302 - Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: How can I be a Better Coach to All

Reflecting on our work as coaches is very important. Whether we are reflecting with teachers on the work that they’ve put into their instruction or taking a look at our own coaching, we want to get the most out of how our work impacts. This episode will take a closer look at how we can have meaningful reflection with our educators and then use it for ourselves in our coaching.

Brooke's Top 3 Tips: 

1. Reflection is about you, not them

2. Be curious  

3. Be vulnerable

Emily's Top 3 Tips: 

1. Reflect frequently

2. Find someone to reflect with

3. Formalize your reflection

Podcast Team

Hosts- Katie  Ritter & Justin Thomas

Editing Team- Michael Roush, Justin Thomas 

Social Media/ Promo Team- Annamarie Rinehart, Lisa Kuhn, Maggie Harris

Creative/Content Team- Justin Thomas

Producers- Justin Thomas

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Transcript

Justin Thomas: 0:00

Hey everyone restart recharge will be joining our friends on the edu coach network and Edu at both MPTC in New Orleans and TCA in San Antonio, if you're going to those conferences stop by and say hello

Brooke Conklin: 0:11

Pauling all instructional coaches join forward edge coaches camp in summer 2023. Coaches camp is packed with high quality professional development exclusively for you. Attendees will work with like minded coaches on creating strategies for building teacher relationships, executing coaching cycles and building a culture of coaching and tech integration within their district. There are two opportunities to attend coaches camp in the summer of 2023. You can join us virtually June 12 through 14th or come visit us in Cincinnati on July 27 and 28th please visit forward hyphen edge dotnet slash coach camp to reserve your spot today.

Katie Ritter: 0:57

Aloha I'm Katie Ritter.

Justin Thomas: 0:58

And I'm Justin Thomas. And this is the restore recharge podcast a podcast by coaches for coaches. We bring the tips and tricks help you in your everyday work as an instructional coach or whatever they call you in your school district.

Katie Ritter: 1:09

So hopefully you're gonna leave this episode with us today feeling just a little bit less on your own coaching Island.

Justin Thomas: 1:14

Alright, so we're on to episode two. Now obviously we started episode one to kick off season three with Jimmy classes. But for this one here, episode two reflecting on our work as coaches is very important. Whether we are reflecting with teachers on the work that they've put into their instruction or we're taking a look at our own coaching. We want to get the most out of how our our work impacts so this episode we'll take a closer look at how we can have meaningful reflection with our educators and then use it for ourselves and our coaching. So we have two excellent guests here with us today. The first is Brooke Conklin. Brooke is the Assistant Director of coaching programs at Ford Edge she oversees the Ford Edge coach mentorship program and organize the edu coach network, a professional learning network for instructional coaches. Prior to her current role, she served as an instructional design coach for schools in southwest Ohio area. She planned and led lessons for Google for Education certified coaching programs webinar series last year and authored curriculum for the program pertaining to the use of Google Classroom to promote professional learning. Her passion is for professional learning has resulted in the planning and execution of multiple professional book studies and mentorship of other instructional coaches. So welcome in a fan favorite and the first time on Season Three rock.

Brooke Conklin: 2:33

Oh, thanks, guys. I don't know about fan favorite. Well, thanks for having me.

Katie Ritter: 2:39

Yeah. And I have the pleasure of introducing a second fan favorite and popular guests here on the pod. We have Emily Cowen, who serves as an instructional design coach with us here at forward edge and she is also one of our mentor coaches here at forward edge. She's a Google Certified Trainer, teacher, trainer and coach. She has provided professional development and coaching to a variety of P K through 12th grade teachers in multiple districts across Ohio and in Kentucky. Prior to this role, Emily earned her degree in Middle Level Education with a specialization in Language Arts and Science. She was in the classroom for six years before transitioning to a coaching role with us here at Ford Edge. So Emily, welcome back. And welcome to season three.

