004 - Held Hostage by Testing

Testing season is here, and it can often leave tech coaches with open calendars and doors closed in faces. In this episode, Brooke Conklin and Michael Roush discuss how they tackle testing season- from supporting stressed out teachers to preparing for end of year transitions. 

Links mentioned in the show: 

Follow Brooke on Twitter

Follow Michael on Twitter

Forward Edge Coaches Camp

Podcast Team

Hosts- Katie  Ritter & Justin Thomas

Editing Team- Megan Whitacre, Mallory Kessen, Michael Roush

Social Media/ Promo Team- Annamarie Rinehart, Lisa Kuhn, Molly Lutts

Creative/Content Team- Brooke Conklin, Emily Cowan, Tracee Keough

Research & Logistics Team- Mark Gumm, Tyler Erwin

Producers- Tyler Erwin & Katie Ritter

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Transcript

Justin Thomas: 0:04

hit the restart button recharge those

Katie Ritter: 0:12

batteries Aloha everyone, my name is Katie Ritter.

Justin Thomas: 0:34

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

Katie Ritter: 0:49

And hopefully you're gonna leave after listening to this podcast feeling just a little bit less on your own coaching islands like you have a tribe. And really quick, Justin, I do want to share with you that forward edge is hosting a coach's camp, specifically a two day training this summer on June 16, and 17. It will be hosted in Cincinnati, Ohio, and virtually simultaneously for those folks who can't travel just yet. And we will be providing to you the same two day training that we put our own instructional technology coaches through. So if you're interested in finding out more information on that, you can visit our website at forward dash edge.net forward slash coach can fo r w ARD hyphen Ed g.net/coach. And so so without further ado, we would like to introduce today's guests on our show. Today some of couple of forward edge coaches that we have who work with Justin and I and I have the honor of introducing Brooke Conklin, who is a technology coach here with us and she serves pre K through 12th grade teachers in a Southwest Ohio School. Before entering the world of edtech. Brooke taught seventh grade social studies and she's originally from Northwest Arkansas and has since settled in Liberty Township, Ohio, with her husband Alan and their three kids. Brooke works as a teacher and technology coach is fueled by her love of empowering others to pursue their potential in dreams at full force. So welcome Brookie as we call her here on our team.

Brooke Conklin: 2:27

Thanks Katie.

Justin Thomas: 2:29

And I have the honor of introducing Michael Michael Roush specializes in educational technology, assistive technology and universal design for learning. In addition to serving as a forward edge technology integration specialist, Michael serves as an adjunct professor of education for Wilmington College, Michael and his wife Angie live in rural Southwestern Ohio. They have four adult children to in grade school and one grandson, Michael's passion in education is helping every student learn to be able to define and achieve what the highest level of success means for them. So welcome, Michael.

Michael Roush: 3:03

Hi, great to be with you today.

Justin Thomas: 3:06

And as we now have both Michael and Brooke on here, let's kind of set the stage for today's episode. The fact of matter is this we are getting nicer weather now it's really nice out today. And although that is good news for spring, spring also usually means that it is testing season. And let's be honest testing is not the most fun time for teachers or for students or for a lot of people within a school district. But we want to talk today about how you as a technology integration specialist or coach or whatever you're calling your school. How does your role change as you move forward into this testing season because obviously teachers have a lot on their plate to begin with. And this like a whole extra serving from the buffet just piled right onto their plate now. So we want to talk a little bit today on our episode about how exactly you go about moving and shifting with your role and to helping support teachers during testing season.

Katie Ritter: 4:06

Nelson actually we are going to take a quick 32nd break from our sponsor, so stick with us and we will be right back in 30 seconds to hear from Brooke and Michael as we tackle this topic of testing

Justin Thomas: 4:21

looking for a program that reaches all teachers and learning new tools to integrate in their lessons and you badges is the answer and using anytime anywhere badging program that is designed to take bite sized tools for instruction and teach teachers how to use them edgy has received the STC of alignment for Educator Standards. And each patch in our expanding library is aligned to the ISTE standards and the Samer model. Learn more about the program that teachers call addicting at Ford hyphen edge dotnet backslash and you badgers Welcome back. And thank you again for joining us. It's Brooke and Michael are two technology coaches that are here today to talk about How they shift in the roles for testing because testing season is here. And as we all know, testing season is kind of a lot going on, not just for a tech coach, but for teachers, for students, for everyone really in the school district. So we want to talk to both Michael and Brooke, who have been in schools working with teachers during testing season for a couple of years here. And really kind of the first question that comes to mind is how does your experience as a tech coach, relate to teachers within this role? Like how are you now supporting teachers when testing comes along? And does your role change at all during this time of the school year?

Brooke Conklin: 5:39

Sure, thanks, Justin. This is definitely kind of a strange time of year. And if you've been a tech coach for very long, you know that tech coaching kind of ebbs and flows throughout the school year, and there are definitely certain trends that you experience as a tech test tech coach, when it when it comes to school year, so you have like your back to school rush and August, Christmas always has its kind of unique personality. And then we are hit with testing right around this time of year. So I would say in my experience, everyone's focus just kind of shifts, and people become hyper focused on testing. And it's almost like a, like a time warp, you could say where you go back in time, and you lose sight of all this innovation and really powerful instruction that you've been working on all year. And suddenly, we're really worried about scores. And we're really worried about reading passages and all of these things that seem to kind of spur out of nowhere. So I would say, in my experience, I'm sure Michael, can relate to this as well. Um, you tend to get hit with a lot of test prep questions. So they, a lot of people forget about your your role as kind of an innovation expert, and they're wanting help with like, how do I get my kids to use the online highlighter? And how do I get my kids to use the mask reader on the standardized test. So really, the focus of admin and teachers tends to shift. And it takes a lot of kind of delicate refocusing to get everybody to continue to move student learning forward and not just teach for a test in my experience.

