Restart Recharge Podcast

502 Instructional Sync: Aligning Admin and Coaches for Success - Part 2

• Forward Edge • Season 5 • Episode 2

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Join us as we jump back into part two of our discussion on aligning instructional coaches and administrators. In this episode, we explore specific activities and strategies from a recent collaborative workshop designed to enhance communication and clarity in roles. We discuss key activities such as establishing communication cadences and brainstorming ways coaches can support broader district goals. Hear firsthand insights from guests Tyler Erwin and Torie Mollett on the impact of these strategies and the subsequent steps to strengthen the coach-admin relationship. Tune in to learn valuable tips and recharge your coaching battery!

Follow Tyler and Torie on their Socials!
Twitter/X -  @edtechtyler, @ TorieTeaches



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Podcast Team
Hosts - Katie Ritter & Matthäus Huelse
Producer - Celine Thomas, Matthäus Huelse
Editing Team - Ben Glasure, Matthäus Huelse
Social Media Team - Grace Brown

Matthaeus Huelse:

Calling all Instructional Coaches, Curriculum Specialists, Teachers on Special Assignment, or whatever they call you. I'm Matthaeus Huelse.

Katie Ritter:

And I'm Katie Ritter. As Instructional Coaches, we are often responsible for our own professional learning and can sometimes feel pretty isolated in our role.

Matthaeus Huelse:

That's why we're here, bridging the gap with a wealth of tips, tricks, and building a community of coaches.

Katie Ritter:

So hit the restart button with us.

Matthaeus Huelse:

Recharge your coaching batteries.

Katie Ritter:

And hopefully you'll leave feeling just a little bit less on your own coaching island.

Matthaeus Huelse:

Welcome back to Restart Recharge. This is part two of our conversation on aligning coaches and administrators. If you haven't listened to part one yet, now would be a good time to pause and go back to that episode. But if you've already listened to it, here's a quick recap. In part one, we set the stage for a collaborative workshop aimed at improving the relationship and communication between instructional coaches and administrators. We heard from Tyler Irwin about the goals of the workshop and from Tori Mollett about some of the eye opening moments she experienced as a participant. Now, in part two, we're going to take a closer look at the specific activities and strategies used in the workshop and hear how the experience impacted the participants and their districts. Stay with us, stay tuned, and have fun! I do want to dig a little bit deeper into the actual activities and the things that we've done, because I'm sure our listeners would love to know what were the actual things that we were doing there. Tyler, you sat down, you planned a lot of this stuff. Was there a particular framework that you thought is very impactful or was there one activity that you noticed the room was buzzing and they were having a good time? I'm not overselling it, Katie. I don't know what you're talking about.

Tyler Erwin:

So I think there were two that stand out, it was a pretty fast paced session overall. One is we did have the coach sit down with their building and district level administrators and come up with a communication cadence. Maybe that hadn't been established before, but something as simple as which method you prefer that I contact you with. You know, text, email, phone call, stopping in in person in your office, having a meeting. And then how often, on the building level, how often should we meet so we can have a good back and forth and keep everything aligned. Same with the district. So I think that was a really nice activity and just like giving them the space to talk through that and come up with, Hey, here's when we're going to meet. Here's the cadence. Here's the method we're going to use. And then we encouraged everyone to schedule their first meeting together post workshop. So I think that was really nice. The second activity that stands out goes back to something that I mentioned earlier but we gave each small group at each of our tables, a very non tech. oriented goal. As mentioned, all of our coaches are instructional technology focused, and we had them, with the administrators at their table, come up with different ways the coach could support that district initiative or district goal. So, in this case, we were kind of talking about like community engagement, community outreach, and there's so many things that like a coach can do to support that. Whether it's training teachers on how to use and create video based content to engage, the community in new ways, or, integrating, QR codes into things like Senior Night to pop up information about that student athlete. There's, there were a lot of great ideas that came out of that brainstorm, but I think that the aha moment from that was, Oh, I don't just have to keep feeding the instructional coach very overtly, very clearly technology related things. They don't have to be just the keeper of all things, learning management system or Google workspace or rostering new tech tools that we purchase. They can utilize their skillset and a lot of ways to support The bigger, more important goals that the district is trying to accomplish. Giving them time and space to brainstorm on ways that the coach can support at different levels, as well as coming up with that communication cadence, I think was two of the activities that were most beneficial to everybody who attended.