Emily Cowan: 3:22

Thanks, I'm happy to be here. Like Brooke, I'm pretty sure you only said that because you said it about Brooke but we'll take compliments.

Katie Ritter: 3:30

Listen, everybody knew here, we're going to take the compliments where we can get.

Brooke Conklin: 3:34

You know, we might even manufacture Yeah. Oh, yeah. Myself.

Justin Thomas: 3:40

However you get them, it doesn't matter. But let's get right to it. So how do you lead reflection discussions with educators in their work in the coaching cycles? Is there one way you go about it? Or is there multiple ways to accommodate how your educators can retake reflection and feedback? I know it's kind of a hot topic for coaches to try and figure out how can I really initiate that reflection? So I thought, why not just you know, you're both fan favorites, and you're excellent. What you do want to start right off with it.

Brooke Conklin: 4:08

Thanks, Justin. Oh, kick it off, Emily, but feel free to override me at any point. Um, so coaching cycles, and I say this knowing that not every coach does coaching cycles, or is provided that luxury by their district. But coaching cycles really do provide like the optimal environment for specifically reflection. So if you've been in education for a hot minute, you know that everything moves very fast. So teachers, especially there's just not a lot of natural time for reflection. So in coaching cycles, you really get that opportunity to have like a cadence where reflection is built in. So you're meeting with a teacher, you're in their classroom, you're meeting with a teacher, you're in their classroom, and reflection largely happens and those one on one meetings. And when you think about like, how do I go about reflection and getting reflection out of teachers? Because I think that that's been a challenge that I've experienced, too is like, how do I even get that conversation going? And really get them to spell it all, if you will?

Katie Ritter: 5:21

And make it authentic and genuine. Right? Not just like, fill out this prompt on this piece of paper.

Brooke Conklin: 5:26

Yeah. Or how do you think that went? Like, I think it went fine. What, what did I not? Right, because you, you, you want it to be authentic, you want it to feel natural. And ultimately, like the goal of reflection, as far as like coaches go is for reflection to become part of the teaching mindset and part of like, the natural practice of every day. So one thing that's really helped me this year, when I do go in, and I observe as part of my coaching cycles, or I go in, and I co teach, anytime I'm in the classroom, or really, when I'm having a conversation with the teacher, I like mentally remind myself to be curious. So I know reflection is coming. I need to fuel that reflection and fuel that conversation. So if I mentally remind myself to be curious, everything I see, I'm going to question not in like a negative way. But in a like, I wonder why they chose that particular style. I wonder why they're calling on like this group of students, I wonder why they're implementing like this type of activity, you know? So not assuming anything we want. We don't want to come in with assumptions. But if we're curious, or like, why did they pick that goal? Why are they focused in on like, behavior right now, you know, when there's a host of other things that we could be talking about. So that's been really helpful to me, is just to be curious. And that really sets you up to ask those good questions in coaching cycles. And in those one on one meetings.

Unknown: 6:56

This is why Brekke is a fan favorite, because she takes all the ideas and then that's it. She's my fan favorite for being on the podcast, because then I can just say ditto.

Katie Ritter: 7:06

I do agree. Simple.

Unknown: 7:11

Yeah, I totally agree with her and echoing the idea of being curious. One of the things I practice in some of my coaching is like the nine why's so ask, like when I asked a teacher a question I followed up with, okay, like Brooke said, like, why did you choose that? Or why is that the direction you're going, because the more wise and the more curious I can get, the more information I can collect. But on the flip side, it's really having the teacher dig deep into reflection, and think about that for themselves, which is ultimately going to help guide their growth. And the other thing that Brooke didn't really touch on but I know is something on the forefront of every coach's mind is that when we are leading these conversations of reflection, it has to come from a place or a person you have a relationship with. So it's really key to make sure that that you're building those relationships in the classrooms that you're working in. So that reflection feels comfortable for that teacher.

