Restart Recharge Podcast

509 Reflections and Connections (New Coach Edition)

• Forward Edge • Season 5 • Episode 9

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 In this episode of Restart Recharge, we welcome Kaitlyn Frederick, an instructional design coach here at Forward Edge, who shares her unique perspectives on coaching, drawn from her experiences in both K-12 and the corporate world. Kaitlyn discusses the importance of creative marketing and truly listening to teachers' needs. She also provides innovative ideas such as "DoorDash PD," offering teachers a choice of snacks and self-guided professional development delivered to their classrooms, and "Tech Talks," designed to connect with teachers and assess their technology needs.




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Podcast Team
Hosts - Katie Ritter & Matthäus Huelse
Producer - Celine Thomas
Editing Team - Ben Glasure
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 Rechart, the podcast dedicated to helping coaches power down, reflect, and get ready to ignite your passion for learning. As we navigate these final weeks of the school year, it's the perfect time to think about fresh starts and innovative. Practices. speaking of innovation, we have a fantastic guest joining us today. Please welcome Kaitlyn Frederick. Kaitlyn is an instructional design coach at Forward Edge, bringing a wealth of experience and a true passion for weaving technology into meaningful learning. Before her role at Forward Edge, Kaitlyn spent five impactful years shaping young minds as a third grade teacher. she then broadened her horizons stepping into the corporate world as a training specialist right here in Cincinnati. Now she's back in the education sphere, helping teachers like you explore the exciting possibilities of instructional. Coaching. We're thrilled to chat with Kaitlyn today about a new role and your instructional technology can empower both educators, students, coaches, all of us. Kaitlyn, excited to have you today.

Katie Ritter:

Welcome. Excited to have you first time on the pod., So Kaitlyn, I wanna kick us off, taking it back before you joined Forward Edge because you joined our team with, unique experience that the rest of us, do not have. Your pivot from, elementary teaching in a K 12 space to then working as a corporate trainer focused on, adult learning and talent development. and then ultimately came back to the K 12 space as a coach with our team. you have that kind of unique, experience there in that corporate trainer world focused on adult, training. Completely isolated from K 12 education, and instructional focus. So I'm curious what you think having had that role before you got a coaching role, what unique perspectives or experience you were able to bring to this role now as a coach that you wouldn't, had you gone straight from K 12 teacher to instructional coach?

Kaitlyn Frederick:

Yeah, so I think one of the things that I found. Having had that experience made the transition into coaching almost a little bit more comfortable was I had the experience of working with adults one-on-one, or in a group setting even. I think that a lot of times as teachers, and I've heard this from people I've worked with in the past, or coaches that are on the team now, but it can be really scary to talk to adults.

s:

Yeah.

Kaitlyn Frederick:

used to that. You're used to kind of. to be fun with your personality and have these weird little quirks and you know, things that you do to build rapport with students that sometimes don't always translate in conversations with adults. especially for me having worked with third graders, the way that my personality and my presentation differed from working and transitioning into a corporate setting, really changed. And it brought out a lot of, different ideas of how I go through presentations. and, training on new materials, working with adults and navigating what that looked like. was really helpful transitioning into coaching You're working with adults and if you haven't done that in a while, or maybe that wasn't your strong skill, you really have to bring that out of yourself. corporate training really helped with that, especially with the role I was in as a training specialist, a lot of times I was presenting for the first time to a new hire, all of this software, all this material, all these policies and procedures that can be really overwhelming.

Katie Ritter:

Mm-hmm.

Kaitlyn Frederick:

ease into how do I kind of dump all of this information into them in a way that's meaningful that they're gonna remember. but then along with that too, being in the learning and development department. we're hosting workshops on new software that's being released or new policies and procedures that are coming out that are changing their workflow. a lot of times people aren't happy about that. They're kind of grumpy. And I think that set up the reality for coaching that sometimes. Not everybody's happy to see you. even if you are just giving them something as a suggestion, sometimes they don't always want it. And I think that thickened my skin a little bit when it came to transitioning to working with adults knowing they're not always gonna be happy to see me. thinking about the way that I present the information I'm giving to them and how I can reach them in a way. At their level, you know, that meets their personality that's gonna inch them towards implementing that into their practice. I think that was very helpful, that had I not had a break from education and tried something different, that would've been really intimidating

s:

Yeah.