Michael Roush: 7:31

Yeah, yeah, you're right on and in, in schools, where you're the state testing is this thing that everybody knows is coming at, you get to a point where the core subject, teachers are just all wrapped up in testing, you know, schedules are starting to come out of what they're going to be taking, when and any other kind of preparatory things that are going on. And, you know, the normal bell schedule that you've worked all year to try to understand and to get under your belt, for some length of time during during testing, that bell schedule is going to be all messed up. You know, in some cases teachers are looking for, like Brooke was saying, You give me tools that as closely mimic what students are going to be doing on the test as possible. But then you've got other teachers who are like, give me stuff that is as little like that as possible, so that I can have the students do something different. So you know, as as, as much as that cloud maybe kind of looms over some of the some of the teachers that we work with. Yeah, there's, there's kind of a variety of what they're looking for. As we as we get closer to that, to those times.

Katie Ritter: 8:58

I'm talking, I'm almost hearing like the Game of Thrones like Winter's coming. Coming,

Brooke Conklin: 9:05

it just kind of feel like The Hunger Games drop, where everyone drops from their bubble, and it's survival of the fittest all of the sudden, choose your weapon.

Justin Thomas: 9:17

While talking about maybe not necessarily a weapon, but how do you still champion some of these edtech tools? I know, Michael, you kind of alluded to trying to find something that mimics something that's kind of light for teachers. But does your mindset kind of shift on what and tech tools? Do you want to try to now show teachers during this timeframe? Yeah.

Michael Roush: 9:35

Oh, yeah, definitely. Because, I mean, we can talk about test prep, but I still find that there's a lot of different ideas about what test prep means. When I go into different rooms. You know, for some teachers, they're thinking, what tricks can I show my kids to help them squeeze more points out of the test? For some, it for some teachers, it's What can I show these kids that helps them understand what the interface is going to look like. And for some teachers, it's no, I want to, I want to go back and give these kids as much of a high level overview of the content, they might see on a test as possible. Those are three very different questions that are going to have three very different answers when I walk into that room as as a tech coach. One thing that Brooks started to mention that I think super important to bring out into all of this is some of those some of those special features that may be accommodations that are available on the test for some folks. Not just special ed. But you know, as as we've gone to the more digital the online technologies for testing things like things like text to speech, and some of the highlighting and spell checking, and that sort of stuff that are going to be available. For some students on these tests. If they've never used them all year, they're not going to learn how to use them successfully as they take the test. So in some cases, test prep might just be, you know, refreshing and re honing some of those digital skills that, you know, hopefully kids have been exposed to enable to learn all throughout the school year as we go. But if not, you know, right now is the best time to start learning how to use those, those a those those educational aids effectively.

Brooke Conklin: 11:35

Absolutely, Michael, and that kind of jog, jog me back. And I always tend to block out this time of year as a tech coach. But I totally agree with you. And it's a conversation that I find myself having year after year. And I think that I'm getting better at it. But a lot of times I'm I'm met with the the group of teachers that wants to squeeze the points out of the test. And it's this this instant panic of if only they could know how to use this tool, it could save them a couple of points. And so the conversation that I find myself having is not, okay, let's teach your kids how to use these 10 different tools on on their online testing platform and just hope that they remember it and that they're not confused by this crash course. But I tend to try to get out of them to think back to how they've been working on at school all year long, and really getting them to focus on talking to their kids about that. So instead of introducing a new strategy, what is the strategy we've been teaching? Even if it's not like a fancy tool on a testing platform? Chances are you've taught them a really cool acronym or you you've done something that's already ingrained in their brain. And then if the teacher really does want to use that highlighting tool, the mask reader, what have you, maybe we start a conversation about how can we begin the year next year, and incorporate those tools all year long, so that it's just a natural part of their test taking. And it's not this, this new emergency tool? So that's what I find myself having a lot. And I also have to say that I found out very early on I'm not a an ad tech tools, salesperson. I think that we all have our own coaching personalities. And sales is totally not mine. I walked into my first classroom saying, Have you heard about XYZ? I think it was EdPuzzle. And the teacher felt as awkward as I did, and I hated it. So when we talked about edtech tools and reviewing ed tech or edtech tools around testing time, I tend to not push tech tools. I I really, I really feel awkward about it. And instead what I tried to do and what I found works for my personality is to just walk into the classroom or be that that sounding board for frustration or venting, because there's plenty of that this time of year. And instead of coming with this slew of tools, I think will help their kids. I'm listening and for what the problems are. So what are they most frustrated about? What are they most nervous about scared about? Or if I'm just walking into the classroom, what am I seeing? So it could be anything from student engagement to, to typing to you name it, there's there's so many different frustrations around this time. But then that's where I'll come in and work with the teacher to find an edtech tool that fits or a strategy that fits because it might not be an edtech tool. It might not be the pool of latest flashy thing. It might just be a simple strategy that I saw in the room next door. So that tends to be my coaching style when it comes to championing tech tools. Definitely not not the sales. Keep trying as many as you can.

