I am officially 1.5 years into my coaching journey. I love this role and am constantly growing. At a PYP school, one of my jobs is to sit with teams (including specialists) as they project their next unit of inquiry. Today, sitting with a team, it dawned on me to try it in a different way.

What I usually do:
Coordinators give specialists and coaches a piece of poster paper with unit information on it - central idea, lines of inquiry, concepts, learner profile, and approaches to learning. Before the meeting I sit and brainstorm ideas for technology integration in the unit. The specialists all then present their ideas to the grade level and initiate conversations and collaborative opportunities. These meetings are mainly for specialists but I found value in presenting my ideas to the team members as well... until recently when I felt repetitive and preachy.

What I am thinking:
What if I took the structure of a coaching conversation and flipped my presentation.
Ask the teachers how they integrated technology in this unit last year. What worked? What didn't? What options do they have this year? And what else? Do you want more suggestions from me? Anything you might need help with? (in this case it would be with a tech integration lens, but the structure could work with innovation coaching, or coaching in any subject, I would think).

I have more meetings like this with different grade levels later this week and am wondering if I should mix it up. This approach might take longer... It won't align with the specialist teachers approach (but I am not a specialist teacher)...

My thinking is that if the teachers go through this process they might be more likely to implement the ideas they come up with. If I stand there preaching tools, etc. most of them will still do whatever they're going to do.

Are you a coach or someone who projects a unit with a group of teachers? What successes have you had in the past?

Goal(s): 

• To help students use technology to develop agency
  
• ​ISTE Connection: Empowered Learner
  

Read more of Cindy's Coaching Stories here.

Goal(s): 

• To help students use technology to develop agency
  
• ​ISTE Connection: Empowered Learner
  

Alyssa’s class is eager to continue having ownership over their learning. I witnessed first hand the excitement the students had when they got to choose how they learned. This multimodal approach takes a bit of planning, but works for all subject areas and keeps the students actively engaged in a meaningful way.

Read more of Cindy's Coaching Stories here.

Goal(s): 

• To help students use technology to develop creativity and communication skills
• ISTE Connection: Creative Communicator

Read more of Cindy's Coaching Stories here.

Goal(s): 

• To help students use technology to develop agency
• ISTE connection: Empowered Learner
  

As Diana is new to Chadwick International, an easy way to teach math was with the whole class doing the same activity. However, even with the hands-on activities, it was difficult for Diana to confer regularly with all of her students. It was also difficult to check to see if the students were really understanding the lesson through the games. Diana wanted to be able to hold herself accountable to incorporate the standards for mathematics and hold students accountable to their learning. Diana was also keen to step up student agency opportunities in her class in order to allow students to have choice, voice, and ownership with their learning. ​

Read more of Cindy's Coaching Stories here.

Goal(s): 

• To help students use technology to develop agency
• ISTE Connection: Empowered Learner

Read more of Cindy's Coaching Stories here.

As I stated in my last post, I have recently started a new job as an EdTech Integration Coach. 

I have been keen to dive into the ins and outs of this new role. It is a learning curve, but one I am so excited to get into with my new colleagues. I have started the Google Certified Coach program, bought a few books (mentioned in my last post), and have signed up for multiple PD's my school is hosting based on coaching - what a year to be here! Jim Knight's Instructional Coaching and Cognitive Coaching being the two big names we are working with this year. In short - I am excited to learn all that I can about being a coach.

Because I know my knowledge base is small right now - I have some questions for all of you experienced coaches...

I have started formal coaching cycles with 9 teachers at my school. I felt like I had great energy and lots to collaborate on... We have identified their goals, we have worked through possible solutions, they have chosen tools to work on this solution, I have been into their classroom to observe, we have reflected on those observations and made next steps.... and now I am feeling like...

My check ins with teachers are becoming shorter - because they are on a roll and know what they're doing next. I don't want to waste their time. I am still consistently meeting with them to be a collaborator and have them voice next steps, etc...

​I want to back off and let them fly, as I would with my students. I want to give them breathing room and time to think and experiment. But I also want to keep committed to them in this coaching cycle. I just feel a little stuck at this point.

 Last year when I was applying for jobs I made the conscious effort to decline classroom job interviews, and stick to my instinct about moving into the world of EdTech coaching. The universe provided, and in a few short weeks I accepted a Technology Integration Coach job at Chadwick International (Korea) to work in a department of 2 for the Village School (elementary).

The beginning of the year was a whirlwind. Having 2 weeks of quarantine after entering the country and starting with online orientation made the foundations of my job (relationships) a little difficult. Even once we were completing the end of orientation in person, we still had to adhere to social distancing and smaller groups. The natural act of sitting beside people and "accidentally making a new friend" was pretty impossible.

For the first two months I have been attending meetings to give a little peep of a suggestion here at there, teaching a couple of digital citizenship lessons to kick off the year, and helping to administer MAP Tests in grades 1-5. We also had an IB Evidencing Learning workshop which gave me another good chance to connect with colleagues.

I also began putting together a monthly Coaches Corner. I feel this makes the coaches and pedagogy leaders in our school more visible. Each month I am asking them for submissions, then on the first of the month I email it out to the Village School and also post them in common staff areas such as collaboration rooms, staff rooms, and even bathrooms. Within this, I created a #ChadwickSlowChat on Twitter. Each month I am asking a different teacher to pose a question to our community. The start has been slow, but I am hoping to watch it grow!

This week we began our new Simply Certified sessions. This week we started with "All About Apple" where I reviewed all of the types of certifications teachers can get from Apple. At least 3 more teachers are already Apple Teachers from this session, and many more have started their journey by earning badges! Coming soon is Google, and I also sent a document out with information about Seesaw, Nearpod, Flipgrid, and more.

