I love this recent post from Tom Sherrington – Lesson feedback: don’t send it, don’t give it – co-construct it. Otherwise, it won’t be worth it. Coaching conversations should be a professional process built on respect and humility and partnership. It should feel like two teachers discussing the challenges of teaching and learning and working together to find solutions. The dynamics of the conversation are really important here – the ebb and flow of two professionals sharing their insights, pooling their wisdom in order to tackle the never-ending complexities of the classroom – I touch upon the idea of dialogical equity here.

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As coaches, we want to help teachers get the most out of the conversations we have with them.  It’s important to approach this work having thought hard about what might be said, how we might say it, and what we’re trying to get out of it. Here are some things worth considering:

1. Purpose
2. Focus
3. Framework
4. Pace
5. Dynamics

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Purpose. Coaches and teachers typically engage in different types of talk, e.g. diagnosis, feedback, rehearsal, review, etc. This means that the content and activity will vary in response to the needs of the teacher. What shouldn’t change is the overall aim of the process – supporting the teacher to support their students. A good conversation has at its core the purpose of developing the professional vision (or, perception) of the teacher – to enable them time and space to identify learning problems and act on possible solutions. Teaching is a cognitive process – cognition drives behaviour – so the conversation is as much about the Why? and the How? as it is the What?. A useful way to think about this is that the coach should seek to ultimately render themselves redundant: the aim is that next time, the teacher is better placed to respond independently to a similar situation.  This is why there’s no real value in the type of top-down feedback that has corrupted professional development for so long. The aim of coaching isn’t to fix the teacher, or to demonstrate how knowledgeable you are. You’re there to help make a difficult job just a little bit easier. 

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Focus. In our work with WalkThrus, we find that the coaching process works well when it is focused firmly around the specific thing that the teacher is trying to implement. This means that it is useful to narrow the focus of an observation, learning walk, video, and in turn narrow the focus of the resultant conversation. This helps to cut through the congestion and complexity of the classroom. If a teacher is working on developing their students’ vocabulary, using the technique Deliberate Vocabulary Development (TW, Vol 1), then it makes sense that this is the focus of the observation, and of the follow up discussion. This is so much more productive than a) trying to discuss everything that happened in a 60 minute lesson b) offering diluted, generalised reflection and discussion points (including the dreaded ‘Well I have to give you something as a target…!’ ) The step-by-step format of the WalkThru technique works particularly well here because it allows each individual step to be scrutinised by both the teacher and the coach, considering which steps have landed well with students and which still might need work.

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Framework. The focus is the important thing – it should be the driver of the conversation. But it’s useful to have a framework that is both transparent and purposeful. This keeps the conversation productive by providing an overall structure. This might be John Whitmore’s GROW (Goal, Reality, Options, Will) model, or as we advocate at WalkThrus, Paul Bambrick-Santoyo’s 5Ps (Praise, Probe, Problem, Practice, Plan) approach. It’s important to remember that the framework isn’t the thing being done – it’s there to provide a structure to discuss the focus. 

NB: There is a danger sometimes that the structure hinders the co-construction of feedback. At times, I’ve observed coaches using a framework like this to simply organise their own observations:

• ‘Thanks for letting me observe your lesson, here’s your praise…‘
• ‘Now here are the things I want to probe into…‘
• ‘These are the problems that I saw…‘

This just won’t do! It’s traditional top-down feedback dressed up as coaching. We need to see the framework more as a servant to the agreed focus, not let it become the focus.

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Pace: Go slow to go fast. However pressed for time we might be, it serves no purpose to crash through the conversation, sacrificing the opportunity to uncover the specific things that are working well and those that aren’t. The devil is in the detail, and this is usually where we’ll find the most traction in terms of moving things forward. The best coaching conversations that I’ve seen with WalkThrus really take advantage of the step-by-step format. Each step requires consideration, modification and implementation – each step is a potential habit change that needs to be discussed and scrutinised. This is where the focus (the technique) and the framework (the overall structure) collide. In this example, the 5Ps approach wraps around each step, one at a time, in order to uncover successes, challenges and potential problems.

Here’s how I see it (wrapped around the first step of Cold Calling (TW Vol 1). In this way, conversation develops a stick or twist feel, where each step is considered carefully before either sticking – working through implementation issues with that step – or twisting – moving onto the next step (rinse, repeat, etc). In this approach, we are far more likely to uncover what needs to happen next. And both voices are important here… if the teacher indicates that they aren’t confident with a particular step, work on it! There and then. And then move on, even if this means next time. 

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Conversation Dynamics. So let’s get into the details. In my experience working with new coaches, this is often the hardest part – how do I run a conversation that a) withholds judgement and doesn’t offend; b) promotes respect, humility and co-construction; c) is efficient and productive? I think the key lies in a combination of the following competencies:

Dialogical equity. A good conversation should be an equitable exchange, where both teacher and coach explore problems and solutions collaboratively. They share insights based on observation and experience, and listen and respond to what the other has to say. The conversation should feel natural, unhindered by hierarchy or agenda. Ebb and flow. Seniority shouldn’t matter and ego should be left at the door. I’ve worked with coaches and leaders who find this surprisingly hard, like they are duty bound to have all the answers. Often, this comes from a good place… wanting to be thorough, credible, detailed. But in reality, when feedback is one-way it rarely lands well. 