Kaitlyn Frederick:

that you could still work on, but I think it was really helpful to have That skillset coming into this role

Katie Ritter:

Yeah. And I wouldn't have even thought of that, but that is such a good point and kind of like a duh. If you think about it, how do you think it helped you with your ability to work with. Administrators right away.'cause that's something that I see with a lot of new coaches and I think it goes back to kind of what you said at the beginning just about working with adults. But then, you go from teacher to coach and while you may not be equals with the administrators, you are in a different space than when you're a classroom teacher talking with administrators. and you often become more of a confidant an advisor and a collaborator with administrators in service of the teachers. that's often a space that takes newer coaches a little longer to get comfortable with. Do you think that also helped you with having those admin conversations

Kaitlyn Frederick:

I think to A degree, yeah, I think admin or. any coach knows it's, they're kind of hard to reach just based on their schedule, what they're doing. You know, they're dealing with behaviors throughout the day that pop up, that throw their schedule out the window.

Katie Ritter:

Mm-hmm.

Kaitlyn Frederick:

me a really good perspective because in my previous role, I'm collaborating with executive members or managers about what their needs were for their departments. For their policies that may be changing for the software that's launching specifically for their department. So I think it gave me a good perspective on how to plan with admin, and really think about, okay, you wanna do this? Let's talk about what happens before we just jump into launching this, for your staff or for whoever that they're working on a specific goal for.

Katie Ritter:

Yeah, that's an excellent point. And for somebody who maybe doesn't have that corporate background, what's one piece of tangible advice you'd give the coaches or like, Hey, just get ready for this in terms of working with adults and or the administrators.

Kaitlyn Frederick:

I think as corny as it sounds, I think it all goes back to the same thing that we've all been beaten over the head with educators is build rapport. yourself. Find something to connect with that's, unique about the two of you, and just build that relationship first. I think we all know building relationships is important, but if you connect with people and show them that you're human, and again, kind of going back to that mindset of. When I was in my role before, a lot of times I'm introducing things that throw people for a loop and they're not happy about it. But I think at the end of the day, if you show them you're human and they can remember, okay, they're a nice person, they're just doing their job. Let me go through the motions that I know that I'm supposed to do. Yeah, I'm gonna be frustrated about it, but I'm not gonna hold it against that person. Yeah. I think that really helps with just having that relationship there instead of, here I am again coming to throw you for a loop and. flip your desk around with whatever new tip, tool, strategy, you're introducing.

Matthaeus Huelse:

I think it's funny 'cause this is still rattling in my head 'cause you said the adults might not be super excited to see you. I like to think I was a decent teacher, but there were students that probably weren't happy to see me either

Kaitlyn Frederick:

Same.

Matthaeus Huelse:

so I'm just trying to parse out that difference a little bit more. with students, you're teaching them something brand new trying to get them excited and you have time to build a relationship with them in the classroom with adults. I think what you're proposing, especially as a, in your previous position, is almost like a, well, here's something how you need to do things differently now. you've always done it this way, but I'm here to tell you how I'm doing this differently. So you're always coming in from a harder position of like, oh, I'm trying to establish like change established procedures. Do you agree with that?

Kaitlyn Frederick:

I agree. I a bulk of my job probably 50% of the time working with new hires and introducing things to them. So it was easier to, you know, kind of navigate that relationship.'cause it's new and it's fresh. But when you're working with, somebody that's got. 30 years under their belt with logistics and probably knows more about it than I do. And here I am all bright, smiling, happy, like, I'm gonna introduce this new software to you. I might be personable and friendly, but at the same time, I'm throwing them for a loop with how their workflow's gonna change and their everyday procedures. So a lot of times it was, not greeted with. A bright, smiling face when people were entering my training room, but at the end They knew me as a person and that I'm helpful and that if they had questions, even if they're feeling frustrated, I was gonna be able to help them out through whatever thing they're navigating.