Matthaeus Huelse:

Fantastic.

Katie Ritter:

And Matthaeus, since you asked, I also want to chime in and say, that we've done that same activity with all types of coaches, using the same common goals. So if it's a non tech coach listening to this episode, or you also work in tandem with other general instructional coaches or literacy coaches that that's a great activity to do to really kind of work to align your work across instructional coaches and understand how everyone can be rowing in the same direction toward like non overtly literacy or tech or math goal itself. But how are we all working within our own domains to advance those goals forward? Tori, I want to touch on one other activity we did, but if it's something that stood out to you, I don't want to steal the thunder. Was there any particular activity outside of what Tyler mentioned that you felt like was beneficial to advancing the conversation between you and your admin?

Torie Mollett:

We had the same brain on that one. It was specifically the time to sit down and be like, this is how we are going to communicate, how often we're going to communicate, The time and the structure to do that was really just revolutionary

Katie Ritter:

Isn't that so funny? Because I feel like we think we've probably done that in the past. Like, hey! Can we meet? Can we have a regular meeting? But actually defining and carving out that time to sit down, to even just understand how do they want you to communicate with them. So, that was definitely an interesting aha for me to observe, like how beneficial. That conversation alone and carving out the time has been the one thing that I would like to touch on that I think is really important that kind of set the stage for the rest of the activities that you all have described was the time that we spent clarifying and defining the role of a coach and not just what the role of a coach is but what the role of a coach is not because I think so often admins see Coaches as this extra body that doesn't have a classroom that they have to be tending to and teaching. So it's easy to throw them in to do this extra duty, to give them the roster responsibility and all the things that you described, Tyler. But, I think clearly understanding first and foremost, like, Tori, you mentioned all of the data and research behind coaching. None of those successful outcomes can be achieved if the coach isn't actually coaching and the coach can't actually coach when the admin are pouring all of these non coaching responsibilities onto the coach. So I also think that collaborative defining and understanding of what a coach is and isn't was in my perspective, a key way to set up for the remainder of conversations in the future. to structure our frame of reference of what these really powerful individuals can and should be doing within the context of our districts and supporting teachers.

Matthaeus Huelse:

I think we've done a good job outlining what this workshop looked like and what the activities were we're going to take a quick break and then start talking a little bit about what happened after the workshop and what next steps look like.

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Matthaeus Huelse:

Welcome back, dear listeners. We are here with Tyler and Tori talking about the admin coach workshop that was recently held here and organized by us to connect coaches and admin to get the most out of each other and make the needle move for your community and your district. We talked a little bit about the setup. We talked a little bit where we ended up by the end of the session. Now, let's talk about what happened afterwards. Tyler, can you tell us about, the feedback that you received, the next steps that you foresee this taking for the program?

Tyler Erwin:

Yeah, I can speak on that briefly. We did have everyone in attendance, both the coaches and the administrators submit feedback. A lot of that feedback was did you find value in the workshop content? Do you feel more confident in your respective roles moving forward? How do you look to possibly change the way that you've, worked as an admin in the coach admin relationship or vice versa as the coach. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. The biggest thing I noticed was that everyone left feeling more confident in their specific role and, kind of in their lane as to how they were going to be supporting instruction, the goals of the district, the coaches felt like. Their role was a lot more clarified the district administrators left feeling really empowered to give our instructional coaches, more things to support, more things to work on, more things to breathe new life into. In addition to that, I sent out a feedback form to all of our district administrators who could not attend. Not everyone's going to be able to attend. Everyone's schedules are so hectic, they overlap with different things. So I wanted to kind of know from the majority of folks who couldn't attend, like, what was it? Was it the day, the time? The content? What would be worthwhile if we did something like this again? So I think that both pulling the people in attendance and those who couldn't come, was very insightful for me as we just try and make the job of our coaches a little easier. A little clearer, but also that much more impactful. And I think that it's all based off of these solid relationships and building that connection from the ground up. Those were two types of feedback we collected that I know are very important and insightful for Tori and I, as we looked at it after the fact.