Linguistic restraint. Coaches can guide great conversations by being deliberate and skilful in their language choices. Cognitive reframing is a technique used in coaching conversations to shift the mindset so that teachers and coaches are able to look at a situation from a slightly different perspective. Feedback that focuses on the actions of the teacher can feel personal and judgemental. However, feedback that focuses on the actions of the students is more likely to be received as formative and objective. Coaches should aim to reframe their observations so that they are student-focused, rather than teacher-focused, to ensure that the coaching dialogue remains judgement-free.

Conversations can be problematic when feedback is aimed directly at the teacher, for example, ‘When you explained the task, you didn’t check that all of your students understood’. The implication here is ‘you should have, but you didn’t’. The problem with ‘you’ is that it’s personal, critical and judgemental. Reframing this as student-focused feedback might look something like this: ‘Some of the students were unsure about what they needed to do here – did you notice that?’ This structure shifts the focus from the actions of the teacher onto the reaction of the students.

It’s also really unhelpful for a teacher to hear how their coach might have taught their lesson differently. Comments such as, ‘I might have chosen to live-model that activity’ or ‘I would have given them more time on that comprehension task’ is problematic because it implies that ‘I could have done it better’. Knight (2018) suggests that as coaches we should ‘keep ourselves out of the answers’ to ensure that we are coaching, not telling. Reminding ourselves to be student-focused- ‘how successful were the students on with the comprehension task?’ –can help us to keep our own preferences at bay.

Mediative questioning. Coaches should ask questions that aim to prompt thinking. Good questions help uncover the thoughts and intentions of the teacher. Here are just a few simple example questions that I find particularly useful:

Why don’t you tell me a little bit about your intentions for this part of the lesson/ this routine / this sequence?

[On a specific action step] Lots of teachers find this bit quite difficult… tell me a little bit about how you’ve gone about implementing this step?

What are you seeing from the students that gives you confidence that […] is starting to land well? 

What kind of things are the class still struggling with? What are you seeing that makes you think this?

On a scale of 1-10, how successful were the students in enacting your intentions for […] here? What are you seeing that pleases you, and where might there still be work to do?

Describe some of the things that you’d like to see your students doing at this point that aren’t quite happening yet. 

Notice that all of these questions are designed to prompt thinking. They’re not evaluative or gotcha-moments; they are structured to uncover the intentions and reflections of the teacher (allowing them to bat first) and ultimately aligned to the purpose of coaching, that of building the professional vision of the teacher (this is explicit – check out how many of these questions are anchored to sight and perception).

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In a recent training session I did with a group of new coaches, I was asked to exemplify some of these ideas with mini-scripts. Here’s what I came up with as a starting point, linked to the 5Ps approach. Obviously, in real life, conversations will be infinitely more dynamic, responsive and personable than this, but hopefully this is useful nonetheless:

5Ps	Purpose	Ask	Respond
Context	To establish the context and the intentions of the teacher.	– Why don’t you tell me a little bit about your intentions for this part of the lesson/ this routine / this sequence? – Let’s recap the steps that we’re working on. – Lots of teachers find this bit quite difficult… tell me a little bit about how you’ve gone about implementing this step?
Praise	To affirm the elements of the step that have landed successfully.	– What are you seeing from your students that gives you confidence that this step is starting to land well? – What did you see from the students that really pleased you here?	– Yes! I saw that too – the students were getting on really well with… – Great that you spotted that… I also noticed that they got on really well with X… – Clearly you’ve thought really carefully about how to make X work so well…
Probe	To uncover the elements of the step that might need further work.	– Lots of teachers find this bit quite difficult… tell me a little bit about how you’ve gone about implementing this step? – Where are you seeing the students still struggling with this?   – What kind of things would you like to be seeing from your students here, that aren’t quite there yet?	– Yes, that’s tricky. I noticed some students in the back row struggling with X… – That’s interesting… it’s so tough to get all of them doing X, Y and X. – What did you make of the quality of their responses / the number of students who contributed/ the effectiveness of their discussion…?
Problem	To specify the precise sticking point that needs to be addressed.	– So you’d like to see more of your students doing X, Y and Z… which do you think might be the most important one to get right? – Why do you think some students might be struggling with…? – What kind of things do you think might help this step land?	– You’re right… that’s a really common challenge. Let’s go back to that step and look a bit more closely… – Ok, so that sounds like something that we can work on now…
Practice	To provide a model and opportunity to rehearse the action step.	– Let’s run through the step… what changes do you think we might need to make? – What are your first thoughts about this step… does it seem like it might work? – Would it help if we scripted this/ rehearsed it together? What would make you feel confident in rolling this out?	– Ok… let’s run through the step one more time just to check it makes sense. – Which parts of this step do you see working well/ are you feeling most confident about. – Do you think we’re missing anything? How about…
Plan	To agree the next steps, including support and reality checks.	Talk to me about how you intend to practise this step… How can I best support your practice?	Great… let’s get that pencilled in!

Thanks for reading!