Morphing from a Tech Coach into an Instructional Coach . . . is it worth it?

As the Technology Coach for the HS, everything that "plugs in or goes bing" (as my former principal used to say) falls into my domain.  But sometimes, the boundaries seem to get stretched, blurred, bent and twisted out of shape so that other non-tech things seem to end up on my plate, for better or for worse.  Case in point . . . over a year ago I was asked to lead a committee for examining how our school could move towards Standards-based assessment and reporting, and to eliminate some of the toxic grading practices of the traditional gradebook.  The committee that I was asked to lead was focussed on separating a student's Approaches to Learning (AtL) grade from their Achievement grade, and how to assess the AtLs by creating a rubric that the whole school could use and adapt.  I was chosen to lead this committee because I have a lot of experience in the classroom working in a Standards-based system, and I was already well-versed in separating the AtL behaviours from a student's Achievement.  The committee did its job and fulfilled these two huge goals successfully, but I think that this was the starting point for my transition from being a Tech Coach, into an Instructional Coach . . . it all started here.

Last year, the school started down the road of transitioning to a Standards-based system for assessment and reporting with the hope that we would get there in a year's time.  Ambitious for sure, and very challenging for the school community (teachers, students and parents alike) as predominantly, they were not familiar with this kind of system.  But even the best of plans sometimes fail or take unexpected turns, and this school goal did just that.  Our year-long implementation was forcefully changed into a 2 month implementation (but that is another story for another venue), which in turn forced the school to immediately implement a new online electronic gradebook which could handle Standards-based assessment and reporting.  So you can see where I come into the picture . . .

So I am put in charge of implementing and testing this new system (Easy Grade Pro Web), training the faculty to use the new electronic gradebook, and distribute the new system to the end consumers . . . our students and their parents.  All of this in the short span of a few weeks.  It was a monumental task, which I jumped on along with Tech Services who had to install the new system.  After getting the system up and running, I focussed on testing the system and nailing down how we were going to rollout, launch and train EGPWeb with the entire HS faculty.  

In conducting the gradebook set up and training with the faculty in small departmental groups and through individual workshops, most of my time was absorbed by discussions revolving around Standards-based assessment and reporting rather than "things that go bing".  We talked at length about the separation of the AtL Standards vs Achievement Standards, what the Achievement standards would be for each department or subject area, how these standards could be modelled in the gradebook, and the primary differences between a traditional gradebook and a Standards-based one.  Everyone's need to have their gradebook online and fully functional was driving the training with EGPWeb.  This in turn was forcing faculty to come to terms with Standards-based assessment, and I could not conduct the gradebook setup workshops unless departments knew what they wanted for their Standards of assessment.  And so the story goes . . . I was in charge of getting everyone up and running with their gradebooks, which quickly morphed into me being the main go-to person for anything and everything related to Standards-based assessment.

For me, the change was rapid and in many ways natural . . . I worked with the faculty to get to where we all needed to be, in a very short amount of time.  Looking back on that period of time, it was completely frenetic, full of energy (some positive and lots of negative) and brimming over with spite at times.  There was a lot of pressure - internally to get this done right, and externally to move the faculty forward when they did not want to move anywhere.  It was stressful - some teachers were simply not on board with the school-wide goal of moving to Standards-based assessment, so they resisted the training that I was trying to deliver.  My principal was very supportive with getting these individuals to step-on-board, as the ship was sailing and pulling away from the dock (so to speak).  We were all following directives that were coming from senior administration and the board, but some staff saw me as the frontman for everything Standards-based assessment, and took out their frustrations, anger and fear on me . . . not fun!

This is the part that I have been thinking about since last year . . . as the Tech Coach for the HS I have to work alongside and with all of my faculty.  Due to the volatile and contentious nature of this whole project, my changing role came as an unwelcome surprise to me, and in some ways, undermines the relationships that I have built with the faculty as a whole.  Many staff are now on-board with Standards-based assessment, but some others are still stuck in their familiar, traditional practices.  Some of these folks relate me to this whole change (which they fear and loath), rather than to educational technology.  This is where I lose.  This is where we all lose.  Something that has only loose connections with technology has negatively impacted my computing karma in the school.  As a Tech Coach, the relationships that you build with your faculty are equally as important as your NOWledge, skills and experience put together.  So is it really worth it?  I don't really know at this point.  Some faculty seem to be able to separate in their minds my role with tech and what I did for the school in terms of helping to bring in Standards-based assessment.  But others cannot.  And I am now being thrust into a similar role as the "guru" in the HS, as the MS follows our lead.  I have coined a phrase to describe this somewhat helpless feeling of being stuck in situations like this . . . "guilty by competence".  Which raises the question in my mind, do I really want to go through this again?

Have you ever been put into a role which has really changed how you work with faculty and how they perceive you?  How do you handle the negativity surrounding "the job" when it really has nothing to do with you and what you are doing?  How do keep your role compartmentalised and within the boundaries set out by your job description . . . and not be sucked into the vortex of work?

Why Tech Coaching is kind of like riding the Tour de Pologne

 . . . year after year after year . . .