Katie Ritter: 14:58

I love that book. I think that's a great tip to share with tech coaches especially, you know, newer tech coaches, I think it's easy to think in that way. But as soon as we flip the script, and we start thinking about outcomes or so solutions where we trying to have students do, it makes it easier to sell without selling the use of and adoption of some of these tools. So thank you, for that great reminder. And so so kind of taking it a step further, I know that you've both kind of mentioned, thinking about some of those teachers who are focused on squeezing out extra points are really kind of panicked in this time of year to review all of the material, whether it's tech tools, or just content, or whatever it may be that students might need. And there's a lot of stress around this time of year, you know, I don't think it's a coincidence that the couple of comparisons we've made are like Game of Thrones, winter is coming in The Hunger Games, right. And those are all really negative connotations to this time of year. And that is because it does feel kind of negative, right? I mean, there's just, there's so much stress on this time. And so I don't want to kind of just want to a couple of things. First, take a second to acknowledge the systems and structures that are in place that cause the stress on teachers, that no matter how we personally feel about testing, I think we all share a lot of the same views about testing. And it's not a secret, I don't think how I feel about testing. But so regardless of how we feel, personally, the fact of the matter is like the systems and structures are in place for testing right now. And it does put that stress on teachers to get their students to perform in a certain way to form their own their own observations and how they are evaluated and paid potentially, and how building principals are perceived to be effective or ineffective and funding that is tied coming from the state and federal and extra obligations that are potentially put on schools. So when we know that all of these extra stressors are in place, and personally, as a tech coach, as frustrated, as we may get thinking, Oh, why are we stopping this now to like, pivot and only focus on Test Prep? You know, there is something to acknowledge the stress that these teachers are feeling. So it was a really long way for me to lead up to ask you guys to how are you kind of balancing supporting teachers and in this real stress that they are having, and also in, in trying to continue to push them so that we aren't just stopping purely for test prep? Or do you?

Brooke Conklin: 17:45

Sure, so um, I definitely feel the stress of teachers and coming from the classroom myself, that stress is near and dear to my heart, I get flashbacks to that, that time of my own life. Whenever I'm watching teachers go through it. And unfortunately, I do think it all those pressures that Katie talked about, do roll downhill to the classroom, as the as the expression goes, so I do my best. I think that the largest, maybe simplest, but most effectful thing that I do is just be present as much as I can with teachers. So I tend to try to make sure that I'm always seen throughout the building the entire year. But But this season, in particular, I try to be even more present, making sure that I make contact with people super frequently that I'm visible in the halls. Because when when your Kahoot isn't working, or you didn't share something correctly on Google classroom at this time of year, it can feel so much larger than the problem actually is. So just making sure that I am there to provide even even quicker support than I normally do. Or at least that they know that they can expect to see me soon. I also will tend to do a few more break fix things at this time of year. Typically I do try to avoid the break fix fixing the projector or the computer, the printer, whatever. Just to clarify my role, as we've talked about in previous episodes, but this time of year does tend to be an exception to that. Like Katie said, Any little thing that we can do to help take the stress off of teachers plates. And then as far as pushing innovation goes and continuing to move the needle forward. I've found that there are kind of two ways that tend to be super effective because there is a point where teachers just kind of reached their limit there they can't take on anything else. They're they're not willing to dive deep into coaching with me. They're just looking for the shallow day by day coaching. I Um, so the two things that I found are effective over the past few years is one just to aim further out. So right now it's kind of a true but useless time period, testing is gonna exist, like Michael said, those Bell schedules are gonna get wack. So just setting my aim further out and starting to engage teachers in after testing, maybe it's that I prepare, do most of the front end work on a breakout room for their kids after testing, but then that gets them exposed to what a breakout room is. And it takes the planning and the pressure off of their plate, and then maybe they'll implement that on their own later on. Or maybe we just start co planning a unit together, because that's a lot more fun than thinking about test prep, setting your your aim out for something beyond the testing season. And then the second thing that has been really, really fruitful for me is shifting my audience for coaching. So typically, I'm very focused on the teaching staff. And this year, in particular, I found so much success with our support staff at the school that I'm at, I've been working with Secretaries. And then I know that some of my colleagues have been working closely with administrators. So offering your training and your expertise to support staff to help catch them up. Because oftentimes, admin and secretaries they fall through the cracks during the typical PD time. So this can be a really good time to focus in on them and their needs to.