Matthaeus Huelse:

Tori, what did it look like after the session for you? The session concluded and you had your experiences, what happened afterwards? Was it success? What changed?

Torie Mollett:

it really just felt like my purpose came back into focus in my eyes and in the eyes of my administrators. He was like, I'll see you Monday morning, 7. 05am, let's talk about next steps. There I was, Monday morning, 7. 05am, and we were talking about What our communication is going to look like going forward, how we're going to communicate this to the rest of the administrators so that we're all on the same page, how we can communicate these things to teacher leaders, and even how I can help out with the big influx of brand new baby teachers we have in our district. So, it was a real, let's sit down, let's talk about this, let's set up for success going forward. I think it was really interesting for my admin because he looked at me a couple of times during the session and he was like, You can do that? And I was like, I CAN do that, if you would like that help! So it's going to fall through the cracks, but hearing it in a different space and then seeing it in action and just really realizing what coaches can bring to the table aside from even the technology piece of, I can fix your new line board, because you're struggling in the middle of your classroom. It just looked like everything came back into a perfect focus, getting me into classrooms, getting me into administrative meetings. and setting up a structure for what my coaching will look like going forward and how I can be among the leaders in the building to help that trickle down effect from admin to teacher to student. It was really invigorating, honestly. Afterwards it was, it made my heart kind of burst because I was like, I feel like I have a true purpose. Again, I know that I've been kind of trekking along and the work is important, but this feels concrete. This feels real and it's been awesome.

Katie Ritter:

You had an X on the map that you're sailing toward. What would both of you see as iteration 2, or not even iteration 2 of this workshop, but like, like, 102 version? So this was 101, what would be, like, class 2 that you might see? Who might you include? What types of conversations might you have? Tori, I feel like you kind of touched on it a little bit, but I want to dig a little bit deeper into that idea.

Torie Mollett:

I think it goes to teacher leaders as well, bringing them into the classroom it might be worthwhile to get some of the younger teachers in there to be talking about how your tech coach can help things from curriculum to integration of technology into the classroom. Having the admin on board, great, we've already got that done, but bringing in people in the classrooms every day with their struggles, with what they're seeing, that could be a beneficial conversation.

Katie Ritter:

That's great. Tyler, I don't know if you have anything to add from your perspective on that.

Tyler Erwin:

No, I just think that, you know, one of the obstacles we faced with getting a bunch of administrators together is how hectic their schedules are. At least right now, teacher schedules are a bit more predictable. Pulling them from the classroom is never easy, but I feel like that's the next step. In many cases, your really impactful, influential teachers. Can have just as big of an impact on the success of a coach. When you see a rockstar teacher taking advantage of the coaching services and, benefiting from it, it instills confidence in everyone else who works right alongside that teacher that like, Oh, if, If I do the same, I'm probably going to benefit too. He or she is really obviously getting great results from working with this coach. So maybe that's something I should try. And so I feel like that's kind of like the next step in all of this. Like Tori said is, teachers and tapping into the influence they have. I think would, would even like further crystallize the role of a coach and snowball that momentum. We're drumming up some ideas on how we might get teachers looped in, and possibly engage them in something similar for our teacher leaders across all the districts we serve. I just feel like they have. Such a weight, amongst their peers that we want to take advantage of that. We want them to be advocates of us, just like we're advocates of them.

