Session 4 of our series to support instructional leaders looking for innovative professional development options, such as coaching cycles.

Here is a transcript of the webinar.

– Hello. Welcome to our fourth session of our Kitchen Table Coaching series. We are presenting this session and all of the sessions live from our home. Thank you so much again for joining. And we will be monitoring the chat, so if you have any comments for us, please feel free to share. And we’re also going to stop at the end for a question and answer, so feel free to share some questions, as well. So our fourth session today, part of the Kitchen Table Coaching Series, is focusing on designing virtual training and coaching cycles. We have created a website that’s going to be the home for this content and other resources, as well. This website is now live, so please feel free to check it out. And if you enjoy the content, feel free to share a link and use our #PLtogether so others can easily find it. So let’s talk about this session’s agenda. We’re gonna start out with some introductions. We’ve had the the opportunity to share the other three sessions, but in case this is the first time you’re joining, we will have the opportunity to introduce ourselves. Then we’re going to be able to discuss adult learning, thinking about really how does that impact educators, and then also we’re going to look at ways to implement a skill building sequence, which is a type of coaching cycle that can be used in a virtual coaching cycle. So a little bit about me. My name is Heather Purzner and I was a classroom teacher. I taught elementary school. I also had the opportunity to work in literacy consulting and coaching and that’s really where I saw the power of video and that’s why I’m excited to be a member of the Partner Success Team here at Edthena.

– Hi, everyone. Welcome back for those of you who have been attending our sessions the last couple weeks. And for those of you who are attending the first time, welcome, we really appreciate all you guys being here. If you guys don’t know me yet, my name’s Rob McCreary. I am also a member of the Partner Success Team here at Edthena. And like Heather, I’m also a former classroom teacher. And we’re just really excited that you guys are here today and we’re excited to share some of this content we have for you. Okay, so let’s give a quick background about Edthena for maybe some of you who might not have kind of dived into it yet. Edthena is an online resource that allows teachers to analyze their classroom video through online collaboration and online video. And what we’re gonna discuss today is how you can utilize the classroom to create virtual training and coaching cycles and specifically skill building sequences inside of Edthena.

– So let’s begin to talk about an adult learning theory. So currently we are all going through the process of learning new teaching styles due to the pandemic. As educators, we are familiar with the term pedagogy. It is the study and theory of how to teach. There is a similar word for the method and practice of teaching adults, and that is andragogy. One of the researchers in this space is Malcolm Knowles. In practical terms, Knowles’ theory of andragogy means that instruction for adults should focus more on the process and less on the content being taught. So keeping this in mind, strategies that are gonna be most useful really include case studies, simulations, self-evaluation, and reflection. So let’s see how the idea of adult learns by doing really matches our own experiences. I’m going to share an example from my own life. So in the past I would go to the yoga studio really to practice yoga and I would watch the instructor and perhaps the other yogis in the class. Now when I practice yoga it is a live, online class, similar to the woman on this slide. So the live online class will also be led by an instructor. So there’s a key aspect of taking a yoga class in the studio or taking an online live class, and really that key aspect is that it’s being led by an instructor and I’m getting feedback on my yoga practice directly from the instructor. It’s that feedback that’s going to help me change and grow in my practice. The same thing is true for educators and their teaching craft. It’s really this notion of giving feedback on the actual implementation, whether that’s on my yoga practice or my own teaching practice, that has really helped me to get better. So I’m gonna ask: Has anyone had the opportunity to take a live online yoga class that’s led by an instructor or perhaps in the past you were able to go to a yoga studio with an instructor and really get some feedback on your practice? Feel free to share in the comments. Great. Thank you.