Over the summer, as I caught some glimpses of the Tour de France on tv, I couldn't help thinking about the similarities (and differences) between Tech Coaching and operating/coaching a cycling team.  At first, the similarities were obvious and plentiful, but as the analogy grew in my mind, the many differences became apparent and a little bit amusing.  So let me explain my thinking . . .

This is my "fifth running of the Tour de Pologne", and it has been a frustrating yet adventurous, tantalizing but in some ways disappointing race over the years.  Each year, e results have improved, and in some respects the team has been completely victorious, but the race never ends, there is always another race to run, and sometimes the team results are middling at best.  Sounds pretty strange, right? Well, being a Tech Coach is like being a cycling team coach in many ways, and traversing the school year is like running a team on a major tour event like Giro or the big one - the Tour de France. But my school is not the biggest fish in the big pond of international schools, so I thought that I should not compare it with the most prestigious cycling race in the world.  As we are in Poland, which hosts one of the bigger cycling tours in Europe, I felt the analogy is a little cleaner with the Tour de Pologne . . . the obvious choice in the end.

As I prepare for this coming school year, and reflect on the previous one, I have been thinking about how it must feel to be a cycling team coach . . . and how it is so similar to my role as a Tech Coach working with the faculty at my school.  My role as a coach allows me to work with a group of professionals to improve and move forward as a team over the course of the year.  During a race, the coach would ride in the support vehicle day after day, running in front/behind/beside the riders on your team.  When something breaks down you have to stop and help to fix it.  You have to continually communicate with your team as the overall strategy changes throughout the stages of the race, as accidents happen along the way, or as fatigue and injuries disrupt the team.  As a coach, you have to help manage the team members to work together effectively and efficiently or they will never finish.  In the end, the glory goes to the winner, but they will never even finish the race without the complete support of their team.

On a cycling team, you would have all manner of riders, including front runners and break-away artists, hill climbing specialists, sprinters, supporting team members and others who like to ride in the pack, seasoned veterans and young up-and-comers with lots of potential.  As team coach, you have to encourage and support everyone on the spectrum as they are all on your team and you are going to finish as a team.  Can you see where I am going with this?  My team of faculty still has a wide range of talents, interests and abilities with educational technology, much like the specialists on a cycling team.  There are the sprinters - who will tackle any new technology quickly and efficiently.  There are the hill climbers - who will take on the heavy lifting and the big jobs without complaint, methodically moving forward and upwards.  There are the support members - happy to follow the pack and help the whole team move forward.  And there are the front-runners - who are always pushing the pace and driving everyone ahead.  On first glance, Tech Coaching is just like coaching a cycling team through the Tour de Pologne, but with some huge differences . . . and frustrating complications.  

 

Keeping with the bike racing analogy, imagine if you had to deal with some of the following problems during the course of a race:

• having members on your team who do not want to ride or even look at a bike
• giving everyone on your new team new equipment for the upcoming race, but they give it back to you because they don't know how to use it . . . and people say fill in the blank is just like riding a bike?!?
• breakaway artists who just want to go out hard right from the start, but have no idea where the course is (so they end up hopelessly lost or out of touch with the rest of the team)
• riders who are quite content to be pulled along in the peloton day after day, never really contributing to the success or failure of the team . . . they are just content to be there
• team members who seem to always be distracted by the equipment that the other teams are using, or are continually focused on any new bike technology that is being developed/used somewhere else
• stragglers who are happy to be left behind in the race and just want to left alone, never to finish any stage of the tour

If working with a group of faculty were as easy as coaching and managing a cycling team, then things would be golden. You see, in my annual race, I do not have control over the makeup of the team that I work with, nor do I have any input into the breakdown of the "specialists" on the team. The problem areas mentioned above are real and always present, in my current school, in my pasts schools, in any school.  With the natural turnover of faculty in international schools, there will always be a wide range of talent, abilities and interests when it comes to educational technology.  It's just part of the job.  It's the nature of the beast.  Unless leading the ed tech race is the primary goal of the senior leadership of the school, then we will always have varied results each year.  Again, it's the nature of the beast.  The race never ends and you never actually win (or lose) the race . . . it just goes on.  So I do not mean to whine or complain here - this is just my thoughts and observations.  I can be the best coach in the world, but unless everyone is on the same page with the same goal in mind (year after year) then the results will never be truly great . . . just good or satisfactory . . . or worse!  If you want lasting change, then it all comes down to school culture, which we all know is very difficult and slow to change, especially when you are not in a position of senior leadership.

So my challenge is how to help guide the breakaway artist, to staying on the course.  Or getting the reluctant rider back onto the bike and to the finish line (whether its their first time on e bike, or after a big crash).  Or turning the peloton support rider into a mountain climbing specialist.  Do I have all of the answers on how to accomplish all of these tasks?  Nope, not at all.  Every rider on the team is an individual work in progress.  I guess I have to take consolation in making the team just a little bit better each year.  I guess that is one of the main differences between being a faculty/peer coach, rather than my old job as a classroom teacher . . . students eventually finish your course and cross the finish line.  Being stuck on the tour just means that once this year's race is done, it's just time to start preparing for the next one.  

So are you a tech or instructional coach?  How do you deal with this difference between teaching students and coaching faculty?  How cohesive is your team, and how do you keep everyone on course?