Katie Ritter:

Yeah. Well, I'm hearing you say some really great themes, for any coach to take away Build that rapport. But you also, it sounds like. Now approach your coaching with this unique perspective that all coaches should be thinking about. And that's the human change element, Brooke used to always say, it's not that they don't like me, it's that they don't like what I represent. and sometimes that can be. The truth, not all the time. Sometimes they're excited and they're reaching out and they're gung-ho. But yeah, sometimes they don't like the change you represent of the brand new curriculum, the brand new software. The learning and the time spent and the feeling like I'm throwing out all of this effort that I did. so thinking about human behavior and what goes into change management, you said something really key about when you were talking with administrators. That was helping the administrators see, okay, what are all the pieces that need to be put in place before we just roll this out at the PD day? or the inservice day. And I think sometimes because our admin have 8 million things going on at once, they don't necessarily. Always think about those crystal clear pieces. that's where great collaboration and partnership come into play. that's your zone that you're focused on, making this great. helping paint that vision for them, is a key piece And kind of like systems thinking, right? From start to finish, how are people gonna react to this and What do they need to know and how should we communicate it? And I wanna pivot 'cause I have a question. So, we'd be remiss if we didn't say earlier in this episode, rather than at the wrap up. Kaitlyn's social media and graphic design game is off the charts. So if you are on social media, I know, I had your Instagram pulled up before we started recording, so I know your Insta is, at k Fred Tech, F-R-K-F-R-E-D Tech, are you on X or link? where else are you sharing some of these designs that people can go follow you?

Kaitlyn Frederick:

I'm on X I'm terrible about getting on there. I don't think I've posted a thing on X. I should get more involved. it is the same handle on X. I do share sometimes on LinkedIn, some of my ideas that are more of a hit. I think I do a lot of my, marketing, on Instagram. That's more of my jam.

Matthaeus Huelse:

Katie, did you just call it x?

Katie Ritter:

I did. I'm getting better.

Matthaeus Huelse:

Just called it X. Oh, wow.

Katie Ritter:

Look, I'm growing. I, I can't be out here talking about coaching and I'm not willing to grow. You know what I mean?

Matthaeus Huelse:

I don't know. Sometimes you stand up business on things, but I, I get it. I get it.

Katie Ritter:

Sometimes I take a stand. I'm becoming the old grumpy person, Kaitlyn, I'm curious if, your graphics are so visually appealing. we've talked about this on so many previous episodes about marketing yourself and bringing marketing principals in and just how your work, slides and advertisements and email newsletters like that can just set the tone in the stage for your relationships with teachers. So I'm curious if your previous role played any part in how you think about presenting things.

Kaitlyn Frederick:

For sure. I love Canva, I started using it when I was in college. I was an ra. I think it was my first or second summer that I was an ra. We do, week long little workshops and they'd introduced Canva and at the time we're all confused what do you mean Canva Canvas? We use Canvas in college. And then we realized, okay, no, this is a totally different platform. And they really started introducing it to us as, hey, this is a tool that you can use to market your events that you're putting on for your residents. So I'd used it a couple of times, and then just forgot about it as I got into teaching. I think anybody who's been in education knows. You get so busy and you fall I'll just find something on teacher pay teacher 'cause I don't have time to make this myself. I'd forgotten about Canva. Maybe played with it one or two times when I was still in the classroom. When I joined the company as a corporate training specialist, they used Canva for everything, their marketing team, our training department. The bulk of our work in Canva was our manuals. We had traditional, hand bound manuals. I was taking those things and binding the little spirals into the 60 something pages we had. I'm probably gonna have arthritis in the next five years. That's gonna be painful just based on that. But we would create our manuals in Canva. it was really about making sure, okay, do the colors match our brand? Do we need to rebrand? And when I came on. I really looked at this manual. I was like, this is a little clunky looking. Let's make it a little more refined, a little more pretty, but like minimal at the same time. So a lot of my first six months when I wasn't training, when I was a training specialist was refining these materials. Our slides are manual. a lot of times too, we'd be making one pagers to communicate different steps or, FAQs if a new software was being pushed out or if there was a new policy. We had actually a couple big policy changes that , we were constantly making things for, and it was all about making sure the information was there, quick and easy to read and eye catching. I think a lot of those ideas translate into how. I make things for my personal social media or if I'm making a communication that's going out to staff that I'm putting in their mailboxes, or, sending out in an email is making sure that it's concise, that it's clean, but that it looks good and that it's not. Clunky, corny. I don't know. I'm an Aquarius, so I pride myself on being different and creative with my personality. So a lot of times I have that mindset of I don't wanna use this theme. Everybody does it. Let's try something different. Or just making and taking things that I like from specific designs and meshing them all into one. And I think my role. As a training specialist and fine tuning what the end product looks like really helped me market myself and projects that I was doing with staff members or for fun things that I do on my social media. Me a different perspective.