Katie Ritter: 8:13

Yeah, I like I like where you're both headed with this. And it's just reminding me so much of our season opener with Jimmy and this idea of just like really getting to know people asking questions like understanding their choices and where they're coming from. So anyway, I don't want to go too far down a rabbit hole there. But I just I think this is a really good follow up episode to do that first episode, if you haven't listened, listen after this one, because I think they go really, really nicely hand in hand together. Because what I took away from that episode with Jimmy was doing a little bit more internal reflection before like approaching teachers to check in make sure there's not those assumptions, like you said, Brooke, so that you can truly be open minded and curious to then help them reflect and grow.

Unknown: 9:04

And even on our team, I know not that long ago, we were having a conversation about the types of questions we're asking. So of course asking why and being curious, but making sure to put the students at the focus of the questions and not just like the teacher practice. So like, how would students feel if you did this in class? Or how would it impact students if you tried this strategy? Because then it kind of takes that pressure off off the teacher?

Katie Ritter: 9:32

Yeah, great tip. And you were gonna say something, too?

Brooke Conklin: 9:35

Yeah, I mean, kind of, kind of parallel to what Emily is saying and thinking about our framing of questions. Just like a personal connection. I found myself because I've one of my goals this year is to be in classrooms more and to be better in touch with what's happening. And I found myself like doing the deer in the headlights in my brain when I'd see things going like really wrong. You know? or like, I'd see like instruction happening that like was as far from ideal as you would want. And I really had to like, check myself and check the assumptions that I was bringing about that teacher. And that's like where I would I would start to come up with like, positively framed questions like, I wonder how we could get the back of the room engaged, you know, instead of thinking, I wonder why that teacher is not calling on any students, this whole belt, you know, there's, you can frame your curiosity in different ways to make sure that your questions are framed, to keep student learning and student benefits at the forefront.

Katie Ritter: 10:32

Yeah, great tips. So thinking about right, there's all these different moments for reflection, and you know, if it's a coaching cycle, you might have reflection that you're doing, obviously, ideally, at the end of the coaching cycle, right? It's a component of the coaching cycle to reflect on the whole experience. But I think real benefit can be along the way, especially with what some of some of the examples you both have given when you're doing the observation or when you're along the way implementing skills. So there's just all these moments of reflection. So I'm just curious, like, how, how does that how does reflection differ at different moments, whether it's in a coaching cycle? Or maybe the teacher is not in a coaching cycle, like you said, broke? Not everyone's doing necessarily full blown coaching cycles? But what what does that reflection look like at throughout different points of your coaching with teachers?

Unknown: 11:27

Yeah, I can pick that one. So or at least start it. But I do look at it kind of like assessment in the classroom. So we have our formative reflection that's happening along the way, like you alluded to. And to me, that's kind of like in the moment, questions like Rick talked about all of these wise and things curiosities that we're having, and leaving them very open ended, because we want to leave room for growth. And, you know, as we're going along, they maybe haven't mastered the full goal. So it's little questions that will help push them to the next level. And then the second part is kind of that like, summative reflection. And I think that that one is really important to let teachers internalize on their own first. So at the end of the coaching cycle, I know a lot of us practice by sharing a Google form with our teachers that ask them some like real in depth questions on the process and the stages of the coaching cycle we just went through. And that allows them to think, on their own, reflect on what they've done and answer it. And then it gives me the opportunity to review how they've reflected and come back to them, and even dive deeper into their reflection, and kind of help guide them through that. But I think that summative really needs to be put a little bit more on the teacher so that they aren't just kind of answering my question.

