What should I be doing with a Year 1 mentee vs. a Year 2 mentee?

Essentially the same thing in terms of the use of the FAS coaching model - but with different content - the content gets generated by your mentee and the conversations you have together. At the start of the year we focus on building relationship, reviewing class data, getting to know school and community resources, choosing case study students (2 of them - one language learner student and one special populations student, ideally) and goal setting. By now, if you started with your mentee at the start of the year, you are probably moving into inquiry work - observing, lesson planning, and analyzing student work.

Observing

Observing in our mentee's classroom is one of the single most effective routes to learning focused conversation topics. Even spending only ten minutes in a mentee's classroom will ground us in a clearer reality of their situation - how he or she moves in the room, the names and faces of actual students, the nature of questions asked, how the time is spent, how often students are engaged, how the room is arranged - in truth, the list goes on and on. I encourage getting into every mentee's classroom at least once a month. Without this layer of experience, we are grounding our work in hypothetical conversation and planning, rather than taking it to the level of how the planning is being actualized with living, breathing learners in real time.

I've had the pleasure of co-observing with mentor colleagues in the last few weeks. In doing so, I've learned a bit about my particular observation style, which is to capture as much relevant data as possible to share with the teacher I'm observing. I always go in with an observation focus, and then keep my eyes and ears pinned on the words, phrases, questions, and actions - on the part of both the teacher and the student - that link to the focus. It's impossible to capture everything, so having a focus is essential.

I find that at the onset, I often sit at a table or desk and rely heavily on listening - focusing on the page I'm writing on (I never type) and what is going on between teacher and student verbatim. I look up to record the time, so there is data on pacing, and to get a snapshot of the nature of student engagement. In time I begin to walk the room, looking over shoulders, capturing what students are saying in groups or writing on assignments. I ask students questions. All of this ends up painting a picture of a class period with lots of specific details.

The beauty of this approach is that a mentee takes a look at non-judgmental, detailed evidence based observation notes and the reaction is always "Oh wow! That happened. I didn't realize. Instead of doing ______, I could try __________." Or, "This is really interesting to see how this group of students were working together. And I got to them 5 separate times. I'll bet that made a difference." Hopefully you get the picture - the notes are a springboard for them to SEE themselves and their students from a bit of a "distance" and to reflect spontaneously. I never, ever launch into a whole bunch of feedback about what I think after an observation. Rather, we review the notes together and the reflection begins to roll. Then, after the teacher has an opportunity to reflect, I add feedback as well as ask questions to push his or her thinking. In this way, learning happens.

I've been asked, "How do you manage to write all of that down?!" Practice. Lots of practice. The surest route to developing the skill of taking observation notes is by taking observation notes. It's certainly true that getting in to observe often enough to have regular practice, especially if you have only one mentee, can be a challenge. I'll put it out there that it may be worthwhile to look for alternate situations in your life where you can sit back and simply practice writing observation notes. Sit in a cafe and write down as much as you can, with a focus in mind, for 15 minutes. Try it at a sporting event, at a bookstore, at a staff meeting, at an after school program - you name it. Doing this in 15 minute chunks again and again will develop the skill set for capturing detailed observation notes. Why would we want to do such a thing? Because for each and every teacher I've ever observed, receiving detailed notes of their classroom in action is priceless. They rarely ever get it.

If you haven't had a chance to observe your mentee yet, pull out your calendar the next time you meet and find a few windows of time for you to observe. It will broaden and deepen your work together naturally.

Thanks for reading - more on observing to come!

Alison