Matthaeus Huelse:

So when new people join our team, oftentimes what happens is you might see them in the office a little bit, but then you get put in your site and then you're gone four outta the five days in the week, and it's kinda hard to, Catch up with new people over time, but with you, I know this right off the bat, like you showed up on my Instagram right away. And I got to know you. even through that.

Kaitlyn Frederick:

Oh, that warms my heart.

Matthaeus Huelse:

And it was so authentic and like, it seemed like it was you and I really, enjoyed it I mean, like we all talked about it. We were really impressed.

Katie Ritter:

Yeah.

Matthaeus Huelse:

So if I'm a coach and social media is not my thing, what is your advice to getting started and putting yourself out there what are your own expectations for yourself in terms of what do I post? What do I not post? And how often do you even post?

Kaitlyn Frederick:

that's a good question. When it comes to how often, honestly, since it's just like a personal little side thing, I don't really have a set structure. I'm not benefiting from an algorithm or making sure that I need to get these many views'cause it's just a fun way for me to showcase what I'm doing. in the beginning when I created it, I wanted to try to do oh, tech tip Tuesday, I. am gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. But then reality sets in, Time to plan all of these things? when I have a unique idea. That, I think is worth sharing. I try to devote the time to it and put that out there. if I think it's got a decent amount of value I really try to put the legwork in. But then other times I'm like, Hey, this is really cool. I'm gonna share it maybe on my story or come up, with a quick photo carousel to post and showcase what's been going on in the last month. maybe I haven't posted in a while. but I think you said it best. I wanted it to be a way for people to get to know me, whether it's people following me from my district, people following me from the office, people that I worked with at, the school I was at for five years, or connections from my education program in college. I try to think about tips and tricks and things that I'm doing that are useful that people can take with them and hold value in space for, in their own roles.

Matthaeus Huelse:

Yeah. So it doesn't sound like you're necessarily doing the research on the algorithm and when to post and what to do. No, that's awesome. that's pretty cool. I think it's

Katie Ritter:

also a good catalog of the good stuff you've done, right? Mm-hmm. Because as the years build up and the stuff builds up, the cool stuff, the hits, it's easy to forget about some of those successes and what's gone on.

Matthaeus Huelse:

This has, this has been great. I was going to take us to commercial break real quick.

s:

Okay.

Matthaeus Huelse:

we will be right back with Kaitlyn talking more about her first year.

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Matthaeus Huelse:

All right. Welcome back listeners. We're here with Kaitlyn Frederick talking about her first year as a coach, we talked a little bit about your social media and some of the cool things you've done. I remember the DoorDash, PD that you've done, which was super cool. you've done something with alpacas now that I've seen. you're gonna need to explain that to me 'cause I don't know what's going on. tell us what you've done and where do you wanna go with it from here? What are you gonna keep, what are you gonna go on with? What do you wanna replace?

Kaitlyn Frederick:

definitely keeping DoorDash pd.

Matthaeus Huelse:

Tell us more about it. What was that?

Kaitlyn Frederick:

DoorDash PD was a really fun idea. Kind of threw together using some appreciation techniques I had seen when I was in the classroom. some former coaches of ours had done what was called tech takeout, and so I combined this idea of having a snack cart delivery with some PD delivery. I just wanted a creative way to market it and be eye catching. in a more rural district further away from, restaurants and things like that, I'm like a brand or a logo like DoorDash that's gonna catch their eyes. So that's why I went with that. and what it. was is I gave teachers the option to have a snack, a drink, and a. Self-guided pd, menu delivered to their classroom at the time of their choosing. So I had these flyers explaining what it was giving them the heads up, here's the dates I'm gonna be delivering in the elementary, the middle school, the high school. I sent out a Google form and I didn't know how this was gonna go because I had planned it back in January when I got started coaching here at the district so I'd been planning it for a while and I'd mistakenly planned it the week after we had an in-district PD day. So I had low expectations of how many teachers were gonna sign up, but it really did get a decent amount of responses. I sent out a Google form and had teachers say, What building they're in, what's their room number? They got to select what time they wanted it delivered. So it wasn't, me coming in and interrupting their class unless they wanted it that way. Everybody loves a little attention sometimes.

