I just had an interesting “end-of-year” conversation with a 2^nd year coach from a middle school outside of Pennsylvania. She called to ask me about the gradual release of responsibility and what that meant to her role as a coach. She had two questions: 1) if I encourage teachers to teach without me modeling, what will I do for them; and 2) if they don’t need my anymore, won’t I move myself out of a job?

First things first… I asked her to define instructional coaching and her understanding of the instructional coach’s role. Then I asked her to make three columns: 1) how does she regularly engage with teachers; what are the administrator’s expectations of an effective instructional coaching model; and what do the teachers understand about instructional coaching? From there, we moved onto what each column has in common, where do the expectations align with the realities, and what does she spend the majority of her time doing.

I’m simplifying the conversation but you get the gist… by asking some important questions, the coach began to realize that what she thought she should do and what the teachers and administrator thought she should do were really not in sync. In fact, she realized that the teachers expected her to model without the benefit of the “before” and the “after” and the administrators expected her to raise student standardized test scores even though the tests were summative and by the time she saw those results, the students would no longer be with the same teachers.

So, the question was really not about the gradual release of responsibility but rather about sharing a vision and implementing an effective instructional coaching model that focused on school wide improvement and addressed teacher needs so student learning could be impacted.

Ask the right questions and the answers are so revealing.

As a coach, how do you ensure that the questions asked are really the questions that should be asked?