– Okay, so I want to give another example here that’s a little bit more relevant for me. I’m not a yogi like Heather. I know I probably should be. It would probably affect both my stretching, which I need to know, I know I need to do a little more of, as well as what I’m about to talk about, my golf game. I’m sure I would be a better golfer if I stretched out a little more. But what I want to give an example for me when it comes to adult learning is golf. It’s something I’m passionate about and I like to do. And when I kind of think about the case study that Heather mentioned of how practice and feedback really impacts adult when it comes to learning, it’s so much the case when it comes to golf for me. When I started playing golf, I really kind of did the basics of reading a lot about it, watching videos on YouTube, even going out and practicing. And that moderately improved my game, but I don’t think it really, I didn’t see significant improvements until I did something called a swing study. And essentially what that is is an expert, an instructional coach watched me golf, or in this case a golf coach actually watched my swing and then was able to give me targeted feedback based on my practice. And this is where I started to see moderate improvement, or significant improvement not moderate improvement, in my game and started getting better. And that’s kind of why we’re here today. That’s why we want to talk about how this kind of case study in both yoga as Heather mentioned or golf as I mentioned, it has parallels in teaching when it comes to practice and feedback being a key implementer of significant change. And it’s not just in concept but it has actually been proven in research and there is research that supports this assertion that practice and feedback is ultimately what’s going to lead to change in terms of adult learning and in teaching. So let’s talk a little bit about this research. The research that was done by famed researchers back in 1982, Bruce Joyce and Beverly Showers. Anyone familiar with this research or have seen a little bit of their own or maybe experienced it in some capacity in your district or school? Feel free to respond in the chat, get a chat going in regards to Joyce and Showers. But what was significant about it in its time it was, its findings were base on aggregating much other research in the field. And essentially what the research revealed is that learned knowledge and skills rarely transfer to the classroom. So let’s kind of dive in to this graph here to kind of give you an example of what this research said. But we have a couple things here. We have study of theory, which is kind of the idea of your professional sit-and-get, demonstration, we have, and practice, which is essentially practicing a skill. And you’ll notice when you’re studying something the knowledge acquisition is really only 10%. You’re only acquiring 10% of the knowledge and 5% of the skill, and none of that is transferring to your classroom. While when you’re practicing something, you are acquiring 60% of the knowledge and your skill acquisition is also 60% with some of it transferring to your classroom, 5%. But what the key to Joyce and Showers’ findings were was that the combination of practice and feedback leads to knowledge acquisition of 95%, skill acquisition of 95%, but most importantly, transfer to your classroom of both knowledge and skill of 95%. So what Joyce and Showers called practice and feedback, they called it pure coaching, so the idea that an instructional coach would be kind of the catalyst of that feedback, which is why it’s so important that we have instructional coaches who are providing the feedback on our teachers’ practice. Okay, so why is this research important? What is the big takeaway here from Joyce and Showers’ research? And what it is, is this research is really what justifies our schools and districts’ investment in coaching. This research is what supports the assertion that match our beliefs that both practice and feedback is what ultimately leads to sustained change in the classroom. This is why we model teach and this is why we have instructional coaches who are providing feedback, because it’s so important that not only teachers are practicing this knowledge and skills that they want to have in their classrooms, but they’re actually receiving feedback on them doing that practice.

– So our goal during this session is to really talk about how to implement a skill building sequence, which is a good example of connecting the modeling to the implementation with feedback. This is evidence inside of “Evidence of Practice,” which is written by CEO of Edthena Adam Geller. And the skill building sequence is one of the 12 strategies inside of this book. So as I mentioned, the skill building sequence is presented within “Evidence of Practice,” and we’re going to start by defining the components, discussing the key benefits and ways to implement a skill building sequence. Skill building sequence is a type of coaching cycle that can be used in a virtual coaching cycle. So let’s start out with some of the components. To start out, teachers are gonna have the opportunity to watch or analyze an example video that was shared by their coach or their facilitator. Then they will have the opportunity to practice and implement that skill in a video of their own. Once they have that recording, they’re gonna be able to share their recording with their coach, and their coach is gonna be able to provide feedback, and very targeted feedback, on their instruction. And so it’s essentially going to provide a checkpoint on the teacher’s skill development and how their teaching craft is improving. So now let’s discuss a little bit of the benefits of implementing a skill building sequence. So teachers have the opportunity to take control, or really to take ownership around how they will view the videos and also how they will implement and practice the skills to improve their teaching craft. Now, for coaches, if you are working with your teachers on a specific skill, you could record yourself once and share your video with multiple teachers to watch on their own timeframe. Your video example or any videos you select to share will provide your teachers with the opportunity to really sharpen their own teaching craft. And then we’re going to link the modeling really to that practice and feedback. This is the same language that we saw from the Joyce and Showers research, that is, that high knowledge skill and transfer style of learning. Now let’s talk a little bit about planning. So you may already have videos in mind, or perhaps it is a current video of you modeling a specific strategy. So you could select any type of video example that you feel as though would be meaningful. Then you’re going to design the analysis for your teachers, essentially providing the guidance for how your teachers will use that example video. Then you will have the opportunity to share your videos with your teachers. Now let’s talk a little bit about the execution. So teachers will have the opportunity now to view and analyze that video example that has been shared with them. Teachers then after viewing and really analyzing, they’ll have the opportunity to practice and really implement what they noticed in the video in their own practice and record themselves doing so. Then teachers can, if they wish, this is really ideal but it is optional, they can have some time for self-reflection. Then after those pieces are complete, the facilitator or the coach is going to be able to provide some very targeted feedback and really analyze the teacher’s footage of their implementation of that strategy.

