The best way to know you are making an impact on student and teacher learning is by being intentional about how you plan for the work to happen and how you notice the work that is happening before, during, and after. It also is important to be intentional with how you measure it at multiple points along the way and how you communicate the learning to others. Proof and evidence are game changers when it comes to igniting action, engagement, and conversations. However, it is also the best indicator of how what you are doing as a leader or a teacher is impacting student learning and overall culture. We know that it isn’t just about data and results. It has to be about more than that. It has to be about making sure the learners see themselves as learners as well as the leader/teacher believing in the actions that are being taken. More importantly it is about belief in themselves and their own efficacy. It is about making sure that learners are engaged and taking action for the purpose of growing and improving learning for all. The best way to do this is to stand inside the learning, reflect and check in often to notice the evidence of impact. If we see growth, we are invested and we believe that what we are doing is making a difference in the life (not just academics) of the learner then everything else will rise.
First let’s talk about what evidence of impact is. It is about noticing how what you did as a leader (teacher or administrator) impacted learning (student or adult). The next part is about being able to communicate it to a colleague so they can do the same action to get results or help to reflect on growth. It is about building efficacy in teachers through noticing the fruits of their own actions. According to Sandra Herbst, efficacious teachers have internal resourcefulness, initiate responsibility, know that they have choices, are problem solvers, and take action. This starts to nudge the feelings of despair, hopelessness, rigidity and blame out of the picture because through the stance of coaching each other and colleagues learning alongside, it serves as a strategy of promise and possibility.
Evidence of Impact occurs when you start implementing your action points you will need in order to know how you are progressing towards the intended outcomes and where you are in relation to your milestones. Therefore, it is very important that you plan ahead what evidence you will need collect as you implement a strategy and when you will take time to reflect and coach each other inside of the learning. The next step to ignite that culture of renewal and possibility is providing a space and setting expectations for coaching what works, reflecting on it, and teaching others how to do it.
Being aware of each teacher and leader’s evidence of impact is a powerful tool to have in your back pocket that can ignite a school into action. The number one pain point that a lot of leaders feel is that they are struggling with getting their teachers to engage or take action in the professional learning that is happening. There could be many reasons for this, such as, the professional learning isn’t hitting their pain point so then it doesn’t matter enough to them. It could be that they are tired and overwhelmed. It could be that the leader is doing too many initiatives or the community members are all doing their own thing and not really having clarity on the purpose of why or what they are doing. Sound familiar? I know I have definitely been there and it never once served any of us. I am not going to get into all the reasons that teachers may not want to engage in the professional development or conversation…that is for another day. I just want you to make sure that whatever direction or goal that you want your community to work towards is a goal that matters to them. If it doesn’t, you have lost them. Once you have nailed down that pain point, your evidence of impact will be the key to setting up expectations for them to take action because you have a system and are walking the talk alongside them.
Now you know I loooooove a good system. Within our school, this system of teachers coaching each other through evidence of impact started out super messy. However, we have learned a lot along the way that has made it successful today and has changed the way we lead, the way we teach, the way we measure growth, and the way we talk to each other. I am going to share this system with you because I know it is that important to getting your teachers and the leader to take action with the intention to improve student and adult learning. It will even improve overall joy and mindset! That is what implementing a ‘coaching through evidence of impact’ system can do! That is how powerful it is! However, I am going to warn you….this is hard work. This will stir up some difficult conversation and perhaps a little confusion so know that will happen and plan for that. But….keep moving forward, keep digging for clarity, keep giving it time and eventually you will grow an action taking community of adult and student learners who get results and are renewed in learning again. Now who wouldn’t want that!
Step 1: Plan for Evidence of Impact, Reflections, and Coaching to Happen
Planning and intentionality are key to making anything happen and therefore, we need to know what we are working towards when it comes to evidence of impact. There are a few things that you need to consider as you work towards noticing evidence of impact and then getting your teachers to coach others.
