Instructional Coaching during a Pandemic…check

Thats a wrap on year 14 as an educator as it is officially summer. As I sit here thinking about this past year, I find it difficult to come up with the right words to explain all that entailed. This year certainly tested me in more ways than one. My perseverance, strength, confidence, and positivity were definitely put to a test. This year was one for the record books. There were good days, bad days, and all the days in between.

Highlights: leading the elementary writing instruction committee (a dream of mine since becoming a coach), getting to teach writing model lessons for 2 weeks or a month long genre studies in 9 classrooms throughout our district (one kindergarten, four 1st grades, three 4th grades, one 5th grade…2nd and 3rd were coming but then remote learning happened), learning a TON more about best practices in guided reading instruction in order to support 3 elementary school sin our district, having 446 learning appoints this year (highest to date), attending 4 conferences to make sure we are up to date on best practices so we can not only bring it all back to share with our district but also so we can lead out current professional development, representing DUnlap by presenting at 2 conferences (one of them we were able to lead an entire interactive area for all attendees), and finally helping to create a plan for our district to go from face to face learning to digital learning in 3 days time…then all the support/revisions throughout the last two months.

Work in Progress Moments: I had my fair share of moments this year in learning how to navigate my emotions, conquering difficult situations, and not letting the loud few get me down. I wish I had blogged more and visit more classrooms. I only wrote 20/50 blog posts for the year and due to COVID-19 I had to adapt my goal of visiting 50 classrooms to 34 instead.  I also missed one day of making a daily video recap of the school day.

At the end of the day though, the highlights out number the ehh moments and I’m choosing to focus on how much I learned and grew not only as an educator but as a person! I mean just look at these stats:
I’m thankful for an amazing team who lift me up, support my wild ideas, and who work tirelessly to support everyone in out schools! Peace out year 14 and look out year 15…I’m coming for ya!

Click the image below to watch my end of the year video reflection:

5 Things that Made Me Smile this Week
-finalized our summer PD plans
-we are in the home stretch of remote learning for this school year
-working on virtual summer PD Canvas courses
-being able to offer 3 book studies
-our book study selections look like they will be fantastic reads

4 Words to Describe My Week
purposeful, sunny, productive, positive

3 Things I Plan to Do This Weekend
-enjoy family time
-think about if a vacation this summer is possible
-spend more time outside

2 Things I Learned This Week
-virtual summer PD is possible
-I can clear out my inbox if I make time to do so

1 Goal I Have For Next Week
-end the 2019-2020 school year on a positive note

5 Things that Made Me Smile this Week
-teachers reaching out over their break for support with remote learning
-having time off to take it all in
-movie nights with my family
-my youngest getting really into his ABCs
-reading the series of unfortunate events with my eldest son

4 Words to Describe My Week
slower, off balance, hard, heart-warming

3 Things I Plan to Do This Weekend
-gear up for next week
-not check my email
-come up with a remote learning/teaching plan for our home

2 Things I Learned This Week
-the home/life balance is going to be harder than ever
-setting boundaries will be crucial

1 Goal I Have For Next Week
-trying to balance my teacher, mom, and wife hats

This year marks my 14th year as an educator and also an evaluation year. I don’t know if you are like me, but often times I find that when I go to upload my evidence, I am scrolling through my camera roll, searching my laptop, and searching social media feeds for the picture I swear I remember taking. There had to be an easier way.

Don Sturm to the rescue. I came across his blog post about personalized hashtags and it was a game changer. You can find his blog post here: https://schoolscanbebetter.com/2019/02/05/personalized-hashtags/

Essentially, you create personalized hashtags on Twitter that corresponds to a component of the Danielson Framework. You would make the hashtag start with your last name then 2a or 4b (Ex. #Pitzer2a). I do recommend seeing if anyone else has posted to this hashtag first and if others are tweeting to that for whatever reason. Then you can change yours to be more personalized to you.