Michael Roush: 21:32

Yeah, to jump in with, with this one, I think, I think one of the hardest lessons that I've had to learn as developing as a tech coach is that my job is to help teachers become a better version of them, not to help them be more like me. And that is where I try to kind of find my try to find my balance between pushing them and supporting them and respecting their need for a break. Because, you know, some of the teachers are already kind of like me, and that's a little scary. But they're really easy to work for me to work with, they're usually thinking along the same direction, I'm already thinking and you know, the brakes go off and just, I'm flying down the road with them. But some teachers are not like me, and it would be a huge mistake for me to try to make them more like me. And that's where that too hard of a push too much of a stress comes from. So if during the if during the year during any of the you know, the coaching opportunities that have happened, or their, you know, their personal growth opportunities, if they really are about them and about their needs, then that goes a long way toward not unnecessarily adding to the stress that they're going to feel. One thing that I kind of liked to do, and I've done this in a real targeted way, is since it's testing season, everybody's already kind of thinking in terms of progress monitoring, I like to kind of look back at some of the stuff we've done over the school year. And it was something that was a really, really cool thing, a really nice success three months ago, four months ago, bring that back out. And show that back to the teacher who did is like, you know, remember when we did such and so this was really super cool, I'd like to come back to this and highlight this or use part of it in something else. I think this is a great time of year to remember, since we talked so much about testing that you know, if you are if you're in a high school, not all of your teachers are teaching a subject that kids are going to be taking a test. There are arts classes that are going on, there's real language classes that may not necessarily have a test that's attached to them right now. And if if those folks are feeling a little left out, because everybody's all worried about testing, this may be a great time, like Brooke was talking about going to some other people who that she doesn't get to work with on such a regular basis. And maybe some of those other folks are, this is a great time to catch up with with some of them too. I think it's also a great time, if if they are in the building to catch up with some folks who work with some of the extracurricular programs that go on. You may have a tech tool, you may have something that will really help somebody who is working on some extracurricular piece. And if that happens to be a classroom teacher, you may show them something that they can use for their extracurricular that's going to turn around and reap benefits for them in their classroom later as well. So, you know, there's some extra angles in that we don't always think about because we're focused, you know, on a lot of those those core subject areas at first, but it really it really helps. Not just with making sure that those people feel included. It helps It helps build a lot more of the kind of relationships that you can that really pays off later on.

Katie Ritter: 25:07

Yeah, I love I love those tips that you guys shared and kinda, I'm going off the cuff here a little bit, but Have either of you ever felt pressured? Or feel this pressure? Like you have to show your admin that you're staying busy during this time? And if you're not as busy with teachers, will they think that they need you or what will they think is going on, because I know that I had felt that pressure in the past, and almost felt like I needed to like drum up things to do, because I didn't want people to think that for this, you know, month and a half couple of months time period that then that the tech coach wasn't a valuable piece of the puzzle.

Brooke Conklin: 25:49

I would say for me, at least the first year, I think that I did feel that way. But my first year as a tech coach, I think I felt that way all year. So as you're first getting established, and you don't have all those relationships built, I felt like I was constantly trying to prove my worth and in and show what I was working on. And also during testing season that first year I felt like that too. But what I kind of realized in the following years was that admin, my admins, focus was not on me or on on the really cool work that we do throughout the whole entire year. They were also hyper focused on on testing on just the all of the red tape and the rule following that comes with testing and retentions. And they their focus was not on checking on me. So once I realized that, I think that I felt a little bit of that pressure free up and that I could more authentically work with teachers, and support staff and even admin. And yeah, so I would say, I would say not really in the in the years that have passed. And if anything, I do find that admin are coming to me more during this time asking me for review tools or programs that mock what the test looks like, or the best way to distribute practice tests through Google Classroom. So those little testing focus questions anyway. Thanks, Brett.

Justin Thomas: 27:29

Yeah, that's really good. I know, you kind of talked a little bit about it, we talked about how much there is on teachers plates. And both, you had some really good tips on just kind of helping take some of those off, whether it was kind of being that vet board, whereas being maybe just having the ability to do a little bit more those break fixed types of things, just making those appearances and rounds and everything like that. I'm just curious if there's any other kind of tips or thoughts that you had kind of gardening to that on how you can actually really help teachers out by taking a few things off of off of their plate.

Michael Roush: 28:05

Yeah, I think one of the one of my favorite things that I've done and it started, it started just kind of as an introductory thing for a possible projection for something that might have been done the next year. But I've started setting up kind of a, what I call a sandbox, some potential future technologies to use even if it's stuff they're already using now that we're already have access to now and just don't use very much. But setting up a sandbox, so it's like a separate place come in, play with play with this, you know, this tool, this tech toy or something like that. Experiment with it, have some fun, there. This seems like there's something about doing that in a separate space. It's like if, if I break this, I'm not breaking my computer by trying this back at my desk. It also it's kind of cool if it's anything that if you collect any sort of swag, like pencils, or stickers or anything like that for many of your edtech tools over the year. Have those laying out. Set those out to make it a little more places like you know what, you got a few minutes, come down to the sandbox and try this try this interactive whiteboard try this website try this you know, I made the mistake of setting a drone out one time I know probably shouldn't have done that but so I have that that kind of thing cuz like okay, I'm, the teacher gets a chance to I've got a few minutes, I'm going to get away from my stuff for a little bit and go go see some of these things that with with no pressure as far as you know, this is something you're going to be expected to use next year. It's like, Hey, we've got this stuff sitting out. We just kind of want to want you to try it out and tell us what you think of it. This is also a time of year where I love to kind of keep any of my books or websites that have things that are more or motivational inspirational sayings videos, short videos, anything like that. And, you know, anything that I send out as an email has one of those little quotes or one of those little videos attached to it.

Katie Ritter: 30:13

So not nothing from The Hunger Games.

