The Importance of Unified Training
During my coaching work, I often see the high cost of having teachers attend training without their principals or department leaders. For example, I did long-term coaching at a high school that started co-teaching to meet AYP goals with their subgroups. We focused on differentiated instruction strategies and collaborative techniques. I led initial trainings that teachers were required to attend, but no administrators or departmental leaders were present. These leaders were also responsible for evaluating the teachers.
The Impact of Absent Leadership
After the initial training, I worked in-house with the school, observing teachers in the classroom and coaching them to improve their teaching. On one visit, I observed a teacher in the morning and then waited for our debriefing session in the afternoon. When she arrived, she seemed upset. As I gently asked how things were going, she stayed silent. I had seen some great activity in her classroom and started to share my positive feedback. Instead of brightening up, she burst into tears.
Misalignment and Misunderstandings
I asked her what was wrong. She said she had implemented many of my suggestions and strategies from the training and coaching sessions. She felt good about the changes in her classroom. However, her departmental coordinator evaluated her and criticized her for having “too much fluff” and not enough rigor. He also said she lacked good classroom management because her class was too noisy. She had been using color and visual images to enhance her instruction and incorporated group work into her lessons. The group work was noisy, which he didn’t like.
The Need for Administrator Training
I was outraged. This teacher was doing what the latest brain research shows increases student achievement. Yet, she was being chastised by an evaluator who hadn’t attended my training and didn’t understand the latest educational research. I realized I couldn’t make progress in this district unless the administrators understood differentiated instruction, knew what to look for in a differentiated classroom, and were familiar with the latest brain research. So, I developed a training for administrators and strongly suggested that all school administrators and leaders working with me in the district attend.
Defining Rigor and Effective Instruction
Many school leaders know they should require rigor, but the definition of rigor is often confusing. Rigor is the high standard or level of knowledge we expect from our students. How we achieve that rigor, the methods we use, and the brain-based research we apply in our classrooms are crucial. If a teacher requires students to understand high-level content and use critical thinking, and they use methods like nonlinguistic representation and cooperative learning, it might look like fluff to an onlooker. In reality, it is excellent instruction.
The Path to Success
In my 25 years of experience as a consultant and coach, I’ve seen that there is success when principals, assistant principals, and departmental coordinators are on board with an initiative. When everyone is on the same page and committed to coaching and supporting teachers, success is inevitable. Schools fail when leadership expects a consultant to coach and instruct teachers on best practices while doing nothing to support that process. Successful schools have strong leaders who know how to motivate people positively and constructively. School administrators who leave the hard work to others rarely succeed long-term. There are some teachers who will succeed despite the odds, but most will wait for their leadership to move on to another district and continue as they always have.
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