Katie Ritter:

Yeah.

Kaitlyn Frederick:

had them select what time they wanted it delivered. and then I gave them a list of salty and sweet snacks that they could choose from. And then a couple different options for drinks, some sodas and a couple juices. Water, of course. I created this little menu, on Canva, and I

Katie Ritter:

And you can find it on her social media

Kaitlyn Frederick:

you can see some more details. But I threw together this little bookmark style menu. I bought some really cheap cardboard drink carriers, like two pockets on Amazon. and I put their snack on one side, their drinking, the other, their menu on it, wrote their name, gave it a little bow, made it cutesy and delivered it. and I think what's really great is they can do it on their own time. So even though we had just had a PD day, I tried to stick to, basic helpful tips that I would've wanted to know when I was a classroom teacher or that I know I'd hear a lot of the staff around my district asking. one of the tips that I'd thrown on there for them to learn was how to set your view board settings to open the tabs that you need in the morning so you're not standing at your view board for 10 minutes. Opening, clicking, logging in, trying to get everything ready for the day. Once you log in on startup, it's gonna open X, Y, Z. so just little things like that when they're ready they can sit down, learn. And of course, I'm there to ask questions along the way if they have questions about what pops up on the menu.

Matthaeus Huelse:

So was that stuff that you saw in the classroom happening and you're like, Ooh, let me help you with this, and then you realize, hey, this can go to everybody. Or was this something that you just on your own kinda like empathize with and you realize, hey, that is something that they're not taking advantage of? Maybe I should point out towards that.

Kaitlyn Frederick:

A little bit of both. So I had, on the menu, I had an appetizer, a entree, and a dessert., I had some easier task for that appetizer and dessert. And then maybe something with a little more legwork for the entree item on their choice menu.

Matthaeus Huelse:

And as a harder question, we all love talking about things that always worked out, but are there any things that you were like, ah, that didn't go the way I wanted to, or that didn't go as planned and you might not wanna come back to it?

Kaitlyn Frederick:

I don't, it was honestly a little bit more successful than I had thought. My biggest thing in the back of my mind was timing of it. Because, like I said, I had planned it in advance. Not realizing, being a new coach, they already have a PD day, a week before I'm gonna do this. but I think having. The option to be autonomous in their learning was something that they really appreciated. So even though they had just had that pd, they're like, oh, I can take this, get a snack or treat whatever, and then learn something when I'm ready to actually go and learn it.

Matthaeus Huelse:

Yeah, so in terms of principles, you kinda offered something that they can do on their own with their own time. So anything that empowers the teacher themselves to do the learning and you facilitate. that's a big principle, it sounds like. And then also taking advantage of the things that are happening and that you're seeing and then taking advantage of that to come up with cool ideas that might be helpful to them. Are there any other big tips or like other strategies that you would wanna highlight that other coach can use to come up with these things or ideas?

Kaitlyn Frederick:

Yeah. something else I did that was really successful, was called Tech Talks. So I, being a new coach, kind of coming into district in the middle of the year with some changes going on, I didn't really know the staff. They had already had a coach before that they were established with. So I needed to work on building relationships and figuring out their needs Having been a teacher, I'm really easy to blow off. Why meet me? I'm already halfway through the year, I learned from the coach before, or I already know how to do this. I don't need their help. in my mind, thinking how people might be a little stubborn to build that relationship with me. I sent out an email to every grade level team within my district and said, Hey, in case we haven't got the chance to meet, I'm Kaitlyn. I'm your tech coach. I wanna sit down with your team. Or if you wanna sit down individually, I wanna get to know you. I wanna know what big projects you do. If you've ever had an idea of how you wanna jazz up a project and maybe you don't have the time, I can help you. co-teaching I created a checklist of tools that maybe they had seen. I had them go through check off ones that they. Already have used or currently use in their classroom and put a star next to ones they wanted to learn or had had an interest in or maybe have heard of but hadn't got the chance to play with. originally, being a tech coach, I thought, I should make this a Google form. then I thought about, some jumped right into coaching with a PD day. Right off the first of the year. Of the feedback I got and how people blew through some of those questions because they wanna move on, they wanna get to the next thing, and that's real. We've all done it before in some capacity, Occurrence that has happened in our lives. So I really wanted it to be, more hands on and have something physical in front of them that they can't avoid because they know I'm sitting there watching them go through each portion of the page or the checklist. so I had these printouts. I went real old school with it, and then on the back I had a section, oh, what did I call it? It was like one wish, one want and maybe one need. I think that's how I

s:

Mm-hmm.

Kaitlyn Frederick:

of what they wanted with technology. So what's one thing that they wish technology could do for them? What's one thing that they want, and what's one thing that they need? And I put on there, no matter how outrageous it is, even if it's something like, I wish a fairy could pop into my room and do X, Y, Z for me, write it down because I wanna know, because that just gives me something to go off of. and I got a lot more response to the scheduling those tech talks then I had anticipated. And it really opened up a lot of avenues for building relationships with certain, staff members and provided me with a lot of opportunity to. start collaborating with them. Or gave me ideas of tips and tricks that I could send them as I came across them. for example, a couple of teachers that I still haven't worked with super closely, but as I, may have been researching ideas for a PD day or a project or something that's going on, I had a couple teachers who wanted to learn how to make gifts. They didn't know how to do it. and I found multiple options. I found ones where you could draw your own art, create 'em into gifs, where you could take videos that already exist, turn them into gifs, where you could live, create your own gif. And so I just shot them an email like, Hey, I know on your Tech Talk profile checklist thing that I made for you, you wanted to learn more about this. Here are three sites. Let me know if you want my help with navigating them more. Do you wanna sit down and meet? I'm here to help you if you want it. I think it really provided me with a lot of. Easy opportunities to have touches with those teachers that maybe are a little harder to reach. if I'm thinking about, oh, I've worked with this person in the English department, but I haven't worked with this teacher, I could easily revisit their tech talk checklist and say, okay, they wanted to learn more about this. Let me just shoot them a quick email, see if they have time, or if I stumbled across something and it fits that need, let me shoot them a quick email and let them know that that's out there for them to utilize.

Matthaeus Huelse:

I love that. as someone that loves answering in any group text with a gif, I also deeply appreciate that you thought that's gift. You

s:

are a good GIF responder. I love responding in a

Matthaeus Huelse:

gif. I and my

s:

favorite are your hair

Katie Ritter:

gif. Not to out you, but when they have to do it, Matthaus doing his hair. Those are

s:

really good.

Katie Ritter:

Kaitlyn, I'm curious, just really quickly I was really impressed with how quickly you got in and were able to co-teach with teachers. was it a result of these tech talks and did that spring into some co-teaching or would you attribute that to something else?

Kaitlyn Frederick:

I have to tote on the fact that, the coach before me was great. and had great relationships with the teachers. I. think some of the teachers that initially reached out about co-teaching or, asking for help within my first few weeks, that's because of the great relationships that she had. And, establishing what. Our role looks like for teachers. I think it was within my first week, I had two fifth grade teachers reach out about helping them with a research project. They were starting. I think anybody that's in education has maybe heard of the idea of passion projects or,

s:

Mm-hmm.

Kaitlyn Frederick:

Teach the Teacher, where the kids pick something that they're passionate about, that they want to teach the rest of the class or their teacher. They get the opportunity to be in charge and present about something they're passionate about. I started with collaborating with them. Okay, here are some resources, you can use for research. I also thought back to when I was in the classroom, I did, towards the end of the year animal research with my third graders where they'd pick an animal, they'd research them, and we'd introduced the concept of vetting a website and making sure that you're getting reliable information. And so I had brought that up to those teachers. Hey, would you want me to come in and teach just like a 15 minute mini lesson about finding reliable resources? I was in your shoes. I had the media specialist, at the time when I was in the classroom, come in and present these ideas and it was really helpful. that was getting my foot in the door. with my start with co-teaching offering that. Once I did it with one teacher, I had a couple others reach out and they wanted my help. tech talks definitely. helped facilitate, me being able to come in and, take a load off the teacher's plate. And I think framing that for them too.

