3 Part Series: Part 2 Helping Teachers Verbally Command their Classroom

Part 2: Data Collection

Initial Data Collection of Beginning Teacher
When the beginning teacher asked me to come into her classroom, I had asked what she wanted me to look for. This is a key element in the coaching cycle. The teacher needs to identify an area she wants to work on. I will use a very informal data collection for this particular part of the process. During part three of this blog I will use a formal data collection process. For this informal data collection, I focus the data on what the teacher says or does to get students to listen and follow directions since this was her request the previous day.

While in her classroom, I quickly notice that the teacher is speaking in suggestions and not commands. Meaning, she is asking the students to follow her directions. Her students are responding in ways that show they understand they have a choice in following the directions or not. For example, the teacher says, “Can you go to bell work?” Some students follow the directions, some talk, some don’t do the work. For data collection to be effective, it has to be objective, without any interpretations on my part. So I couldn’t write her directions down and say what needs to improve or change. Instead, I would have to write them down verbatim, meet with the teacher and ask probing questions that would lead her to this discovery. One of Jim Knight’s Big Ideas of Coaching is that teachers aren't motivated by other people's goals. In order for a teacher to have buy-in in regards to her verbal use of classroom commands, the teacher should create this goal for herself. However, this can be a difficult task to self-identify.

During this class period, I collect data by writing down the teacher’s directions to the class. A sample chart is linked here.

See Example Chart A

Once I finish collecting the data, I wave bye to the teacher as I exit her classroom and finalize the data on my Google doc in order to share with the teacher before we meet the next day.

Informal Data Discussion

When we meet, I first ask her what is going well so far and what is making her nervous about teaching, if anything. After taking some time to continue building our relationship, I ask, “What do you notice about this data?” She observes that some of her directions were too long. Then I ask, “What else do you notice about your directions?” She wasn’t sure of what to say. If this was a formal data collection part of the coaching cycle, I would have recorded the students’ responses, but since the teacher hadn’t yet identified this area as a focus, I didn’t record student actions as part of the data. So I dig a little deeper and ask, “What do you notice about how you are phrasing your directions?” She reads over them, ponders, then says that she is asking students to follow her directions. The probing question I ask is, "What impact do you think that might have on the students’ responses?" She is able to touch the surface of the idea of giving students the option of following her directions or not and that this might be contributing to some of the challenges she is having in that class.

This leads the way to us creating a focus question for a follow-up data collection time. I ask what she would like to focus on for the next data collection and she says her directions. From that, our focus question becomes, “How are my directions impacting students’ responses?” We set up a time for data collection and another data discussion. I also tell her I will find a resource to help her learn more about giving directions to students.

Sharing Research for Continuous Professional Development
After our meeting, I search for resources about teachers giving directions as suggestions rather than commands and about teachers having verbal command of their classes. I look through some books and search online. I find only one online resource from Intervention Central. I email the teacher this resource and create a Google doc for to take notes as she reads. Here are three questions I write to guide her reading:

What stood out to you?
What is an “aha” for you?
What will you implement?

One of the teacher’s “aha” moments what that she was explaining too many details in her direction and would lose the meaning of the direction in the first place. The article explains how directions need to be direct and to the point. She also realizes she can be polite, but by giving polite commands, not polite requests. You can also help the teacher reflect on her directions from the informal data collection by having her rewrite some of her verbal suggestions to verbal commands by using a chart like Example B.

I look forward to the formal data collection time where I will be collecting data on the teacher’s directions and the students’ responses. The next blog describes the final steps of this coaching cycle.