Since hashtags work as a file folder in a way, you or your evaluator then can click on that hashtag and see the evidence. All of it is timestamped and organized in one place. When it comes time to submit your evidence then, you can simply upload the link to that hashtag on Twitter. (For example: https://twitter.com/hashtag/ (include your hashtag without the # sign after that last backslash). Not only will you feel way more organized come time to submit your evidence, but you can also gain ongoing feedback throughout the year from any member of your PLC. 

I decided to take this one step further and create a Google Drawing HyperDoc. This would house all of the links to every component of the Danielson Framework. This way I share one link evaluator. I also chose to share it back in August. This way, they could provide me with feedback throughout the year too.

This was a complete game changer for me. No more trying to remember what folder I had saved something and/or what date I took that picture. Not to mention since I worked on this year round, before I knew it the domains were memorized! A big thank you to Don for this amazing idea!

To view my Evidence HyperDoc click on the image below:

Check out my Twitter reflection by clicking on the image below:

5 Things that Made Me Smile this Week
-curating a newsletter to support teachers with e-learning resources
-top 3 challenge from a teacher in my district
-collaboration across our K-12 district
-teacher’s jumping in with things outside their comfort zone
-seeing my child’s learning firsthand

4 Words to Describe My Week
new, historical, nerve racking, successful

3 Things I Plan to Do This Weekend
-try not to check my email
-have a popcorn and movie night with my family
-eat chocolate

2 Things I Learned This Week
-breaks are important for kids AND adults
-the importance of instructional coaching positions

1 Goal I Have For Next Week
-trying to enjoy spring break

Our e-learning plan started today. I cannot even begin to express how proud I am to work for the curriculum department. We have worked tirelessly on a plan to best support teachers, students, and parents during this time. While it will be a work and progress for sure, it feels good to be ready to go during this historical pandemic.

Yesterday, students K-3 were able to go to their home school and pick up their school issued Chromebooks from 3pm-5pm. Grades 4-12 take their devices home, so we wanted to make sure all students had access to technology.

As instructional coaches, we decided that since there were so many emails coming in this week, that we would each take a day to be “in charge”. We have a group email account and so if it was our day, we would be the main one responding. We of course could reach out to each other if one of us was better suited to respond.

In terms of life at home during this time, my husband is still able to go into the office and my youngest could go to daycare. This really did allow for me to work remotely AND assist my oldest son in his e-learning activities. After our first day we realized two things:
1.) Making a to do list helps ensure we have completed everything we need to for the day
2.) Schedule breaks and lunch is important so we don’t forget

While it may not have been perfect, it was a pretty successful day one of e-learning. Here’s also to turning 38!

Check out my day one reflection post by clicking on the image below:

Check out my video reflection by clicking on the image below:

5 Things that Made Me Smile this Week
-being asked to help the superintendent in an e-learning plan
-working with an amazing team of people
-having a district wide LMS
-the power of having a PLN to lean on and reach out to
-caffeinated beverages

4 Words to Describe My Week
chaotic, unprecedented, difficult, emotional,

3 Things I Plan to Do This Weekend
-relax
-appreciate and spend time with my family
-celebrate my 38th birthday with friends

2 Things I Learned This Week
-importance of relying on others
-that I can summarize if I put my mind to it 😉

1 Goal I Have For Next Week
-trying to remain calm during this unprecedented time

When you get an email request from the superintendent that reads, cancel all of your appointments and meetings for the day and come to the district office at 11am….it is going to be a day. This is the message the curriculum department received today and it definitely threw us all for a loop. It turned out that word on the street was the Governor was going to close school for the next few weeks due to the spread of COVID-19. Our superintendent wanted us to be all hands on deck for the next three days should this go into effect. Best case scenario was a week of e-learning, then spring break, then back to school. Worst case scenario was longer but to come up with a plan that could transition into longer if needed. It was a lot to process.