Brooke Conklin: 12:52

Yeah, it's funny, Emily and I obviously come from the same teaching background, as I totally wrote down formative and summative as my, like, conversate conversation. Yeah, but totally echoing that. Your formative reflection assessment, if you will. And coaching cycles, I think more closely aligns with reflection. But that's like the goal of, of the reflection that you're doing throughout coaching cycles is to, to improve or to develop along the goal that you sat with that you sat with the educator, where you're in reflection that like formal summative, reflection is more to set the stage for like, longer term, so you're focusing on like, how they grew throughout the entire cycle, and you're really instilling like the growth mindset for the educator, and helping them to like form this like habit of reflection. Whereas like Emily said, like you're you're in between that teacher cadence where you are in the classroom, you're meeting one on one, you're in the classroom, you're meeting one on one of those one on one meetings are really like checks for growth. And where do we go next? How do we pivot? What did you think went well? What should we like, try next? So the in betweens are a lot more focused on like development.

Katie Ritter: 14:09

incremental steps first, like a bird's eye view of the experience. Yeah.

Brooke Conklin: 14:14

And I will also put some exclamation points on something Emily said to like, we never want reflection to feel like homework at any time, you know. And when coaching cycles, like reflection is critical, but that shouldn't be a worksheet or something that you send them after the fact that they have to spend extra time doing it should be very, like conversational, and it should be collaborative, really, I think.

Katie Ritter: 14:43

Yeah, absolutely. Well, on that note, we are going to take a quick break from our sponsors Hang tight, we'll be right back.

Brooke Conklin: 14:50

Who is in your coach community. The edu coach network is a professional learning community designed specifically to help instructional coaches, connect learn learn and grow together. With free and paid options available. There is a space for all coaches and the edu coach network. Join today and access coaching content that will help you impact teaching and learning and your school go to www.edu. Coach network.com to join

Justin Thomas: 15:19

the Google educator boot camp is a 13 week comprehensive series that will prepare educators to complete the Google for Education Level one or two certification. This series provides teachers with professional development on their own time to complete tasks that are built around showcasing their proficiency and understanding of the Google workspace for education tools. For more information on the Google educator bootcamp visit for heightened edge.teachable.com and begin earning your Google certification. Alright, welcome back to the restart recharge Podcast. I'm Justin Thomas. We have Katie Ritter, as always, but then we have Brooke Conklin and Emily Cowan, here joining us to talk about how you can look at the reflections through your coaching cycles, or just do individual coaching or even looking at it, not necessarily from the reflection with a teacher, but on your own coaching as well. So with that in mind, how do you go about looking at your own reflection for coaching? Do you primarily use interactions with the educators to kind of see how things went? Or how their feedback was at the end of the coaching cycle? If you're doing those? Are there any other strategies that you have?

Brooke Conklin: 16:26

Yeah, so this is, I think, a little bit tricky in coaching. Because we, I mean, we ultimately we want feedback from educators on our coaching. But we also don't want to survey our educators to death. Like in an ideal world, we would get direct feedback from our educators after maybe every interaction or you know, the big stuff. But I think that we can look at it a couple of different ways. So there are like surveys that you could put out asking for feedback, I think those are natural, like the end of coaching cycles, to put a survey out as part of the end of coaching cycle, just asking about the experience asking about how they, how the educator felt about your support. Obviously, you can do surveys at the end of like professional development sessions, that's very natural. But in like organic coaching outside of those formal settings, we're not necessarily going to send like a survey after I like help solve a problem in your second grade classroom that day. So I think that we have to, like think a little bit outside of the box about where we get information to fuel our reflection on our own coaching. So I think some of this comes from like, situational, situational reflection and observations, I like to kind of think of it as like, what isn't going right, right now, what isn't like up to my standard of how I want things to be? And what can I do? Or what am I doing to contribute to that? Or am I doing enough to like support that? Um, so when we think about that, and like reflecting on our coaching and supporting educators through their challenges, I think we want to be cognizant of like, not putting the problems on educators. So when you're thinking like, what isn't going right, and how can I provide better support? What we don't want to do is like, what's not going right, and who's to blame? So I think that that's one form of reflection and reflecting on your own coaching program. Well, I'll take it back to like what Jimmy said in the last episode, which was like, fabulous, I wanted to re listen to it right away. But if I am wanting to reflect on my role as the coach in a building that has a culture issue, I'm going to use my observations and the situations I'm involved in to reflect on my own my own role and relationship to that problem. So what is problematic about the culture in the building? What is alarming? What needs work? And what am I currently doing? Or what do I need to be doing to support that? And I think that that's like looking at your your surroundings is a great way to reflect outside of like formal surveys and formal feedback that you might get.