One thing that you need to consider is to plan for how you will implement your expectation that all of your teachers will work towards this goal doing these three actions. Will you provide research, model strategies along the way, co-construct criteria alongside them to come up with expectations? There is no wrong way to do this but you need to plan for how you will deliver the learning to your teachers and set up the expectations that they will take these actions.
Schedule in your checkpoints. If it is not in the calendar, it won’t happen. Setting deadlines and clear mile markers where you will measure evidence of impact and check in will be essential in igniting action because it creates a sense of urgency. Be sure to include checkpoints before the actions take place, multiple times inside the learning, and at the end. So many times we tend to only measure the learning that has happened at the end and not focus on before the learning happened and during the learning. This is not effective because you have nothing to compare it to, it does not show growth, and there are no evidence of patterns and trends that show growth over time. Therefore it is crucial that in order to notice each person’s evidence of impact, that there is a plan to notice and gather proof and evidence before the actions happen by setting that baseline evidence. It is also important to check in multiple times during the work so you can tweak and pivot the action to reflect on how what you are doing is impacting learning. Finally, be sure to check in at the end.
Be intentional with what expectations you want to implement for teachers so they have a clear picture of what you are expecting from them at each checkpoint where they will share their progress and evidence of impact. Pre-plan a list of expectations so that when it comes time to set up your expectations you can co-construct the list with your teachers. However, the idea is to nudge them towards the list you have already created. They will come up with some great ones too so be sure to add those to the list as well!
Plan for how you will walk the talk and model your own gathering of evidence of impact. If the leader orders from the top down, you will lose your teachers. No one likes feeling like someone is dictating and then not following those same expectations. It is so important to co-construct every expectation and plan with your teachers but also to model your own gathering of evidence of impact, so be sure to plan for that. If the leader presents as someone learning alongside the teachers, you will have more subscribers to this evidence of impact plan.
Step 2: Prepare Your Teachers For Coaching Conversations
After you have implemented your goal and have co-constructed some actions for implementing them into classrooms. It is time to prepare the teachers for how to have these conversations. Co-construct criteria on what matters when coaching each other and build some sentence starters to guide the conversation in a deeper, more reflective way. This gives them a clear set of expectations and a blueprint of how to engage in reflective conversations that ignite action.
Set deadlines for coaching conversations to happen before, during, and at the end of the learning. Let your teachers know well in advance so they can prepare accordingly and it does not become a bring and brag or a last minute grab. Teach them how to have cognitive coaching conversations through mini-lessons or modelling to prepare them. I also suggest setting up meetings along the way to check in with grade teams if possible.
Lastly, make sure they know how to gather proof and evidence to show how the strategy they were implementing affected the learning. Show them what they might gather (pics, work samples, videos, learning tools, etc) and ask them to bring one or two to the coaching conversation to analyze with their partner.
Step 3: Set time within meetings to have these coaching conversations on evidence of impact on a regular basis. Set a schedule in advance for the year so teachers are well aware of the checkpoint conversations and can start to implement the strategy or action with deadlines in place. Setting deadlines creates a sense of urgency and puts things into motion.
Step 4: Model your own gathering and coaching of evidence of impact. Learn alongside them, implement an action and gather proof and evidence to analyze with a colleague at the same time. This will go a long way!
There you have it! This is a coaching system for leaders to implement with teachers in order to ignite action and improve efficacy for all. Michael Fullan (2007) believes efficacy is a vital factor in successful implementation of change. With this in mind, schools and systems across Canada and beyond have found that the model and stance of coaching is a significant way to positively impact on teachers’ feeling of efficacy (Costa and Garmston, 2002). If we continue to work on instilling coaching conversations of evidence of impact between teachers we have a real shot at changing despair to hope, rigidity to flexibility of thought and action, and a chance for blame to be transformed into the ability to envision possibilities and take action towards it.
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Goddard, R., Hoy, W. K., & Woolfolk Hoy, A. (2000, June). Collective Teacher Efficacy: Its Meaning, Measure, and Impact on Student Achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 2(37).
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