Weekly Coaching Roundup: Improve Your Coaching with Better Questioning

January’s Weekly Coaching Roundup is on improving your coaching with better questioning! Learn best practices, tips, and examples from your peers on their experiences using questions during coaching conversations.

And if you’d like to stay up-to-date on the latest coaching news, be sure to subscribe below to the Weekly Coaching Roundup—our hand-picked list of first-person perspectives, resources, and tools from instructional coaches!

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Active Listening: One Mouth, Two Ears

Dana Kramaroff shares a few of her frequently used open-ended questions during her coaching sessions to both help teachers expand on their responses and promote self-reflecting learning.

“My goal is to begin open-ended conversations that push teachers to think and reflect. Listening and allowing them to do the talking is key to growing trust. The go-to openers that I keep in my back pocket serve me well to do just that and prove their worth in helping me to meet teachers where they are in their learning process.”

Questions: The Currency of Coaching

Ellen Eisenberg explains the importance of giving your coachee a voice and how to use questions to drive conversations.

“When practicing the habit of asking questions when working with a coachee, the coach continues to grow their own skill set as well. If we engage in a process designed to promote growth and learning for all, that really means growth and learning for
everyone.”

5 Tips for Asking Better Questions

Natalie Irons and Carrie Usui Johnson offer some key ingredients for asking questions in ways that invite and support thinking, while creating a safe environment to respond.

“Crafting questions that invite thinking while providing psychological safety to the person receiving the question is a skill that needs attention and intentional practice.”

Using Checklists and Guiding Questions in Coaching

Jennifer Wood provides some ideas for goals during coaching cycles and guiding questions to support creating your own coaching checklist.

“Classroom management is crucial in engaging students and the time spent on set tasks. . . . I like to use questions that focus on the teacher to help them reflect on what’s currently happening to further understanding.”

Asking Questions as a Support for Teacher Goals

Vicki Collet presents five questions that supports teachers’ self-initiated resolutions and why they’re impactful.

“Asking questions can support reflection and encourage next steps in pursuing improvement efforts. . . . When you ask questions that encourage teachers to take stock of where they are and think about their goals, you help them recognize and prepare for success as the new year gets underway.”

Bonus: Webinar!

Ellen Eisenberg and Dana Kramaroff covered questioning techniques for advancing the coaching conversation as a means to promote teacher reflection in webinar #3 of our Coaching Talk series.

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