Michael Roush: 30:18

You know, I, I'm pretty sure I haven't put anything from Game of Thrones. And the other thing is I really like, I really like participating in their extra stuff. If this is a chance where I can take someone's hallway or lunch duty, or be with them during a hallway or a lunch duty, or if there's some little fun diversion that the school is doing for one of those days, it's really easy sometimes to say, oh, you know what, that would be a great opportunity for go for me to go back and lock my door and work on paperwork for the next 45 minutes. It would also be a great opportunity to go out and be with them and kind of help out with with the pieces that that they're working on too. So that I those are those are some of the tips and the tricks that I have really paid some dividends for me.

Brooke Conklin: 31:18

I would like to interject and say that Michael has the best quotes, I'm pretty sure that nearly every one of my forward edge presentation has a Michael Roush quote in it. Somebody who talks about his stash of inspirational material. He probably has a book of his own stuff somewhere up on that shelf to

Katie Ritter: 31:41

Michael, no pressure, but we'll be expecting a quote to sum up this episode.

Justin Thomas: 31:46

Thinking now.

Michael Roush: 31:49

Oh, I know, I know, we can edit. I know we can edit out. And if it takes me a couple of minutes to find one. It'll look like I had one ready to go.

Katie Ritter: 32:01

There we go. Oh, okay. So we've talked about this previously a lot on our team, but also in previous episodes. And that is this idea that the role of a coach, especially, you know, a tech coach is really to push this culture of lifelong learning and innovation and to really try to spread that district wide. So when we think about you know, a lot of our conversations so far has centered around how our role shifts and pivots in different ways, because the rest of the school is shifting and pivoting on and we're really trying to balance that teacher stress workload, we're still still helping them in ways we can. But we haven't necessarily talked about those areas where we are able to maybe continue to push innovation. Michael, you mentioned some teachers aren't testing, they're great people to talk to Brooke, you mentioned other stakeholders that you've been able to work with, but I'd like to kind of take a minute and just see if you guys can reflect a little bit, you know, how are you positively contributing to the, to the culture of the school during this time of year?

Michael Roush: 33:05

Yeah, this is a, this is a great place to kind of recenter us, I think, and get us back to where we, where we want to be I don't know, I've been I mean, I've been in education a long time. And I have, I have yet to meet anybody who told who tells me, the reason they got into education was to get kids great test scores. Except that seems like it's what we have been really, really wrapped up in right now. So as as tech coaches, we're really close to the classroom and we're right there in the building. So we have a chance to help build an influence some of that culture in, in the realm where we are. And you know, so, you know, the building administration has a lot of influence over the culture of the building, and the teacher has a lot of influence over the culture of the classroom. And, you know, that goes way beyond just you know, a strategy or a mission statement that's, you know, stuck to a wall somewhere and nobody really pays attention to it anymore. I really like asking you and this question can be fashioned to fit, you know, a principal, a superintendent, a classroom teacher, wherever you find yourself, but I like to ask you what, what do you want your school or your classroom to look like? Get that idea in your head and but then the the troubling question is something that comes up after it is what you're doing now getting you closer. And if it's not, then that's where that fundamental change of culture has to happen. And once we know where we want to go, that's when we can identify those tech tools, those those little pieces, those those procedure, pieces of technology or any of that any of those instructional pieces that need to be at That's when we can put those things, put those into get there. And we just, you know, it always comes down to just we just at that point, we have to have the will to do it.

Katie Ritter: 35:09

Yeah, that's great. Michael, you repeat those two questions for the listeners that you asked teachers?

Michael Roush: 35:14

Yeah, the the first question. And again, I can I can ask this once I know them. Well, I can ask this to any teacher, any principal, any superintendent, any board member? One, what do you want this classroom or this school to look like? And then the second question after they've thought about that is, is what you're doing now getting you closer to that? Because we all kind of have this this idea. We know what we've, if we think about a little bit, we know what we want it to look like. But then we start realizing, oh, my gosh, there's so much that we're doing that's not actually getting us closer to that. And we and then we wonder why we're not getting any closer.

Brooke Conklin: 35:55

Mike, Michael, your words are just so powerful. Like I'm seeing that on not not only on everybody's desk, next Wednesday morning, but I'm also seeing it on everybody's mirror as they're getting ready for summer and swimsuit season. Oh, I told you my most the

Katie Ritter: 36:10

best everyone's getting a bookmark with a with a rookie Bitmoji on it with that, quote, now,

Brooke Conklin: 36:17

Mike was the best the best quotes. He is a great colleague to learn from, I'm thankful for him. I wish I had something to continue to climb up that mountain that that Michael sets. But I hope I'm not letting our listeners down by bringing it a little bit smaller scale, with just a small recommendation that I've found has been helpful. And, and that's looking at your admin. And I said before in the podcast, all this pressure rolls downhill and really adminer in the middle of the hill, getting hit with some pretty hard momentum of that pressure too. So I have found that it's helpful to help alleviate teachers pressure to really casually, nicely reframe admins point of view and the best way that I can to so any chance that I can to brag about a teacher that is doing something innovative or is focusing on student engagement, or really nailing differentiation, there's like core fundamental principles of education. If I can bring that to admins attention and kind of brag on that teacher, it helps reframe where admin, where their mindset is right now to that learning is continuing that teachers are still doing great, awesome things, and just helps to build into that culture in a really small way. That we don't have to be 100% testing focused for four weeks, six weeks at a time. Awesome, thanks.

