As mentors, a critical preparatory step we can take prior to the observation debrief is to review our observation notes and come up with a few rigorous questions to guide the meeting with our mentee. I italicized the word "few" for a reason: too many questions can take the debrief into the realm of overwhelm for our mentee rather than that of supportive inquiry.
In crafting debrief questions, it is helpful to write them down and reflect upon them. Are the questions truly questions, or are they judgement-laden statements framed as questions? Taking a hard look at our questions and being sure they are in fact questions that open up thinking and reflection is essential.
Here's a simple example that gets at my point. Contextually, let's say you observed a teacher's classroom wherein a portion of students in the class were not participating in an interactive portion of the lesson. Your notes show this - including a seating chart detailing the nature of student participation during the interactive segment of the lesson. Your notes also include selective scripting of the lesson, detailing the nature of the teacher's instruction and the nature of student participation in response to that instruction.
These notes can lead to judgment - and a judgmental question such as:
What do you plan to do about the students at the back of the room who are distracted and not learning?
The above question, written down and reflected upon, can be reframed as:
What do you notice about this section of notes focusing on the students who are seated at the back of the room?
Be prepared to pause and wait for answer.
The notes themselves reveal that students at the back of the room are not participating. If your mentee does not see this, point out what you saw according to what the notes reveal. Then move the conversation towards problem solving and naming next steps.
What is the nature of their participation?
What are some next steps you might take to address this issue?
Again, pause and wait for answer.
Anticipate making a suggestion or asking a clarifying question as appropriate based on your mentee's response. Also be prepared to troubleshoot with your mentee, framing possible next steps together and writing down relevant ideas on a Collaborative Assessment Log* or other note-taking tool.
Finally, you may decide that you'd like to move the conversation towards verbatim teacher instruction before the debrief comes to a close.
Let's take a look at your instruction during this section. What are your first thoughts about the nature of your students' participation based on what the notes capture in terms of your instruction?
As always, be prepared to pause and wait for an answer. Perhaps the teacher shares that the instruction was somewhat confusing in retrospect. Such a response is an entry point for rethinking the nature of the instruction for greater clarity. Perhaps the conversation moves towards revising the original lesson plan, or looking forward to the following day's lesson for revision. Perhaps an instructional scaffold was necessary to enhance clarity and that can be designed collaboratively. Ultimately, the conversation steers again towards achievable next steps.
Of course, we cannot control the exact outcome of any conversation with our mentees. From just one well crafted question encouraging reflective thought, the conversation can move in an unexpected direction - one we would have never anticipated. This is exciting. When we train ourselves to let go of rigid personal outcomes, a wide space opens up for learning.
It is our job to steer the conversation. Steering is different than controlling. We come into every conversation with a clear idea about key points we'd like to surface and a clear intention to move the conversation through three essential phases: framing the problem or area of focus, surfacing possible solutions or areas to explore, and naming achievable concrete next steps to take before the end of the meeting.
We have the capacity to enter every conversation with a genuine interest in what our mentee thinks about his or her teaching practice - thus, the importance of well crafted questions that enhance inquiry rather than enforcing our opinions. In this way we steer the work respectfully and maintain an underlying expectation that our mentee is a thoughtful professional who will take thoughtful next steps to improve practice. Perhaps that next step is to ask us for direct advice on what action to take - but at least in creating the space for our mentee to make such a request, we position them as autonomous decision makers.
Laura Lipton puts it like this: "The kinds of questions we ask novices become theirs over time." I believe this is at the heart of our work as mentors.
Thanks for reading.
Alison
*The Collaborative Assessment Log is a New Teacher Center Formative Assessment System mentoring tool.
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