Katie Ritter: 19:22

Yeah, I just want to pivot to you in a sec. I just when you said that thing about Jimmy the biggest thing that jumped out to me from like, a reflection standpoint with that was this whole idea of like, a reluctant teacher, right, like and I think that like really hit me different than zeros out there listening. But, you know, like I have said that and thought that not necessarily like negatively of the teacher but just like they're reluctant to, like, implement this LMS or like change their lessons. You know, they just had it different LMS. Now they're switching here. So they're reluctant to trust it, like whatever, like, and I've kind of typically in my own, like, always put that onus on them. And just the way he said that, like, maybe they're not reluctant to do whatever it is, maybe they're reluctant to work with you. And it was like, Yeah, you know what, like, maybe they really are. So anyway, that just when you said that Brooke kind of reminded me of that moment I had for myself that I've been thinking about and reflecting on, like, how we even phrase our language, internally trying to get support to better help our educators like even just thinking differently about that. Yeah,

Brooke Conklin: 20:33

I mean, I think it takes a degree of vulnerability for your reflection, because like, ultimately, reflection, is a conversation with yourself about like, what's happening in your control, right? So if you can, when you're thinking about that reluctant educator, being like vulnerable in your reflection, like, what is behind the scenes, what am I doing to support this person? And really like keeping yourself at the forefront? And not necessarily like placing blame on the other person?

Katie Ritter: 21:02

Exactly. Am I pivot over to you on this one?

Brooke Conklin: 21:06

Yeah, no, no, I totally derailed the question. Yeah.

Katie Ritter: 21:14

Know, Emily,

Unknown: 21:16

get us back on track. Despite reflection being such a personal and internal activity. One thing that I feel has really helped me with my reflection is actually utilizing other people to help guide me in my reflection, just like we're doing for our teachers. So I mean, I know not every coach out there is fortunate enough to be on a team with 17 1819 other coaches. But I think finding someone who is in the same role, or in a similar role, whether you find them on Twitter, or through the edu coach network, or wherever you can make those connections. I think some of the most valuable reflection that I've had for myself is the conversations with my team. So when I'm struggling with something whether, like you said, whether it's a reluctant teacher, or just a challenge that I'm having, getting started with certain coaching initiatives, when I'm able to talk to my team, they can kind of reflect back to me what I'm doing, what ideas I have, and it just furthers my development and my growth. So I really think that, while it is so personal, I think opening up reflection to like being a partner activity is really, really beneficial. Yeah,

Katie Ritter: 22:31

Emily, I'm so glad you said that, because I'd written it down to say, after you too, had answered but, you know, when we think about the context of a coaching cycle, I mean, you guys just said earlier in the episode, like how important that reflection is along the way of what you're doing, and not just this one big reflection at the end. So, you know, but but we don't have a coach, we don't, you know, the coach doesn't have a coach as someone to like, stop and prompt you and get you to think about those things. You know, and that really just kind of shameless plug. I mean, that's the whole crux of why we developed our coaching mentorship program, was because, you know, the coach themselves almost needs a coaching cycle on coaching, essentially. Right. So I just, I'm so glad you say that, because I couldn't agree more with you in pairing. You know, I think coaches are good coaches are hungry for data points, like you mentioned, Brooke, to collect and like, get as much feedback as we can, because all we want to do is help and get better at our job typically in this role. So I think having like pairing all of that information, to look at and reflect but pairing it with just that kind of like informal, extra ear that can pick up on things that you don't even know to ask to collect. Right. So I think that's, that's super important. So I'm glad you said that. I'm moving in to thinking about some of those reflections that you guys have, have had and whether it's conversation or data points you're collecting, what are maybe some big takeaways that you could share of things that you have learned through your own reflection that might really have have led you to find more success that might be like really good nuggets to share with some of our listeners.

