Weekly Coaching Roundup: Fun Ways to Engage Your Teachers!

Welcome back to TeachBoost’s Coaching Roundup! This month we have some fun ways you can engage your teachers to help strengthen your relationships and try to improve teacher participation!

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Putting a Personal Touch on Your Coaching With Bitmojis

Brandy Alexander promotes Bitmojis as a way to build relationships while creating a fun environment with your colleagues and school.

“Creating a positive coaching environment can seem daunting at first, especially on a new campus. Going in with some strategies like Bitmojis can help communicate your openness and willingness to have fun and work alongside teachers to bring out the best in them and their teaching practices.”

“Appy” Hour

Amy Storer adds some playfulness to her PD sessions with different themes, puns, and props! See how she promoted new technology tools this month.

“One of my goals this year was to transform professional learning on my campus and in my district. . . . Each week or every other week, I would open my room for teachers to CHOOSE to attend various sessions such as Tech and Tailgate, Snacks and Strategies, and ‘Appy’ Hour. My goal with each of these sessions was to expose the teachers to various tools, strategies, and applications that would support high impact learning and teaching.”

The Secret Ingredient to Better Coaching: Chocolate!

Rachel Andress explains how she wins the partnerships (and stomachs!) of her teachers.

“The chocolate chats proved successful for me for building relationships with my coachees for two main reasons: the chocolate helped create a friendly environment and I allowed the attendees their choice to be there. I told the teachers they could stay the whole time or they could leave when they wanted to.”

How to Build and Advance Partnerships: Bingo!

Lindsay Deacon plays Bingo to strengthen her partnerships and encourage her teachers to step out of their comfort zone.

“Many of the coaches I work with have pinned their Bingo card next to their desk as a daily reminder to feed their own learning. Coaches have also reported that the visual encouraged them to try something new and feel energized to invest in their own learning, even when they were losing steam. The Bingo card is an example of an extrinsic motivator that serves to remind coaches of the important intrinsic motivators that us as coaches.”

Fun Friday Gatherings!

Michelle Shave uses “Fun Fridays” as a way to build relationships and develop teacher leaders.

“The Fun Friday is an optional gathering and those who attend appreciate the time to build relationships and some enjoy sharing their amazing cooking skills! Pictures are posted on a Google Site I created for our staff, under the “Fun Stuff” page. . . . It’s a win-win use of time. While I’m the one to coordinate it, others chip in their help with setting up, preparing the activity, and getting food items – it’s a great way to build distributive leadership.”

Bonus: Instructional Coaching Menus

Isabelle Williams offers “three courses” of support for the teachers she works with, in “Instructional Coaching Menu Best Practices.” You can mix and match them!

Ileana Sing provides a variety of coaching “entrees” to satisfy any coaching craving, in “Sing’s Coaching Menu.”

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