Helping Teachers to Implement Lessons and Improve Interactions

Coaches play a pivotal role in helping teachers implement lessons and improve their daily interactions with children. Teachers must be attuned to student’s responses and signals so that they can identify how to appropriately modify or adapt lessons and activities to meet their student’s needs. Coaches can help teachers in the moment to understand how to recognize students’ responses and signals through a variety of strategies, including redirecting teachers’ attention, encouraging reflective thinking, and verbally and/or nonverbally cueing teachers. When joining implementation, coaches should choose a level of support that is needed for each individual teacher. 

During implementation, a coach can join in to quickly correct misunderstandings in the moment. A coach can do this by cueing the teacher to recognize opportunities to make adjustments, thus allowing the teacher an immediate opportunity to practice. A coach can build on a teacher’s knowledge and skills by implementing less intensive strategies, such as through verbal and/or nonverbal cues. For example, coaches can help teachers understand how to recognize student’s responses and signals through redirecting a teacher’s attention. 

When joining implementation with teachers who need a high-level of support, a coach may model or demonstrate how to implement a new lesson or strategy within a teacher’s classroom. This allows the teacher to understand how to implement the new practices in the context of their own resources, classroom environment, and student needs. The coach will first model or demonstrate how to implement a new lesson or strategy and will gradually withdraw support to allow the teacher opportunities to practice with feedback. Modeling and demonstrating activities provide opportunities for coaches to communicate the subtleties of implementing new practices in a lesson or teacher-child interaction. 

Common competencies that would be used in this context include:

• Uses cues to orient the practitioner to child signals during instruction to increase the practitioner’s ability to recognize children’s current level of engagement and understanding
• Models or demonstrates a lesson or strategy in the practitioner’s own setting to help the practitioner see how new practices look when implemented in the context of their own resources, classroom/facility environment, and students/teachers needs
• Quickly corrects misunderstandings in content or instructional practices in the moment rather than waiting until the coaching session is over
• Uses brief verbal or nonverbal cues to help the practitioner recognize opportunities to make adjustments to instructional situations or interactions
• Provides the practitioner with an immediate opportunity to practice with coach feedback after demonstrating a new strategy or practice

Mentoring Prompts

Low Intensity: Cueing 

• “Notice how [x] is responding to your question.”
• “Next time ask the child to verbalize their understanding.”
• “Next time model before passing out the materials.”
• “Another way to ask the question is…”
• “I noticed you did [x] that worked really well (reinforcing positive practices).”
• “I noticed here there was an opportunity to do [x] (providing actionable feedback). Is that something you can practice next time?”

High Intensity: Modeling/Demonstration

• “I am going to model first, and then I will have you transition and try it with the children.” 
• “Can I show you quickly how to [describe activity]” – Correct misunderstanding.
• “Can I show you another way to take the lesson to the next level” – Build on what the practitioner is already doing.