Brooke Conklin: 24:20

Um, I'll go first. And this is, I mean, hate to be like a broken record, but I do think that this is, has helped me be very successful in reflecting. And I think especially in today's climate in education, it's kind of a circus out there, guys. It's not a good one. That's not a good one. Um, and I think it's very easy to be surrounded by negativity and things you might not be able to control and like Katie said, coaches, we just want to help we just want to make things better. We want to make student learning better and It's easy to get bogged down by what you can't control. So for me and reflection, I've tried to make it more part of my like internal fabric to think about, like, what is not going right? And what is my relationship to that? And how can I influence change for that, you know, like, I might not be able to solve everything, but what can I? What can I control to change the landscape? So and I'll give like a kind of an example of that recently, actually, this week. That's going to be maybe news to Katie. But

Katie Ritter: 25:34

finding out news on

Brooke Conklin: 25:36

I led a professional development session for a school that I had not been to before. I knew you were doing that, Brooke, you did? Yeah. But I was, I was warned ahead of time that culture was not great there. And my brain, I'm thinking, yeah, like, culture isn't great anywhere, no big deal, whatever, we'll roll with it and lead PD, and I get in there. And it was really bad, really, really bad. And I would try to crack jokes, they fell flat, I embarrassed myself several times. And it was it was it was a cold room, guys. And then at the end, I put out my feedback survey, I should have known better, I should have held that one back. But I did got some feedback. And there was one particular teacher that just went in on their administration on my feedback form. And they were like, had all these complaints like admin didn't tell them to bring their computer so they were unprepared admin didn't. Admin threw him under the bus. At the end, when he apologized about the engagement admin did that. And it was just, it was really bad. And there are a couple of other responses that like made me confirmed the bad culture. So and like reflecting on on my role, because I can't change that. And I am going to do a couple more sessions with them later on in the year, but I can't change that I can't change their culture for them. But what is in my control? Is, is what I can do in those moments, you know, so that's been like, part of my reflection is just thinking about, like, what isn't working for them? And what is my relationship to them? And how can I? How can I support them with what is in my control? So and like I said, the answer is never done. Like my answer to that question is not they aren't working, they aren't prepared. They aren't this, it's like, how can I change what I'm doing to like better meet the needs in their environment? So

Katie Ritter: 27:35

I'm going to put you on the spot, because I know this happened two days ago. So you may not even have an answer. But in the in that situation, because while while you may be in a unique situation, that you are walking into a district for whom you do not coach full time, in that situation, like many of our listeners may be feeling like they are trapped in the situation of negative culture, that's maybe making teachers not want to work with them or see them as something extra, right. So we definitely have listeners that are kind of feeling like trapped in this situation that they they can't control because they're not the admin. So what what would maybe be like just one tangible thing that you think since you are not the administration, you're walking into this culture that seems pretty, pretty downtrodden. What's like one thing that you think when you say, like my relationship to this, that you could, like, positively impact that for next time?

Brooke Conklin: 28:25

Yeah, so I think that like, in any culture problem, like this one, the role of a coach is unique, because you, you have to have relationships with both sides, right, you have to have relationship with admin, professional enough to like, for them to, you know, renew your contract. And then you also have to, you have to be have a good relationship with teachers in order to impact change with them. So what I can control and reflecting on that, and if you are a coach that, you know, that's the culture you go to every day, is that you can you can advocate for the needs of the teacher. And make make those known to administration and recommend solutions that like help achieve the initiatives that the admin are wanting to see. But like are keeping the needs of the teachers at the forefront. And I think that that's one of the skills that makes a coach like a great coach is that they're an advocate for teachers or an advocate for students. But they have the close relationship and they're in the inner circles of administrators typically, to like, make those shifts happen. Does that? It does?