Katie Ritter:

Mm-hmm.

Kaitlyn Frederick:

come do this. You can sit and watch me if you need to go make copies if you need to run to the bathroom. I got you for 15 minutes. Just offering them that opportunity to have time back to themselves. I don't think I ever had a teacher that didn't wanna actively co-teach with me, which made for a really exciting experience and, was awesome for building relationships with them.

Matthaeus Huelse:

Awesome. You pointed out earlier and you said, It was so self-reflective and so honest. it's really easy for a teacher to blow me off because from my position, it's super easy to just say, no, I'm not interested. I can just move on. But then you come in with the super low stakes approach of just making them talk about themselves and what they wanna do, and their own needs. You got them so quickly to buy in that by the time you say, okay, I can offer to come in your room and do this quick 15 minute thing, it's super easy to accept that and invite you in. I think that's super successful.

s:

Should we go to top three tips?

Matthaeus Huelse:

Kaitlyn, it's been such a pleasure talking to you. It's been fun and we always, wrap up our episodes with our top three tips for coaches. At the end of their first year or veterans that are just, they're getting really deep into the game. What are your top three tips for coaches?

Kaitlyn Frederick:

Again, I think it's tried and true build relationships. It is so important to start off again, provide low stakes opportunities to meet with teachers, talk with them. with me coming in at an interesting time of the year, I was transitioning and shadowing the coach before me. Before Christmas. I offered my teachers the gift of time. I try to do that around holidays where I just shoot them an email and say, Hey, today's the day I'm offering you the gift of time. If you need me, email me. I'll come relieve you for 10 to 30 minutes. If you need to go to the bathroom, finish report, card comments, finish grades, whatever it is, it's a really easy way to build relationships. So. I think just starting with that, showing that you're human, showing your personality and being relatable is really important. I think my second tip would have to be creatively market yourself. not only is marketing yourself important, but getting creative with it. Doing something that teachers maybe have never seen, providing them with an experience like DoorDash PD that they've never. Participated in or heard of. just really thinking how can I reach them and get some buy-in by providing a low stakes opportunity, but giving them meaningful materials to work with. my third tip, listen to teachers. Listen to what they're saying, don't try to just jump the gun and say, I've got the perfect thing for that. give them some time to process their problem Then try to offer a solution, because I think you come in and you're like, oh, I've got three different tools or resources or tips or this or that, that can help you with that. equally overwhelming almost sometimes is the problem they're already experiencing. So listening, giving space and time For both ends to process and then offering a solution can be really helpful in creating a more meaningful relationship.

Matthaeus Huelse:

For sure. Excellent tip. Kaitlyn. Great. Three tips. great things to take away for our listeners. one more time, if our listeners want to check out what you've been up to where can they find you?

Kaitlyn Frederick:

You can find me on Instagram at K-Fred Tech. that's really where I post a bulk of my stuff. I'm on LinkedIn too, at Kaitlyn Frederick. I'll post stuff on LinkedIn every now and then. But yeah, my Instagram at Kfr Tech is really where I probably post a majority of what's going on and the ideas that I have.

Katie Ritter:

Awesome. Outstanding Kaylyn. Thank you so much for these fresh and creative ideas. I'm excited for our listeners to hear them and weave them into their plans for next year.

Matthaeus Huelse:

And listeners, don't forget to, share this episode. Let us know what you thought hit us on, Instagram and wherever you listen on podcasts and. I hope you all have a fantastic rest of your day. 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 @RRCoachCast to let us know what you thought of the episode and what topics you want us to discuss next.

Matthaeus Huelse:

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Katie Ritter:

So press the restart button,

Matthaeus Huelse:

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Katie Ritter:

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People on this episode

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Dr. Katie Ritter

Co-host
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Matthäus Huelse

Co-host