up and running and we are ready to go. We hop in the car, turn the ignition and….nothing. The car won’t start. Somebody forgot to put gas in it (it wasn't me!!). If the first three elements can collectively be considered the “vehicle,” then the fourth element, reinforcement, might be considered the fuel. Without reinforcement, behavior, like the car, goes nowhere. We have observed a fundamental misunderstanding of what reinforcement is in the education field. We hear people say it all the time, “I reinforced the teacher, but it didn't work.” “The teacher is still doing the same thing, even after my reinforcement.” We especially hear it when it comes to student misbehavior, “I’m reinforcing him, but it’s not working.” Well, simply put, if the behavior is not changing, then there is no reinforcement occurring. These folks may have good intentions, but they are not having the desired impact.

The measure of reinforcement is in the behavior change, NOT the delivery. Most leadership and coaching development programs do not teach people what reinforcement actually is. If leaders and coaches don’t understand what reinforcement is and how to use it, they may see the wrong behavior happen, missing grand opportunities to effectively manage the very behaviors they want to see improve or continue. In our coaching to coaches and leaders, we focus on a three step approach to ensuring reinforcement is in place - 1) catch people doing the right behavior, 2) provide positive feedback when you see the right behavior, and 3) observe and measure the behavior to see if they do it again. Reinforcement is not gold stars, rewards, or even feedback unless it actually changes or accelerates behavior of focus. Reinforcement is absolutely critical to behavior and the results being achieved. It is the fourth and probably most important element for increasing your impact as a leader or coach to support teachers success.

We believe the education field would benefit greatly by borrowing concepts from or teaming with folks in the field of OBM where the science of human behavior is fundamental to improving employee performance, morale, customer satisfaction, and bottom line results such as student performance and school achievement. OBM is not a flavor of the month program. It is science with over 50 years of applied research. At the root of leadership and coaching as we have experienced and provide it, is application of the science of behavior to accelerate and achieve performance and results.

Bios

An expert in human performance and organizational leadership, Dr. Paul Gavoni works in education and human services to provide administrative teams, teachers, and staff with coaching and consultation in analyzing and developing behavior and performance management systems to positively impact key performance indicators. As an Adjunct Professor, Paul is passionate about engaging and empowering his students through the development and application of knowledge. Paul holds a Doctorate of Education with a concentration in Organizational Leadership from NSU, a Specialist of Education with a concentration in Educational Leadership from NSU, and a Masters of Social Work with a Concentration in Youth and Families from Barry.

Beyond his work in education and human services, Paul is also a highly respected coach in combat sports. In 1992, Paul began boxing in South Florida and went on to win a Florida Golden Gloves Heavyweight Title in 1998. Since then, Coach "Paulie Gloves," as he is known in the MMA community, has trained many champions and UFC vets using technologies rooted in the behavioral sciences. A featured coach in the book Beast: Blood, Struggle, and Dreams a the Heart of Mixed Martial Arts, Coach Paulie is also an author who has written for online magazines such Scifighting and Last Word on Sports.

With over ten years of experience, Manuel "Manny" Rodriguez has worked with organizations across the globe. He is an accomplished practitioner in the field of behavior analysis, highly regarded by his customers and colleagues alike. He has earned a reputation for his quick grasp of behavioral challenges and how to solve them, offering a practical real-world approach. His engaging work style has established him as a go-to person in the field.

His experience spans various industries such as human services, nuclear power, government, oil and gas, transportation, and chemical within the Fortune 1000, as well as nonprofit,. Manny provides expert advice to leaders on establishing concrete plans for improving results through behavior change. He is especially skilled at facilitating business teams to execute strategic plans and preparing leaders to engage employees to reach their maximum potential.

Manny has led large scale change efforts, providing one-on-one coaching with executives and senior managers, developing and delivering engaging professional development workshops, seminars and webinars for thousands of leaders nationally and internationally. He has also presented at national and international conferences on the subject of human behavior applied to leadership, safety and organizational change.

Manny holds a Master of Science in Applied Behavior Analysis/Organizational Behavior Management from Florida Institute of Technology. He also holds a dual Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Criminology from Florida State University.