Now it was go time. We determined since we were a Canvas school that this LMS (learning management system) would be our main source of communication. Teachers could utilize Google tools and/or Seesaw but everything had to be housed in Canvas. This would streamline communication for everyone. We knew that we would need to analyze where staff was with Canvas and also create video tutorials to support teachers that could be watched during PLC today. We also had directions that it was only to be reviewing and no introduction of new content was to occur.

For elementary it was determined there would be a choice board. Each grade level at each school would create a choice board where students were encouraged to complete at least one activity per row. PLC time would be a great time for teachers to begin filling out their choice boards and have the opportunity to see what other grade level teachers at other schools were doing too. Secondary would just need to make sure to have items located on Canvas for students to review.

Finally, we decided that we would be available at one of the schools from 1:30pm-4pm for teachers to come and get help and/or ask questions during PLC today.

PHEW! It was then dividing and conquering, typing up emails, creating templates, finding/creating examples, recording tutorials, and checking Canvas pages. I am so proud of how well we worked together to come up with a plan to best support teachers, students, and parents during this time. It also felt good to be recognized as someone who will be vital to helping and assisting our school community.

Tomorrow, we are continuing to reach out to other schools and members of our PLN for advice/resources, checking Canvas pages, coming up with what other video tutorials need to be created, thinking of how to communicate the plan out to families, and checking in with teachers who may need support. We got this!

Sick days can be no joke. I feel like the older I get the harder they become too. My mother would so lovingly tell me that well, Stefanie, as we get older… At any rate, it is hard. As an educator, it is often times easier to just muster through it especially if sub plans are involved. This week, I found myself super sick but with a ton on my plate at school. I had 2 model writing lessons each day this week, learning appointments throughout the district, 2 curriculum department meetings, and I never want my team to feel as if I’m letting them down. I had convinced myself that I would be fine. Why oh why are we programmed (or maybe it is just me) but why is the first response to sickness I’m just going to push through it. Thankfully, my family and coworkers stepped in reminding me how important it is to rest and take time to recover. I am so glad I listened because I didn’t leave my bed yesterday or today. I must have really needed that. It was yet another time when life has a way of reminding you that slowing down, taking time for you, and staying home when you are sick is so important. You can come back more focused and ready to rock it. Here’s to the weekend, where I hope to recover a bit more and then start fresh on Monday.

5 Things that Made Me Smile this Week
-supportive coworkers
-flexible classroom teachers
-YouTube –> saving sick days yet again
-new dress shoes
-fluffy pillows

4 Words to Describe My Week
hectic, sleepy, draining, painful

3 Things I Plan to Do This Weekend
-sleep
-eat solid foods
-drink more water

2 Things I Learned This Week
-I can do something that makes me nervous
-tomato soup is still my go to sick meal

1 Goal I Have For Next Week
-support teachers in the area of writing instruction

Readers become better readers by reading and writers become better writers by writing. Just as we build reading stamina with our students we need to be providing opportunities for students to build their writing stamina.  As an instructional coach, I often notice when students are given time to write independently, they want to know what topic, how many sentences, how many pages, and/or they have nothing to write about. They look to teachers to give them that information. This doesn’t mean they can’t rely on people around them to support them nor does this mean there isn’t a time and a place for teachers to support writers. However, we need to start incorporating more meaningful opportunities for them to write every day and to select their topic. This way, they build that stamina to try first, take risks, and practice so they aren’t as reliant upon others. Teachers also have this opportunity to observe, conference, take notes, and make a plan to assist writers in becoming more independent. This can guide future lessons where they can strategically offer students support in a way that still fosters independence. We need to set them up for success because there will come a time and a day where we won’t be right beside them and they need to know at least how to get started/try.

A good place to start is building a community of writers. Start with celebration and take the time to highlight what students are doing well. By creating an environment where they feel supported and encouraged, writer’s can flourish!

What are some of your favorite ways to build a community of writers?