– Okay, so let’s see this in action. What we’re gonna show you now is how you can create a virtual training cycle or a coaching cycle inside of Edthena, and specifically a skill building sequence as a coaching cycle in this instance. And before we do so, I kinda want to define what that is called in Edthena. And the feature that allows you to design these coaching cycles in Edthena is called an Exploration. An Exploration is what you would create in Edthena to have a coaching cycle between teacher and coach. So let’s hop into it really quickly. I’m gonna go ahead and share my screen. Okay, so now we’re looking at an Exploration that has been created by my coach. In this instance, Heather is my coach, I am a teacher, and there is a skill building sequence that she’s created as an Exploration for me. A little bit about the skill building sequence before we hop into it, it is a asynchronous-style video, it’s a read-aloud that goes over a specific skill, cause and effect, that I’m gonna kind of take and watch. And that’s the first kind of part of this skill building sequence. So we’re already inside the Exploration. I’m gonna go to the example video that Heather has provided for me and we’re all gonna watch it now. And as a teacher, I’m gonna digest this skill that she’s portraying for me. So we’re gonna watch the entire video. It’s just over two minutes.

– Hi, boys and girls. Mrs. Purzner here. Today, we’re going to continue our work with our reading strategy of cause and effect. You notice we have the cause in purple and we have the effect in green. So let’s talk a little bit about both. So cause, that’s going to be why something happened. And the effect, that’s going to be what happened. Now I’m gonna share an example from my own life. So the cause, I was tired after running. And so the effect, I sat down on a bench. So we have been reading this story together, “The Day the Crayons Came Home,” and today we’re gonna focus on a very specific part so we can practice doing our strategy of cause and effect. “Duncan was sad to learn of all the crayons “he’d lost, forgotten, broken, or neglected over the years. “So he ran around gathering them up. “But Duncan’s crayons were all so damaged “and differently shaped than they used to be “that they no longer fit in the crayon box. “So Duncan had an idea.” I wonder what happened. “He built a place where each crayon “would always feel at home.” So now let’s think back to our reading strategy of cause and effect that we’re practicing and let’s take a look here. Duncan’s crayons were damaged and differently shaped, so they no longer fit in the crayon box. That was the cause. So, boys and girls, I want you to try writing the effect in your notebook. What did Duncan do? What happened? And we’re going to come back later this week to share our thoughts. Thank you so much, bye.

– Okay, so now we have watched the video. As a teacher, now I’ve kind of digested the information, and let’s kind of flip forward maybe a week or however long and imagine here as a teacher I’ve taken in this skill of cause and effect that my instructional coach Heather has provided for me. I’ve practiced it in my classroom and now I’ve recorded my own asynchronous-style video that I’m going to upload for Heather and give to her. So I’m gonna go ahead and do that. Click on the video here. And now I’ve sent this entire Exploration, which includes this video, to my instructional coach Heather. It’s gonna give her a notification. What’s great about this is she’s gonna get this notification saying, you know, Robert has both watched your video, your example video, and then he’s also provided some video evidence of his own of this skill. So now Heather’s gonna get a notification in Edthena in an email that says, you know, your teacher is ready for you to review his work. And that’s what great about this that it kind of all happens here inside of Edthena. So now we’re gonna flip the script here. We’re gonna go to Heather’s perspective and she’s gonna show what would kind of be the next steps of this skill building sequence of her kind of taking in this video that I’ve provided for her.

– Great. Thank you so much, Rob.

– Okay, go ahead, Heather.

– So, I want to share that my screen looks pretty similar to Rob’s screen, but I am logged in as an instructional coach and I can see one of my teachers here, this is Rob who I’m supporting, and Rob submitted some video evidence with me through this Exploration. I’m going to now watch Rob’s video and provide some feedback.

– Hi, first graders. Mr. McCreary here. Today, we’re gonna circle back on our reading strategy of cause and effect. Now, a little bit more about cause and effect. Cause, why something happened. Effect, what happened.

– So I’m going to stop here and provide some feedback to Rob. I’m gonna provide a feedback and a strength. “Good job of explaining the strategy “to your students.” And I have the opportunity now to give some feedback around the Danielson teaching clusters and I’m gonna link this to outcome.

– Now I’ll give an example in the real world of cause and effect. Cause: I was thirsty after talking. Effect. I took a sip of water.

– I’m going to provide some additional feedback to Rob, and this time I’m going to provide a suggestion. So I’m going to share “Please share your example “written in a sentence for your students.” And then I can also connect this to the Danielson teaching clusters, and I’m going to connect this to tasks and activities.

