Inside the Classroom: How Coaching Comes to Life

A great coach doesn’t just watch — they listen, assist, and adapt.

DR. LAURA RIGOLOSI
Curriculum & Literacy Specialist
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​When I graduated from my M.A. program over twenty years ago, an educational leader spoke at our graduation and shared a story about a recent visit to an elementary school. He described how he was visiting classes, introducing himself to students, and asking students questions about what they were learning and why they were learning it. One of the students he was chatting with then asked him, "So, what do you do?" And he explained his role as an educational leader and all of his duties that come with the role. The young student looked at him for a moment and replied, "So you don't really know what you do, do you?" The speaker laughed, and all of us laughed with our caps and gowns on in the audience; we appreciated his self-deprecating humor in trying to describe what he does as an educational leader, and how theoretical and confusing it can sound! 

I loved that he told us this story, but it also haunts me when someone asks me, “So, what do you do as an education coach?” Which part should I mention — developing curriculum or helping teachers add more moments of engagement into a lesson? Should I mention how teachers have different strengths and needs, and so I adapt my practice depending on the teacher teaching and our rapport or level of comfort? In thinking about my work as an education coach and what it means to “coach” a teacher, it can be helpful to name some of the ways I work with a teacher while they are teaching in their classrooms. 

Full disclosure: I never want to be a burden, or an additional stress to the teacher while I’m in their classroom (or ever)! The purpose of visiting the classroom is to notice what the students are doing, and how the teacher is working through their lesson. But while I'm there, I try to make life a bit lighter and brighter for the teacher and students. Even if the class is 45 minutes long, I try to find ways to be a positive force in the classroom. 

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Walk, notice, and jot

Walk around and notice what students are doing, what they are writing, and what they are discussing. I'm listening as a check for understanding but also to take the pulse of what the students are thinking, and the ways they are working together. I jot down observations or write down phrases that students say that stand out to me. This is all data that I will share with the teacher, sometimes during class and sometimes after class, depending on the level of importance of what I overhear, and how much it may or may not affect the rest of the class. 

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Take low-inference notes

Sometimes I sit with students and take notes, writing down exactly what the teacher says (as best I can) and exactly what the students say. These notes almost become a transcript for moments of the class, and later, if I am able to meet with the teacher, it is really helpful to read back a particularly powerful or complex moment. I’ve also noticed that teachers make so many decisions in a class period, and talk to so many different students and colleagues throughout the day — how can they remember verbatim these small but powerful moments? When I am able to capture these moments and share back a few specifics from during the class, they often say, “Oh yeahhh!” and they are able to return to that moment. 
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This also, I believe, empowers the teacher to feel heard and seen. I am there noticing these class moments that might be forgotten, but now they are highlighted and we can discuss them. Sometimes they are funny or brilliant moments, and it is especially wonderful to remind the teacher of the joyfulness in their lesson. 

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Help out

​If the phone rings while the teacher is at the front of the room, I will answer it and field the call by retrieving a student or relaying a message. I ask to help hand out papers or collect back papers. I will erase the board if the teacher needs it erased, or turn off the lights during a video or help with the sound or tech issues. I carry extra pens and pencils and give them out freely if anyone needs one; I tell them not to return it to me, but to not lose it so they can use it in the other classes. I will help in any way I can to help the class run more smoothly. I even carry a fresh dry-erase marker in my work bag as part of my “emergency stash,” just in case I need to write key information on a whiteboard or the teacher’s markers are dry. If I can help in these small ways, the teacher can focus on what’s important, and in the end, the students will benefit the most. 

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Act as a co-teacher

In one of my articles about co-teaching, one of the suggestions I make is to be present in class, and sit with students to take notes, and notice what you notice. I suggest that co-teachers can be an asset if they act as “vulnerable learners” themselves, and take notes alongside students, and witness the class through the lens of a student. When I do this, I notice the needs or possible gaps in the lesson, and try to fill in. 

For instance, I was recently in a class where the school was changing buildings and had limited resources. The teacher asked students to copy notes from the board, and eventually answer questions about those notes. I was sitting in the back with a group of 8th grade boys, and we had a difficult time seeing the board. If you’ve been in an 8th grade classroom recently, you know that some students look like adults and others look like elementary school students. The tall kids were scattered throughout the room, so it was difficult to see the slides, let alone copy the notes. I started taking notes as neatly and quickly as I could, so students in the back of the class could begin to take notes from my notebook, instead of the projector that was difficult to see. 

While copying notes is not a form of teaching that I think engages students the most, this is what this particular teacher was doing with his limited resources. Knowing it would take more than one meeting for him to try other ways of teaching, I suggested that he begin inserting “turn and talk” questions about the notes they were copying down. He agreed and that seemed doable. It’s a small step that would at least give students the opportunity to talk through the material. 

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Work directly with students

If I notice a student stuck in their writing or their problem set, I may go over to them and ask them to tell me about the assignment, and what they’re thinking about. I want to help them dislodge a thought that will get them started. I will sometimes work with a group of students, if the teacher asks me to, and then the teacher and I will debrief our experiences, and discuss what we noticed and why, and what the next steps could be.

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Team teach

​If have the opportunity to co-plan with a teacher, I will utilize the “team teaching” co-teaching model, where we are both in front of the classroom, delivering a lesson together. This model works well when we are looking at a shared text, and modeling our reading thoughts about the text in front of students. After we share our metacognitive reading strategies, we ask students to notice and name what we did, and I chart those students' comments and noticings on the board or chart paper to hang in the classroom as a class guide. From there, we invite students to have “their turn” and pair them off to try sharing their metacognitive reading thoughts with a partner and a text. 

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Create a resource

​When I’m in a teacher’s classroom, I have the luxury to notice what I notice and consider what resources or small tweaks can have the most impact on student learning. I was recently visiting a class where students were writing an essay and required to use textual evidence. I noticed how students were struggling to introduce and then explain quotes, so as soon as I could, I took a few minutes to make a T-Chart of sentence starters to introduce and explain textual evidence, such as:

Introducing textual evidence

•  The most significant part of the scene is when ____ states, “...”

•  According to ____, “..”
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•  When ___ says, “...,” s/he is showing

Explaining textual evidence

•  This demonstrates that… 

•  The character is saying… 

•  This moment is significant because… 
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•  In this comment, ___ is saying… 
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•  ___’s point is … ​

​​Being in the physical classroom allowed me to notice where students needed support in their essay writing, and I was able to create this resource in a timely manner and share it with the teacher. She agreed this was a challenge in her students’ writing, and decided to make this into an anchor chart to hang in her classroom for all her classes to utilize. But again, this resource stemmed from being physically in the classroom and noticing what students were grappling with at a point of frustration. 

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​There are many ways to coach teachers, and many ways to physically be in a classroom. It is a privilege to enter a teacher’s classroom and share space with a teacher and their students — I do not take this role lightly, and hope my presence helps the class run more smoothly, and become more engaging. I'm not there to be an educational anthropologist, where I take notes and present my findings and data analysis. There are small moves I can make that will help the teacher and their students, and I constantly ask myself, what am I doing, and how is it helping? While the answer may be long winded, in the end I am always thinking about how to elevate the students’ learning experiences in the short window that I am part of the class.