Dawn Cottnair

EDAD 543
Assignment 5
The Inquiry Cycle: Supporting a Colleague
My Learning Standards - AWSP Criterion 1
1.1 Develops and sustains focus on a shared mission and clear vision for improvement of
learning and teaching
1.2 Engages in essential conversations for ongoing improvement
1.3 Facilitates collaborative processes leading toward continuous improvement
Part 1: Interview a teacher about their current Inquiry Cycle
Christine is choosing to focus on Reading Literary and Informational text 9/10.2 - Determine a
central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and
is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. To determine her goals,
she relied upon assessment data, observational notes, and conferring sessions. She initially looked at her
students and determined trends she saw with her students. In collaboration with her department, they then
came to agreement on a common department focus looking at the trends they saw across
classrooms/teachers. After determining their department goal, Christine selected six students to work with
around the department goal. She will use STAR, conferring notes, journaling notes, and mini lesson
performances to measure growth in her focus students. Christine is a first year teacher who thrives on
feedback. She collaborates well with her colleagues and with me, as her coach, to refine her practices and
instructions. When I asked her about what she wanted for feedback and support she expressed her desire
for constructive feedback she wants/needs more than a pat on the back. She stated that she does get
overwhelmed when she doesn't know that to do and then ideas are just thrown at her, and words best when
she has previously constructed a plan and we dialogue about it and together identify strengths and areas for
adjustment. As she stated, I am a sponge!

Part 2: Reflect on the conversation

Having developed a strong, friendly and productive working relationship with Christine, I felt the
conversation went quite well. Christine appeared relaxed and confident. Both of us are note takers and do a

lot of talking with our hands so we are similar in many ways. For this conversation, Christine was behind her
desk and I was in a student desk pulled up to her desk. During other mentoring sessions we might be
standing at the whiteboard or sitting side by side at her front table. One of the things I really enjoy about
working with Christine is her engagement in the work. When I walk into her room in the days following our
coaching meetings, I see evidence of our work slight changes to her room or her lesson plans.
In working with Christine, I have begun to learn some things about myself as a coach and a leader.
For one, I am focused listener. I might not always be looking in their eyes, by I am focused on my notes,
their notes, and what is being said. I do though have a tendency to jump into ideas without fully questioning
what support my mentees need/want. I want to continue to develop my ability to ask questions that help
teachers develop their own solutions, without me saying, Well, I might I believe that there are times
where giving my personal examples are beneficial, but to continue to build trust and open dialogue, I need
to continue to ask questions and do research alongside my mentees to show them how I developed my
skills along the way. I do compliment teachers well, expressing what I see as strong points in their plans and
why those plans are beneficial to student learning. I am getting better at starting with what the teacher has
and building from there, rather than coming in with my ideas from start to finish. Another thing I am working
to improve is my tone I tend to be loud and say what I am thinking. I am working on pausing and I noticed
in my pictures, that I tend to put my hands on my mouth frequently I think this is my subtle way of pausing
myself before I speak. My notes are helping as well, so that I can process my thoughts prior to reacting. I
can also use my notes to inform later conversations and follow-up. Follow-up is an area of improvement for
me as well. I want to find a system for following up on prior feedback, rather than feeling like we are always
just tackling a new issue. I am in the process of developing a tool I might use in my observations that will
provide feedback to the teacher and another tool that will help me track my main points of feedback over
time. All these moves are helping to build my leadership skills in engaging in collaborative conversations to
move help teachers improve.

Looking at her notes from her conferring

sessions with students and discussing
how she is going to use them to inform
the next steps in her instruction.

Christine taking notes on ideas we came

up with.

My typical focused listening stance

hand on mouth.