– Now, we’re gonna go ahead and jump into the book we’ve been reading, “You are Special,” to find an example of cause and effect in the book. Let’s go to a specific passage in the book where we can find cause and effect. “The Wemmicks were giving each other stickers. “Those with gold stars thought they were better “than those with gray dots. “Every Wemmick wanted to have the most gold stars. “But no one wanted to have the most gray dots. “Punchinello was sad. “He always had the most gray dots.” Okay, I think there’s an example of cause and effect in this chapter. So, when I look back on it, I think an example of cause was “Punchinello always had the most gray dots.” What I want you guys to do is identify the effect. So go ahead and identify the–

– Now here I’m going to stop and I actually, I have a question here for Rob. And my question is, “Is there a reason why you “omitted the sentence as a visual representation?” And I’m also going to connect this to the Danielson teaching clusters presentation and explanation.

– Effect and write it as a sentence inside of your notebooks, and we’ll circle back at the end of the week to determine the effect. Thanks, everybody. Good to see you and hope you have a great day.

– So what you will notice here, I was able to provide some very targeted feedback to Rob. I was able to provide a strength, a suggestion, and a question. So what I’m going to do now is I’m going to really be able to summarize all of my feedback for Rob. So kind of overall the feedback I want to share is, “You did a great job “of explaining “the strategy “to your students.” Now I’m going to be able to reference my model, as well. So I’m going to share: “Please reference my “video example to see “how I used direct modeling “to support student learning.” So right now as a coach I’m thinking about this skill building sequence or inside of Edthena it is called an Exploration. I’m feeling good about my feedback that I shared with Rob here because it’s very targeted. And as I mentioned, I’m able to really reference that model, that video example that I shared with Rob. So I’m gonna have the opportunity now to click on Finalize And Send and Edthena is acting as my coaching management system. Now I have finished providing feedback to Rob and I could move on to the next teacher who is awaiting my feedback, as well.

– Okay, so we’re gonna stop this here. This is kind of the end of this Exploration for me as a teacher, so I’m gonna share my screen and take questions about this entire process. Does anyone have any questions here? I notice it looks like there was one question here about both asynchronous and synchronous-style videos inside of your coaching cycle. So that’s a great question. I think it totally makes sense that you could use either. Both synchronous or asynchronous inside a coaching cycle works. As an example of what Heather did for me as instructional coach, she gave me that asynchronous-style video where I was kind of able to gather it as an example video, but you could also put in a synchronous example, too, like a Zoom or Google Meets, actual video where there’s students on the other side, and put that as an example video, as well, and have that be the video that your teacher would provide as video evidence. So I think whatever works for you in terms of creating a coaching cycle is something that you can do. That’s a good question. Um, let’s look here. It looks like another question was asking about kinda the amount of videos over maybe a one-month period. How many videos would you suggest? And that’s a good question. Again, probably up to you. I think what makes the most sense, a full coaching cycle two weeks is probably a good date, maybe one week if you really want to go quickly with it. But you could imagine the first week the teacher’s digesting the example video and then the second week they’re gonna actually record a video of their own. You could do that in one week too, but what’s good is you can actually also have your Explorations tailored to have more than one example video. So you could have a skill building sequence hypothetically that has multiple example videos, multiple skills that the teacher is going to digest and then they actually have multiple videos that they’re going to include and provide for their teachers. So you can really kind of tailor these Explorations however fits your needs. Um, it looks like we have one last question here I’ll take before we kinda move on, and that is the length of videos in these skill building sequence. That’s a good question that comes up a lot, length of videos. I think the kind of quicker, shorter videos are better as example videos than even as videos to provide for your instructional coach as the teacher because they’re really able to digest that snippet, that specific skill as opposed to like a longer classroom instruction that could evolve a lot of skills, right? So if you’re building an Exploration as a skill building sequence, I think it makes sense to make the requirement of the videos to be a little shorter. Okay, that’s the last questions. Heather, were there other questions that you see that we should answer?

– No.

– Okay. So we’ll move on here. This does conclude our four-week series. We really appreciated you guys being here throughout this time. If you enjoyed this content and were unable to attend the first three weeks or any of the first three weeks, feel free to go to pltogether.org. That’s where this is going to be hosted along with much other content that’s kind of relatable to what we’ve been discussing here over the last four weeks. So make sure you go there and check it out if you enjoyed this. And if you would like to share any of this information, use that #PLtogether as you’re sharing to your colleagues and your friends.

– And if you do have any questions about a skill building sequence or ways to implement an Exploration inside of Edthena, please feel free to reach out to us, support@edthena.com, and we thank you so much for joining this session.

– Thanks, guys. We really appreciate your time. Thanks again for attending.

– Bye.

– Bye.