UCLA SMP EdNews, May 2005

by Patricia Martinez-Miller, UCLA SMP Director of Faculty

"Coaching is unlocking a person's potential to maximize their own performance.  
It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them."
—John Whitmore

"The perfect strokes are already within us waiting to be discovered,
and the role of the coach is to give nudging encouragement."
—Tim Gallwey

Recently, UCLA SMP faculty delved into our own growing understanding of coaching with a desire to deepen our capacity to be effective coaches. If you see your work more as "helping students learn rather than teaching them," the resources suggested below might be useful to you, too.

A model of coaching that we have been experimenting with in the big and little coaching opportunities of our professional lives is called GROW Coaching. It is purposeful and not at all contrived.   We learned about this coaching model with consultant Rebecca Bradley, and have been working on making it "second nature." Some of us find ourselves shifting into "GROW" mode almost automatically when we work with groups and individuals who are curious about improving their practice. In fact, in a pinch, we have discovered that it is even possible to self-coach when we feel stuck around an issue or situation! It is all based on questions:

What would you like to accomplish?
How will you know you are getting there?
What is happening now?
What might you do? What else?
Of these options, what is a powerful next step?

As you think about coaching—whether you will be the coach or the person coached—you might find it helpful to consider:

Purpose: being clear on what you are trying to achieve helps you know what type of coaching to seek or offer. Many effective coaching models exist. They run the gamut from skills-based modeling to peer and partnership coaching.

Mutuality: understanding that a coaching relationship is a relationship of trust and reciprocity. In an effective coaching relationship both coach and coachee will learn and grow.

The "novice to expert" continuum: realizing we are all on this continuum, usually at different places in different areas. What a coachee needs and wants varies according to the place on the continuum at the moment.

Invitation: wanting to be coached is essential to the success of the effort. Coaching has the greatest result when coach and coachee design together what the outcome of coaching will be.

Coach, teacher, mentor, colleague—sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. What a good thing!

[With additional contributions by Barbara Linsley, UCLA SMP Faculty]

As a result of our work with Rebecca Bradley, we at UCLA SMP have endeavored to make the GROW Coaching Model a part of our work.  Below are some resources that you can use to explore this coaching style for yourself and others:

Rebecca Bradley's affiliation is with Partnership Coaching. Their web site has many resources and articles available.

The GROW Coaching Model is a cyclical way to look at goal setting and next steps. The Coaching Session Guide is an informed way to practice this model, and can be supporting by some helpful Coaching Questions. [These three documents are in downloadable PDF format; you will need Adobe Acrobat to view them.]

John Whitmore, the developer of the GROW model, expands upon it in Coaching for Performance: GROWing People, Performance and Purpose, 3rd Edition. [London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2000.]

In our last issue, we asked our readers, "In what ways have you used technology to enhance student learning and achievement in your classroom or school?"

Ana Sosa, a teacher at Madrid Middle School in Mountain View School District, shared with us her experiences in creating a Math Technology Club at her school.  As part of a course she took at Pepperdine University, Ana created a digital portfolio of the project, detailing all the stages of development. One exciting aspect of the Math Technology Club pertains to the school's Open House night, in which students used computers and other resources to teach and work with their parents on math problems (photos and video clips are available at this site).

For this month’s topic:

"How has a particular instance of coaching or being coached affected your work?"

Let us know some of your experiences with coaching and its effects on your leadership or teaching practice. Please click here to add your responses to this month's combined brainpower. We will share some of your ideas in a future issue of EdNews.

Behind the scenes at UCLA SMP is a group of staff and faculty dedicated to the success of preK-12 public schools. Since 1993, these individuals have devoted countless hours to supporting UCLA SMP's work in our public school communities. Although someone's personal and professional journey may not keep them at UCLA SMP forever, they have remained committed to their work in education. From time to time, SMP EdNews will share with you their continuing accomplishments and contributions.

MaryAnn Ahart has an M.A. in theater from the University of Illinois and a B.A. in speech and theater from Heidelberg College, Ohio. Trained in mediation at the National Center for Collaborative Planning and Community Services, MaryAnn specializes in conflict resolution, high performance teams, team decision-making and leadership in learning organizations. Since 1979, she has been an organizational consultant to health care organizations and school districts across the nation and to educational institutions including the California Institute of Technology and Dartmouth College. Her business clients have ranged from companies such as Ben & Jerry's, Hewlett-Packard, Rank Xerox, Digital Equipment Corporation and Wells Fargo Bank to organizations as diverse as the Electric Council of New England and the Bermuda Employers' Council. She has taught for over 20 years at the high school and university level in communication and theater. Before joining UCLA SMP, MaryAnn was process consultant to the Los Angeles Learning Centers, a New American School design.

While at UCLA SMP, MaryAnn brought a unique approach to our work with public schools. She deeply believes in the power of "Systems Thinking"—a theory which focuses on how something that is being studied interacts with the other constituents of its system. The theory takes into account larger and larger numbers of these interactions with the system, rather than breaking down and studying its smaller parts. (Daniel Aronson, "Overview of Systems Thinking" http://www.thinking.net)

When MaryAnn left full-time work with UCLA SMP, she returned to consulting with other organizations, focusing on the Systems work that she believed in while working at UCLA. She continues to study systems with several people who challenge her thinking when she thinks she understands it. Current projects, even the pro bono work for her favorite causes, include facilitating tough discussions that align an organization's structures around their beliefs and visions and coaching on leadership issues. Of course, she continues to talk to everyone about that pesky Action-Belief link in everything we do. MaryAnn reflects on her work at UCLA as a time of deep learning for her, both from her colleagues and the school personnel they worked with, and continues to talk about those who continue the work with great love and respect.

She and her husband, John, are finishing a book on partnerships that they have been writing for five years, The Gift of Two, and they have done several workshops on that topic and a theatre piece against war. Her daughter had twin sons a year ago; she delights in seeing them and hearing them babble on the phone. She still does not do yoga, paint or exercise regularly—or solve the world hunger problelm. Ah, there is that Action-Belief thing again.

"Coaching and conferring take courage. ... This is especially true if we are new at conferring
and aren't at all sure what to research or decide, say or teach. ... But we mustn't be too timid to try. 
Our wisdom, our experience, and our teaching are too valuable to run untapped within us. ...
Our children deserve our bravest selves."
—Lucy McCormick Calkins, The Art of Teaching Reading  

• "Metacognition: How We Know What We Know"

• This Month in UCLA SMP History

• Ask SMP / Ask Your Colleagues: In future editions, we will share our responses to some of your questions (and, sometimes, use those questions as the basis for future Combined Brainpower topics).  If you have any questions regarding your teaching practice or other issues at the school site, please click here to Ask SMP.  We will include your questions and our answers in future editions.

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A nonprofit school reform initiative of the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies and The Anderson School, the UCLA School Management Program (UCLA SMP) is devoted to the sustainable transformation of public schools into learner-centered organizations where all students can achieve at high levels.

UCLA SMP works with educators, administrators, and community members to create well-managed schools, to enhance teacher effectiveness, and to improve student achievement through professional development leading to personal transformation and community building.

Since the program was launched in 1992, UCLA SMP has worked with over 700 schools in districts throughout California.