Katie Ritter: 37:53

And I'll just add one comment here thinking in the in the veins of like, the culture and innovation, it'd be nice to plug Megan in right now. So she could speak for herself. But one of our colleagues, Megan Whittaker, really helps her school district oversee their makerspace, as does Michael in his school district. And she has been completely slammed these past few weeks leading up to testing. And when she stopped to ask some of the teachers why, you know, at a time of year, when they typically feel like they're put on hold a little bit, you know, the teachers just talked about how they just really needed something new for the kids to do. And then also, kind of a nugget that I thought was super interesting is that the teachers were able to work small group one on one with students who maybe needed the extra help, or the other students were working on their passion projects or working on whatever it was that they were doing in the MakerSpace. So I just thought that that was a really cool way to kind of keep engaging people brought to your point that teaching is still going on that, you know, things are still happening. You know, Michael, to your point earlier about maybe pulling in other teachers that aren't necessarily being tested heavily right now, so that our students are still getting these opportunities. But also just a different way to frame your thinking about how you might be able to provide additional support to students while they're still these innovative things going on in the classroom. So just want to give that little plug. We'll have to have Megan on on an episode maybe to talk a little bit more about all of those things in the makerspace across the content areas. But that intrigued me recently in a conversation.

Justin Thomas: 39:42

Yeah, that's really cool. And also talking about that additional support. And so both of you have already given us some examples of some people that are not teachers that our support staff or other folks that are within the school district are working just as hard out there as well, and how you've helped them. Is there any any other kind of idea Is there any other topics that you've worked with them on or even as an extension parents, I mean, this is another time where parents are definitely involved in some things. And if you've worked with any projects to kind of help keep parents in communication with admin or something like that.

Brooke Conklin: 40:17

So recently I have been doing, I think I mentioned before training with our building secretaries. And I don't think I realized how great of a need there was for that training until after the first one. And so, Justin, you asked about the specifics. So we, we really have kind of a wide range of skill level. But my goal was that after each training, nobody felt overwhelmed or like they were not capable. So we really started with the basics of just Google Sheets and freezing a row, and, and what the vocab of a sheet is how to share that sheet. So just these really, really what we as tech coaches might see as small things, but starting with those fundamentals of something they interact with every single day, they, we did a zoom training. And as soon as the Zoom ended, there were two of them at the door of my office thanking me in person for that training. And I would walk by their desk, and I saw them with their spreadsheets up in their first row frozen, and it just meant the world to them. Because so often, things are pushed onto their plates. And they are not always given the training to really feel confident in handling those tasks. So if you're interested in kind of the progression of that we started with sheets, we got just a little bit into formulas with a sum formula and an average formula. And then we did Google Forms and autoCrat to kind of bring everything full circle for them.

Justin Thomas: 41:51

That is awesome. Freezing rows is a game changer. In my mind. It's especially for secretaries that have a lot of sheets and, and data and information they have to go through that I'm sure that they really love that. Mike, was there anything that you wanted to add on to that?

Michael Roush: 42:06

Yeah, one meant that I successfully mentioned that comes up to me is the school where I work, it's it's really the centerpiece of the community. And there are a lot of things, there are a lot of events that happen at the school and with the school that are very, very, very community minded and really draw in the community. And one of those big things that they do every year is a special Veterans Day. Assembly basically, but it's an event, they invite veterans from the community to come in for this program, and to give them an honored place, you know, in the, in the, in the gym for this. And, you know, with with all the restrictions that we've had on gatherings and all that stuff this year, you know, back in November, it was it was pretty obvious that we weren't going to be able to do what we've normally done. And when you get to a situation like that there can be two reactions. One, you can say, well, you know, we can't do that anymore. We can't do what we normally would have done. So you know, we'll just, we'll move about it. And we'll we'll let it you know, we'll let it bother us until maybe someday we can we can do this in the future. But they had a totally different attitude about it. They they came to me they were like, we've seen all these tools that we've been using over the last few years. What can we do? What can we still do? We normally would have done this, this, this and this and we would have done them live in person. What can we generate? What can we still create and we ended up with the help of a lot of people in the in the in the district. We ended up creating a basically a Veteran's Day appreciation video for the community. It took us it took us a long time to record all the pieces, it took us a long time to edit it, to put it all together, had a bunch of students helping with producing pieces of it with helping edit pieces of it with selecting what was going to go into it. And so once we had all this put together on, you know, on Veterans Day at the exact time where we would have had them coming in. We the school had this video that they were able to release to the community. And so, you know, was it the same as we've had before? No, it wasn't, it wasn't exactly the same. But it was everything we could have possibly done with the situation we had at that point. It just, you know it. I think it meant so much to me and to so many other people who were involved with it. For us for it to realize that the school wasn't wasn't saying, gee, it would have been nice to do that. But we can't. Their first reaction was, okay, what what can we what can we still do? What can we do? And how can we do and how can we make that happen? And honestly, that's, that's what made. That's what made the, the that project, go ahead. And that's what made that project gets finished.

