Lessons from 'coaching'

Last week I (Emma) had the privilege of facilitating a two-day 'coaching' workshop for 12 colleagues and students. The more this workshop went on, the more the participants and I got talking about the applicability of good facilitation skills in the classroom.

These ideas come from Graydin's The Anatomy workshop and could work nicely in any subject or educational context.

Explorers, Passengers and Captives

In any organisational change or learning experience, some members of the cohort will be:

• Explorers - leading the way, highly enthusiastic, sometimes uncritical
• Passengers - along for the ride, doing what is expected, unlikely to take the lead
• Captives - resentful of the experience, often actively disruptive, an untapped resource for future engagement

By being open about this with students and asking them to notice which role they are fulfilling at any given time, we show our acceptance of these states. We as teachers can also proactively seek to invite criticisms from the captives to improve our lesson planning processes and help all learners to understand new ideas.

My participants told me that the challenge they were set to "notice when you are a passenger or a captive" made them less likely to take these roles.

Partnership Agreement

In making a class partnership agreement we ask "How do we want to be together?" in seeking the best possible learning environment and commitments from all present. Attributes and actions should be phrased positively and should not apply only to students or the teacher.

One way of facilitating this type of conversation is to create up to six small groups responsible for preparing five sticky notes that can be placed on a poster. The group representatives should say what they have written as the notes are brought up so that comparisons can be made. Where there are unclear words or contradictions, ask the students "What would this look like? How would I know if everyone was doing this?".

You can add any necessary but as yet unsaid words at the end, like "fun", "respectful" or "honest", after which a student and the teacher should sign.

The Fridge

The 'Fridge and Freezer' is a simple poster stuck to a wall of the workshop location. It's a place where the facilitator and participants can write questions that will be answered later in the course. In the physics classroom, this would have the benefit of making the teacher's life easier (because they don't need another method to remember unanswered ideas) and of making students feel valued when they ask things.

I don't currently have a Fridge, but I do have three posters where I jot down those "that would be a great idea for ____" ideas:

• IA inspiration
• EE inspiration
• TOK Essay inspiration