Katie Ritter: 29:31

Yeah, it does. No, I think that's a good little tangible example of how you can address something when you're feeling a little out of control. Yeah. So um, what about you? What are some maybe big takeaways from reflection that you've had that you feel like would be beneficial for other coaches?

Unknown: 29:48

I don't know how you follow that. But I guess I don't have like one one big idea here, but something that I've talked about with one of our colleagues I recently it's just our job is to impact the student learning experience. And we show up every day for the students. So for me, reflection, like my constant reflection looks like, is the work that I'm doing with teachers impacting the student learning experience isn't making education better, is it engaging the students in a way that they weren't engaged before. And if I'm not doing that, then I know that like, I need to do better to hold teachers accountable, or to push them to make the learning experience better. And if I'm not doing that, I'm not doing my due diligence for students, which is why we're in education. So it's not some big revelation. But it is something that just kind of like grounds me and my practice and kind of guides the decisions that I'm making. With the teachers that I'm working with.

Katie Ritter: 30:53

Yeah, well, you know, sometimes we all need something to keep us going. Those hard moments, it's good to have that like center, to do feel yourself going on track, or you do for yourself, like, my jokes are not landing here, maybe. You know, it's good to have that center. I just want to add something that I saw on Twitter this week, and her name is Laura Williams and on 12. Twitter, it's Mrs. Williams 21. See, and she said being a coach doesn't necessarily mean you know, more, but it does mean you care a whole lot about your people's success. And I just love that so much for like, in this world that

Unknown: 31:30

will never hear. Yeah, I

Katie Ritter: 31:31

know, right? Like, I loved it. I think I retweeted it three different times, because I'm like, I just love this so much. Because I think we take on a lot as coaches. And I think sometimes coaches feel like, you know, maybe part of their reflections, like I don't know enough about this, like, you don't have to know everything you just care. And to me, like I would share, like my big takeaway of reflection, for other coaches has always just been like, there is no finish line to like our work and our skill set. Like we're always just trying to be better and learn and adapt. And there's just no finish line. So just know, like, you're never going to reach this like pinnacle of success, we just have to like, you know, we were striving for it. But there's always going to be a new challenge, there's always going to be like new shifts in the environment, there's always going to be something that's affecting what we do. So just like, keep going and just just keep caring about your people. And you'll find success.

Justin Thomas: 32:31

It's like when we talked about with Jimmy last episode with carry the banner, right? Yeah, for the district for the building for the teachers and the students just carry what is going on? That is so well, and carry that banner to really promote that. Yeah. All right. Well, we know how we like to end things here on the restart recharge podcast. So Brooke, and Emily, what are your top three tips for reflecting on coaching to better accommodate the educators in your school district we're building?

Brooke Conklin: 33:02

Um, you wanna go first?

Unknown: 33:04

Sure, I'm having a hard time on the spot coming up with a third one. But I would say that one, I might have a third one Bye, it's time to just reflect it's frequently. And to use that just like we talked to teachers about using data points to drive instruction, use the data points of your reflection to make changes in your coaching practice, right? If we don't, if we don't do anything about the data, we're collecting them, we're doing a disservice. My big thing is finding someone to reflect with whether you're reflecting internally first, and then just finding someone to like talk through it with I think that that's one of the most impactful things for me. Um, and I think something that I need to do a better job of. So maybe it makes for the perfect tip is to kind of formalize your reflection process. I talked a lot about how it's not super formal for me and I have this like grounding question, but I think that like something that would benefit me is to formalize that to set checkpoints throughout the school year with specific questions to answer to really guide my reflection. Great.