Katie Ritter: 45:26

That's great. And so maybe this time of year, like with testing, I love that you guys got the students involved. That's awesome. And so maybe even thinking of, you know, maybe teachers and admin need some sort of a thank you showcase, going back to you know, what you said earlier, Michael, of like, Hey, look at these great things we did three months ago, like, look how awesome this was, I mean, maybe they could even do something like that. Now, just to say, hey, it's been a crazy year, but look at these awesome things that we've still been able to accomplish. So that's really cool. And then the one other thing I would add from again, someone who's not here, but I liked how I like Tracy Keough, who was on our second episode, she talked a lot about specifically working with her admin right now and building principals, and really just kind of going up to the admin as teachers are kind of stressed or focused right now, getting ready and going up to the admin and just saying, Hey, what are the goals that you have? Or is there anything I can help you do right now? Are there things that you want to accomplish that we might be able to set aside some time for and so she had a really great way of kind of approaching the ad to do a little bit more work with them that I thought was a clever way to work with a different set of stakeholders right now, too. So okay, I think that leads us into our last question that we have for you both today. And that is, So testing is finished. Right? So at what point, when testing is over, what does your role look like at that point? In the year? And how does that change for you?

Brooke Conklin: 47:05

So I've found that this time of year after testing is over, tends to be the time of year that teachers are willing to take the largest risks with me. So it's typically when I can get them to say yes, to maybe things that would have scared them, or that they wouldn't have had time for during the year. So like, I was like a breakout room or, or some like really cool student led projects like little mini passion project. So for my teachers that I, I know might say, Yes, I can tend to push them to try those larger things. Beyond that, after testing is over, as a coach, I typically use that time of the year to organize just for the end of the year. So I always love a good checklist to kind of simplify the things that need to be wrapped up. So making a checklist for your teachers of how to close out their their Schoology course for the end of the year, their Google classroom course, what what to do to prepare their Google Drive to be organized for next year. So all those kinds of little organizational office type tasks. And then the other thing I like to do is kind of just around a verbal check ins. So I like to make sure that during that last month of school, I see everybody in the building, and I talked to them, I love to ask them about their plans to check in with them. Just recap about the year. And really what I'm actually looking to do beyond socialise is to just gather as many takeaways as I can from teachers. Because once testing rounds, the corner, teachers tend and I say 10, because there are outliers, but tend to be a little bit more positive and a little bit more upbeat. So it's a great time to reflect with them because they're not down in the trenches of testing still. So gathering takeaways about their year learning as much as I can about them and their goals for next year. So they can use it against them in the fall. And really just doing a verbal checkout with everybody. So kind of twofold to help me plan for next year. And then also just to really solidify those relationships before the year wraps up.

Michael Roush: 49:26

Yeah, this is when I I love hearing a teacher when we get to the testing season and we start to get to the tail end of that. I love it. When I hear a teacher ask your say that, you know, I'm not really sure what to do next week. Because then I'm like, Okay, there's my end. Therefore, I can jump in. Because we I think sometimes we have this idea we think sometimes all year long, but man I would. I would I would teach so different, what I teach and how Why teach would be so different if I wasn't getting ready for these tests? Well, okay. Now here's that time. If you can answer that question, now you've got an answer to the question about what you can do now. There's so many opportunities, there are so many things that I've seen done this, sometimes this is the time where a class takes up a service project that maybe they don't even have to go outside of their classroom walls for. But there's some things that they can do in a service project that really ends up having some real practical application to what they've been learning. By the way, I gotta I gotta mention around all you young kids that I'm doing this podcast with. This spring malaise is not something that testing created. I was I went, I went through school before any of this, you know, state testing or anything like that was a thing. And when the time changed, and you know, the sun was up a little later, and it started getting a little warmer, you know, school routines got a little harder to pay attention to. And so some of the teachers really got creative and in how they designed learning opportunities. And it wasn't all necessarily to, you know, pass the quiz at the end of the day or the test. At the end of the week. There was some real authentic, little more genuine stuff that we that we did, then, I'm also going to say that as as a tech coach, this is a great time to start aggregating some information about some of the tools, I'm going a little more practical. Now, some of the tools that people have been using. If you've got a ton of teachers in your building, who have been getting pretty good use out of the free version of a certain tool. This is a great time to start going to admins and saying, You know what, you've got more than half of your teachers have been limping along with the free version of such and such tool all year, they could do some amazing things, if you can find the money to get this building a premium subscription for for such and such. And if but if you can go to them and say, You know what, you know, two thirds of your teachers are already using the free version on a weekly basis. So it's not a tool that you have to wonder whether they're going to like or whether they're going to use, this is something that they've already been using, I've been helping them, you know, I've been helping them get by with the free version all year. So this is a great time to do some of that stuff. I think it's also a great time to look. And if you know that the fifth grade uses something a lot. This is a great time to go to the fourth grade teachers and say, hey, you know, these fifth grade students are going to be expected to use such and such next year, could we set up a little bit of time to go ahead and start exposing them to it a little bit now. So they're not coming into it, you know, cold in fifth grade, if you've got high school students, what classes what kind of, you know, science classes or history classes, English math, they're going to be taking next year, and are there some different tech tools that they're going to have to use in those classes, if you can use some of that time, at the end of one year to help do a little bit of prep work for what's going to happen next year. Again, you know, it's not that, oh, we're not going to make you experts in this in this tool right now. But we're going to give you a little bit of experience in it, we're going to show you what it's like so that when you show up in that class next year, it's not a brand new thing that the teacher is going to have to you know, take the first week or two out of their year to show you everything about it, you'll already have some experience with it. Those are some of the things that I like to see happen towards the towards the end that that pushing period at the end of the school year between when testing ends, and when the school year ends.