Now is the natural time that I have people/teams approaching me with bigger ideas. I am excited about their eagerness and am happy to dive in with them. However, as I am new to coaching, I just want to know all of the things. I bought 3 books to help guide me. The EdTech Coaching Primer by Ashley McBride, Courageous Adventures by Jennie Magiera, and The Complete EdTech Coach by Adam Juarez and Katherine Goyette. These have been a great place to start, but I found myself wanting/needing some sort of organization to document and help guide my conversations with teachers.

I started by modifying one from Magiera, and then scratched it completely and began from what was in my heart. However, a few elements still remain the same. I need to try to evidence where they are so I can meet them there. Then I need to try to outline possible solutions and key people, resources, blogs, and links that might help them get there. Teachers have a lot on their plate and if I can do some of the heavy lifting for them, I am willing (and excited!) to do that.

Below is what I have started. I spent the end of this week filling them in for people I have spoken to already, and tweaked things as I went along. This doesn't work - don't need this - need to add this. I will continue this tweaking process as I go along

While this is a large learning curve for me, and creating a coaching culture within a school may not be easy, I am excited to see where our team takes it!

Do you have an animals or habitats unit coming up? How about something to do with adaptations? How about a writing unit with a focus on research or information texts?

This will be my third time participating in March Mammal Madness with my class. It is much like March Madness, but with animals!  4 divisions of 16 animals (plus a wild card) "battle" to see who wins! Don't worry, the battles aren't real (often the pairs would never encounter each other in real life) and don't always end in death either... sometimes an animal is just disinterested in a conflict, like in real life. Your job is to research each animal to the best of your ability so you can predict the winners and score the most points on the bracket.​

2018 - One class researches the whole bracket (in person, at school):

• ​Printed A3 research papers for my small class of grade 3s. They worked in pairs on one animal at a time, fill in in my predetermined "important" things to know.
• When they were done one, they chose another animal until all were researched, as a class.
• I took a photo of each of the research papers and compiled them into a book on Book Creator. Then I pushed the ePub to each student so they could look at them on their iPad to make their choices for their bracket.
• Brackets were posted in a central location (our door) and winners were announced as they came out. Excitement built each morning and students tallied their points.
• Bonus: Another possibility here would be to brainstorm together what they think are the important things they should know/research about each animal. This brings agency and ownership to their research

​2020 - One class researches the whole bracket, but 5 other classes also participated (home-based, online learning):

• ​Each class had a set of Google Slides to complete about the animals (here is a link to a blank version).
• I wrote the division, animal, rank, and student names on the slides before students had access.
• Because online learning was not having 100% attendance at this time, students who finished quickly and were eager to research more were able to complete more slides that were not done yet
• Each class' Google Slides were available for viewing/comparing as students made their final choices on their bracket
• I updated a master Google Slide with winners, videos, and stories of the outcomes all linked to the MMM resources. These slides had many photos that were not checked for copyright (fair use for educational purposes), so I will not share them here, sorry.
• It was a little hard to know their level of engagement/excitement post-research because they were at home, but some were definitely still checking out the winners
• For grade 4 learners, we found it useful to change editing permissions every now and then for different reasons (a break in the school calendar, when editing was done, etc)

​2021 - Five classes will research the whole bracket (preparing for home-based, online learning):

• Our plan for this year... we might be home-based, or we might be back in the classroom
• Research to be done on Google Slides again (blank template here)
• Possibly going to do one research bank for the whole grade level (5 classes), possibly do one/two classes together
• Some animals will have two people researching because of numbers. English language learners or those with lower home learning engagement will be paired with someone with high engagement, so that animal will have two slides worth of information
• Similar to last year, I will provide a master document with results and links to videos and summaries from the MMM resources they provide. Here is a blank version I plan to use (this requires you to be looking at the MMM website for updates on battle days).
• Hopefully we will come back to the classroom and we can build the excitement in person. If not, I plan to use my morning meetings online to talk more about the animals, the battles, and the outcomes.

​Other Ideas:

• Have students create an informational text/book about each animal using Pages, Book Creator, Docs, or even Slides
• Have students create informational videos about each animal using Clips, iMovie, Adobe Spark, or other movie editors
• Have students create the "battle" scene of one of the outcomes using Clips, iMovie, Adobe Spark, or other movie editors
• Use MMM's teaching resources to help you with the following lessons (released to you if you sign up for them)
  • Visual arts lesson plan
  • Haiku lesson plan
  • Humanities lesson plan
  • Research for life sciences lesson plan
  • Other life sciences lesson plan
• Get a staff tournament going! I participated in this my first year I knew about the tournament. Thanks to Matt Reynolds and the ISBerne team. It was a lot of fun!

Of course, if you are viewing this and it is after March, you could always use the old resources and create your own timeline for your class.

If you are following my professional blog page, please remember I am on several  professional learning journeys at the moment. Both of which I am blogging about - just elsewhere on my website.

1. COETAIL - Certificate of Education Technology and Information Literacy.
Course 5 will begin Feb 1, 2021 and be completed by May 15, 2021.

2. MALDT - Master of Arts in Learning, Design, and Technology with Central Michigan University. I began this in January 2021 and will complete it in April 2022.

I am also excited to say that in July 2021 I will be making a large shift in my career. I will be moving into an EdTech Integration Coaching role at a different international school in Korea! I am extremely happy to take this next step and join another amazing PYP school in their EdTech journey.

As I move out of the classroom my professional goals and needs will shift as well. I am looking forward to sharing these with you as they change.