Brooke Conklin: 34:16

Yeah, I would say number one, reflection is about you, not them. I think that's true when you're guiding teachers to reflect on their practice, like their reflection is about them, not the students, you know. Also, like if you are reflecting as a coach, it is about you, not them, like in my bad PD example, like my reflection is not all these teachers came unprepared. It's like, what can I do to like, make sure like expectations are more clear next time from my vantage point. My second tip is to be curious, that will help guide more meaningful questions to help your educators reflect also will help you reflect on your own personal coaching. And then my third tip is to be vulnerable. I'm getting this kind of tags on to what Katie was saying, but I wrote down, accept imperfection, but aim for improvement. So if we can accept that we're never going to reach the finish line, we're never going to be perfect or educators are never gonna be perfect. Our students are never going to be perfect, but we can always improve. And if you can be vulnerable and just accept those imperfections, you're going to have a lot better. reflective conversation.

Katie Ritter: 35:31

I love it. Awesome. I'm feeling inspired.

Brooke Conklin: 35:35

I'm feeling a little toasty.

Katie Ritter: 35:37

It is very warm in the podcast room for those who are not with us live.

Justin Thomas: 35:42

I read this thing. I was a sauna. Awesome. Well, okay, Brooke, and Emily, thank you for joining us here on this second episode to really get things going here on season three.

Katie Ritter: 35:54

Yes. Glad to have you both back.

Justin Thomas: 35:56

And we were trying. Yeah, we were trying to come up with it with a cool name for this. I won't exactly describe all the stuff that happened before that because of my folks like Emily upset, but that's okay. So what's funny about it is that we actually Brooke put in, kind of get washed you explain what you did here since

Brooke Conklin: 36:15

Yeah, so the question was thrown out, What should we name this something funny, because we're at the end of our brainpower on the week work week. And so I was like, Well, I don't want to spend time thinking about it. So I'm just gonna plug in the key takeaways in the description into chat GPT, which was working for me this morning. And it spit out like five different options. Most of them I liked one of them I really liked, but I wanted to tweak the end a little bit. So that is how we landed on a podcast title.

Justin Thomas: 36:45

And that would be on preview the Mirror mirror on the wall. How can I be a better coach to all

Brooke Conklin: 36:53

boom, boom, Mic drop.

Justin Thomas: 36:54

My drop. And it's a perfect segue, because the next episode, we're actually going to have Matias Jose, come on, and he's going to talk about chat GBT AI in general, kind of help us wrap our head around this because if you if you have I mean a few open up any social media in the education world or just been in the education world? I'm sure you've heard of chat GPT so it'd be if you're not really fully sure what is going on

Katie Ritter: 37:19

with the internet

Justin Thomas: 37:21

world you're in exactly. It's probably come up at some point in time. I swear when it first when it first kind of came out. I think it was kind of like you like brought it up and then it was like after that it was like everywhere was like I don't know if it maybe seen it yet or what but like it was like one of those things where it's like you're a

Unknown: 37:37

trendsetter, Katie

Katie Ritter: 37:39

No, no, I was. I was one step ahead when it was introduced to me and I was so caught off guard. I'm like, I can't let this happen to anyone else.

Justin Thomas: 37:49

Luckily give back and we were all set with it, but it's gonna be a really mind blowing episode on how

Katie Ritter: 37:57

it is mind blowing, I can say that because we've actually already recorded it. So I'm just gonna go sit in the dark for a while and process everything so tune in for that episode. So with that, be sure to subscribe to restart recharge wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you have some time, we'd love rating and review so we can do a little reflecting on what we're getting and giving for this podcast and or you can do that by following and reaching out to us on social media at our our coach cast

Justin Thomas: 38:29

and as always feel free to let us know if there is any topics that are on your mind. We'll be happy to discuss them here on the

Katie Ritter: 38:35

restart recharge podcast. Yes, so press the restart button recharges your coaching

Justin Thomas: 38:39

batteries in leave feeling equipped and inspired to coach fearlessly with the restart recharge podcast

Katie Ritter: 38:45

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