Justin Thomas: 53:48

I really like that, especially because that is kind of a hurdle that sometimes needs to be jumped to the very beginning. And I mean, kids are quick learners, I mean, especially with him on technology, they are just firing through real quick. And do you even give them a little bit of exposure, they're gonna have it down pat, by the time they come back in fifth grade, especially if it's something that really interests them. So I really liked that idea, Michael of kind of going down to the gray below and saying, Hey, look, they're using this a lot. Do you want to maybe kind of expose it to them and then also helps kind of build that the school community because teachers are kind of seeing a little bit more of what's going on, and other grade levels too, and the tools that they're using, so I really liked that point.

Katie Ritter: 54:28

Okay, so I lied when I said last question, and I won't work question for you guys. And that would be if you have any tips that you can think of that maybe we haven't touched on or you know, Justin, I didn't ask you specifically around that topic. What might that tip be for a coach to get through this testing season and it can come in the form of a tip or maybe a quote that we're waiting from you on Michael?

Brooke Conklin: 54:58

I tip for getting through As a coach, because it can be hard and and especially if maybe you're starting out as a tech coach and trying to navigate this season of teaching for the first time, it can kind of be a real downer when you keep getting the door slammed in your face, or you feel like the whole school is shifting back 10 years, and they're focused and education. So one thing that I always do, when I feel like I need a little coach pick me up is to tap into my love language, if you're familiar with love, language, love, love languages. Mine is gift giving and words of affirmation. So as soon as I start to feel like discouraged, or like, I'm not sure where my place is at in the school, or Nobody needs me, I will sling little candy bars into the teacher mailbox. Like I'm Oprah. And I will write my little thank you cards, my little reflection cards I get real sappy reflecting is especially on the teachers that go through coaching cycles with me that I developed a really close, deep relationship with. So just tapping into those, those ways that I best show my gratitude towards other people and for what they do, oftentimes lifts my spirits and helps to reaffirm my position in the school and what I'm there to do with teachers.

Michael Roush: 56:16

The thing that I really like to make sure I go back and refocus on this time of year is the idea of the fourth camera. And I got to preface this a little bit with Gary Marshall is a TV director directed a lot of great TV episodes, sitcoms over the years. And he worked on happy days when Robin Williams made his guest appearance on Happy Days as an alien named Mork. And from that, they ended up going to starting at a brand new series Mork and Mindy, which is kind of Robin Williams coming out party. And there were whole sections of the script, where it was just, you know, let Robin do his thing, basically, and he would just do all these crazy off the top of the head improv things. And at the time, that when they were filming these, these episodes, there were three TV cameras in the room, it was all being edited, kind of live on the fly. And they were stuck in one place. They were focused, you know, on certain points of action, but Robin was used to this improv work on street corners. And so he's darting all around the set doing all this crazy stuff. The crew is just all in tears. They're laughing hysterically at everything he's doing. And so he gets to the end of a scene, Gary Marshall will cut me over at the camera and tell me tell me, you got that. And the camera guy be like that? What is that was That was genius didn't like, if he's such a genius, tell him to come into this spot. And they would miss all this stuff, because the cameras weren't looking at it. And so, you know, Gary Marshall had this, you know, this conundrum is like, Okay, do I do I tried to tell Robin Williams to just do all this stuff in front of the camera. And no, that was a horrible idea. If I will do I try to teach the camera guys to dart around and fallen? Oh, that's not going to work. They've done it this way forever. So he brought in a fourth camera. And he just told this one, this new camera that he brought in just just follow Robin Williams just catch whatever he does. And so the fourth camera became part of this. And I'm just I'm afraid that testing has become those three stationary cameras. And if something doesn't get caught on those we don't, we don't see it. We just don't even pay attention to it. This is the time of the year that I like to be tried to be the fourth camera. I want to find the stuff that kids and the teachers are doing. That is fantastic. That is a genius performance outside of what's getting caught by those things. Because the more you can catch those things and highlight those things for everybody that again goes I think it just goes back a long way to helping teachers remember why we're doing this all the rest of the time.

Katie Ritter: 59:09

Love it. Everybody, all of our tech coaches go out there and be the fourth camera for the rest of the school year.

Justin Thomas: 59:17

A really good analogy going along with our media with podcast to like it Michael. Well, I think that kind of wraps things up here for us on this episode here. So I want to give a special thank you to both Michael and Brooke you guys have done a wonderful job providing some tips and tricks for everyone out there. So once again, thanks for jumping on here and talking about what you you know what you're doing out there in the working hard in the trenches to help these teachers out during coaching season.

Brooke Conklin: 59:46

Thanks for having us guys.

Justin Thomas: 59:49

So you can tune in next time for our episode five let's get social, where we will dig into finding and building your PLN as a tech So you aren't out there trying to go through this role all alone?

Katie Ritter: 1:00:04

Yes, then be sure to subscribe to restart recharge wherever you listen to podcasts. And follow us on Twitter and Instagram at our our coach cast. And please

Justin Thomas: 1:00:15

be just go ahead and just reach out to us I mean feel free to reach out to us and let us know what you want us to talk about what topics are in your head out there that you want us to discuss and and talk with our tech coaches on so please make sure that you you know if you got something on your mind, do not hesitate to reach out and connect with us.

Katie Ritter: 1:00:33

Press the restart button,

Justin Thomas: 1:00:34

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Katie Ritter: 1:00:43

Coach collective. You guys did a great job

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guys are awesome. Thanks team