Matthaeus Huelse:

I think this was so illuminating to hear not just like from a, from a planning perspective and from, from you for admin perspective, what it was like to build this out and have, that experience for everybody. But also hearing from Tori, what a great experience you had at the end and how well it worked out. So that's really awesome. I think we're going to wrap with our top three tips. What do you think? Three each?

Katie Ritter:

We'll see.

Matthaeus Huelse:

I'll make it.

Katie Ritter:

Whatever you want. You can combine your three. You can do your own three. We'll see what you got for us. Okay. Yeah, top three tips to help coaches and admin get on the same page.

Tyler Erwin:

So I'll start. I think that this may not be a, an event that's feasible for you to host in the capacity that you have. But, um, tip number one would just be work to clarify your role in whatever way that means. Tip number two would be, you saw the impact it had for Tori. So maybe I'm stealing one of your tips, Tori, but just figure out a communication cadence. Sometimes we feel like we've done that and it's assumed, but it's never really been established. And then I would say the third thing would be get creative with some ways you can support things. outside of your immediate scope of influence. If you're a literacy coach, math coach, tech coach, data coach, whatever, there are so many things you can do to be a leader in the school and to support things that aren't clearly in your lane. And I think that it just kind of expands your sphere of influence. So get creative, do some brainstorming and find ways you can embed yourself in all the great things happening in your school.

Katie Ritter:

It's awesome, Tori.

Torie Mollett:

You didn't steal any of mine, so that's

Tyler Erwin:

Good.

Torie Mollett:

So, my first tip, is be very empathetic to the situations of your admin. It can be disheartening sometimes when you feel like you're saying things over and over again, but they might not hear you, because they've got a million other problems that are very loud at that present time. Be empathetic to their situation and understand that it's not a you thing. It's not anything to do with you or your practice. Step into their shoes. Uh, but on that note, be very persistent. You're going to have days where it might be harder than others. You might not be as busy as you want to be with projects, but you can find those. So continue being present in your building, being in the classrooms, being in the office where people can see you and know who you are. Don't ever give up on that. And then, uh, This, I think this is really important for my specific instance, lean on your relationships because I don't believe that the output of this workshop would have been as impactful if I hadn't had such a sturdy relationship with my admin they knew me, they knew who I am, they know my personality, they know I love to joke and they know I love a story to tell and all of that, so we had that foundation, but having that present. really bolstered everything that came after. So, lean on those relationships, just like you would with a student, and build on top of that.

Katie Ritter:

Wonderful.

Matthaeus Huelse:

Once again, thank you so much, the two of you. Before we let you go, where can people find you on the intertubes and the social webs?

Torie Mollett:

Uh, on the intertube, I am at ToriTeaches.

Matthaeus Huelse:

Wonderful.

Tyler Erwin:

And on X, Twitter, whatever it is these days, I am at edtechtyler. You can find me there, especially for all of your best bingles content. That's the place to check me out.

Katie Ritter:

and we've circled back around, take it from the top.

Matthaeus Huelse:

That is a full beautiful framing. I like that.

Katie Ritter:

Awesome. We've officially rebranded Twitter X to Intertube.

Matthaeus Huelse:

Yes, it is. The inter tubes. All right,. Katie Ritter: Thanks guys. Thank you. Thanks for spending time with us today. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with an educator friend.

Katie Ritter:

And connect with us on social media at rrcoachcast to let us know what you thought of the episode and what topics you want us to discuss next.

Matthaeus Huelse:

New episodes drop every other Tuesday. Be sure to subscribe to Restart Recharge wherever you listen to podcasts.

Katie Ritter:

So press the restart button,

Matthaeus Huelse:

recharge your coaching batteries, and leave feeling equipped and inspired to coach fearlessly with the Restart Recharge podcast,

Katie Ritter:

a Tech Coach Collective.

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Dr. Katie Ritter

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Matthäus Huelse

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