Coaches Build Capacity
Leading Learning mentions that our role as Educators and Teacher Librarians is to empower students to learn ‘how-to-learn’ and to engage them in continuous self-improvement. We need to remember that the teachers are also our learners. We need to inspire, empower, encourage them just as we would our students.
Leading from the Library mentions ISTE's Educational Leader Standards. Another useful set of standards from ISTE are the Coaching Standards . They break down the roles that a Learning Coach needs to take on to foster personalized learning for teachers. One of the roles is being a Change Agent. The key element of this role is to cultivate a supportive "coaching culture" that encourages educators and leaders to achieve a shared vision and individual goals. (ISTE Coaching Standard 4.1c). Taking on a coaching role can be a key step toward responding to the individual needs of our staff and providing them with the most appropriate and useful professional development.
There are a number of coaching tools that can help us to understand how to don our coaching hat.
The following standards provide a framework for understanding the role of a learning coach.
4.1 Change Agent - inspire educators and leaders to use technology to create equitable and ongoing access to high-quality learning.
4.2 Connected Learner - model the ISTE Standards for Students and the ISTE Standards for Educators and identify ways to improve their coaching practice.
4.3 Collaborator - establish productive relationships with educators in order to improve instructional practice and learning outcomes.
4.4 Learning Designer - model and support educators to design learning experiences and environments to meet the needs and interests of all students.
4.5 Professional Learning Facilitator - plan, provide and evaluate the impact of professional learning for educators and leaders to use technology to advance teaching and learning.
4.6 Data-Driven Decision-Maker - model and support the use of qualitative and quantitative data to inform their own instruction and professional learning.
4.7 Digital Citizen Advocate - model digital citizenship and support educators and students in recognizing the responsibilities and opportunities inherent in living in a digital world.
Shifting to a coaching mindset.
When I look through the coaching standards, the key words that stand out are "INSPIRE, MODEL, SUPPORT and FACILITATE. Focusing on these terms provides purpose and a starting point for working toward empowering teachers to take the lead on their own professional growth. It is clear that even though we may be the experts in our field, we need to work with teachers to help them follow their own interest and needs.
The following standards provide a framework for understanding the role of a learning coach.
4.1 Change Agent - inspire educators and leaders to use technology to create equitable and ongoing access to high-quality learning.
4.2 Connected Learner - model the ISTE Standards for Students and the ISTE Standards for Educators and identify ways to improve their coaching practice.
4.3 Collaborator - establish productive relationships with educators in order to improve instructional practice and learning outcomes.
4.4 Learning Designer - model and support educators to design learning experiences and environments to meet the needs and interests of all students.
4.5 Professional Learning Facilitator - plan, provide and evaluate the impact of professional learning for educators and leaders to use technology to advance teaching and learning.
4.6 Data-Driven Decision-Maker - model and support the use of qualitative and quantitative data to inform their own instruction and professional learning.
4.7 Digital Citizen Advocate - model digital citizenship and support educators and students in recognizing the responsibilities and opportunities inherent in living in a digital world.
However, where do we go from here. I found that I needed more structure to move forward in a coaching role.
A Framework
The Triple E Framework helps educators understand how technology is meeting learning goals and provides support for coaching discussion with teachers. The Triple E Evaluation Rubric has guiding questions to help leverage off collaborative planning discussions while reminding us to focus on the learning not the technology. It breaks down the use of technology into three categories, Engage, Enhanced and Extend. Below is an adaption to the original Triple E which includes ideas for what to look for while considering the guiding questions.
Leading Learning
The Coaching Standards and the Triple E Framework connect nicely with the Leading Learnings Standard of Practice: Cultivating Effective Instructional Design to Co-plan, Teach and Assess Learning. Through coaching interactions, we are able to see how we can more teaching and learning along the Growth Indicators. For example, under Instructional Partnerships, we can move from Emerging to Leading into the Future by fostering teacher technological capacity and digital literacies. This shift starts to happen during coaching discussion which are teacher focused, learning based and focused on the students.
Coaching can help teacher librarians start to shift from being "The Keeps of the Knowledge" to "Leaders in Learning". It may take time to become comfortable making this shift in how we see our own roles. However, with patience and an open mind we can transform our role.
Resources.
ISTE Standards: Coaches. www.iste.org/standards/iste-standards-for-coaches. Accessed 8 June 2023.
Kolb, Liz. "Triple E Framework." Triple E Framework, www.tripleeframework.com/. Accessed 8 June 2023.
Miller, Shannon, and William L. Bass. Leading from the Library: Help Your School Community Thrive in the Digital Age. Portland, International Society for Technology in Education, 2019.
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Hi,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading about your perspective, and the responsibility to empower students to become self-directed learners while also recognizing the importance of supporting and inspiring fellow teachers. I don't have any teaching experience, therefore, I found it especially interesting to read about The Triple E Framework and its potential for transforming teaching and learning experiences.
This is a well-researched and comprehensive post. You leave the reader with many excellent takeaways. I’d like to learn more about the image ISZL Technology Integration Image you included. I see that it is based on the Triple E Framework. What I’d like to know is if this is something you have been using, how you implemented it and how is it going?
ReplyDeleteThe ISZL Technology Integration image is something that we have just created as an effort to promote student centered digital learning. I have looked at it with two teachers after lessons to evaluate where we are in the framework. The questions were useful for promoting deeper thinking about the lesson. The hope is that next week, we can use it at the beginning of the teacher/TL Ed Teach collaborative planning meetings to thinking critically about the use of technology in the classroom.
DeleteKim, I enjoyed reading your blog post and seeing your descriptions through a "coaching" lens. I've never seen the Triple E Framework before, and look forward to exploring it more in building capacity to create a "coaching culture" in my school too! Thanks for sharing your perspective!
ReplyDelete