We don’t often aim for easy.

Easy workouts won’t make you stronger, and easy books won’t make you smarter. Then why aim to make reflection easy?

While it’s true that work must get harder if we’re going to get better, the first step is making sure the work happens on a regular basis. In other words, before you raise the intensity, you need to have consistency.

This is why reflection must be easy – at first. So it can become a routine.

Floss one tooth

Dr. BJ Fogg, Stanford psychology researcher, uses the phrase “floss one tooth” to explain how to make a habit stick. The secret is to make it easy, laughably so.

Don’t try to build the habit of flossing all of your teeth, he says. Instead, commit to the tiny habit of flossing one tooth.

When your goal is so small the brain can’t say no, you build momentum, and eventually a habit that’s part of your routine.

The reflection habit

Over the past few months, we’ve been working on tools that help teachers build the foundational habit for professional growth: a reflection routine.

While we’re still early, we’re iterating fast and noticing a few factors that make reflection easier for teachers, and therefore encourage them to do it.

We’re gradually tuning our approach to make reflection attractive for teachers. We’ve also cut away things that might get in the way of making reflection a habit.

Simple

Through our decade-plus working with schools on video PD projects, we learned that the power of video comes with some complexity, too. There’s hardware to set up, self-consciousness to overcome, and files to manage.

Our belief in video is still strong. But now we’re simplifying the process, so reflection happens much more often.

Consistent

We believe that reflection should follow a consistent format, and within some reasonable variance, a consistent schedule. The fewer decisions that need to be made about the work, the more energy there is to focus on the work.

A consistent reflection practice makes it easier to see progress and identify the need for adjustments.

Connected

A teacher walks into school, enters their classroom, and often works without any other adults. On busy days, a teacher may only exchange passing words with colleagues.

However, teachers crave and need meaningful professional collaboration. Part of the approach to reflection we’re developing is aimed at breaking down silos and helping to facilitate this kind of collaboration.

A hopeful data point we’ve seen is that teachers are eager to respond to reflection prompts we share on social media. When talking with or getting feedback from like-minded educators, teachers are eager to do the intellectual work of reflection in a connected environment.

We’re continuing to build ways to make reflection connected into Sessions, part of Teams by Swivl. (Now known as Reflectivity.)

To start, make it Positive

Most recently, we’ve stumbled on a small intermediate step towards making reflection a habit. That step is make it Positive, i.e. share a win.

Both in Sessions and our public reflection conversations happening through #reflectED, teachers prefer to first engage by sharing a recent positive event. This makes sense because sharing a reflection of this kind is safer.

After a positive experience is shared and respectfully received, both parties gain a bit of trust in each other that can be built upon for deeper reflection and growth.

What if we make professional growth inevitable?

If you never go beyond flossing one tooth, eventually you’ll get cavities. If you never go beyond sharing recent teaching wins, you’ll leave most of your growth on the table.

But in both cases, the same principle holds true. After you build a habit, making progress gets easier.

When reflection becomes a habit, professional growth becomes inevitable.

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Reflection is the essential act for teacher growth, and instructional coaches are essential partners in helping teachers reflect. 

With this in mind, we asked four instructional coaches from the Swivl community about the role of reflection in teacher-coach relationships. Their comments have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Why is written reflection important for teachers?

Erica Beals, Instructional Coach at Waukee Schools in Iowa: Written reflection provides a layer of processing. When I meet with a teacher, sometimes the meeting is filled with emotion based on how the days has been. But when they have time to process, it eliminates some of the emotion because they’ve had that release already.

Then my questions will come in: I noticed on your reflection you said there was time wasted. What changes could we make, or what shifts would you like to see to eliminate that wasted time? So I never take an approach of telling teachers it should look like this. My questions are always going to be reflective in nature to allow them that realization of what’s taking away their energy or what their students might need. 

I want to take my teachers from where they are to where they want to be with their goals. That requires them to take steps forward without any of my intentions or beliefs pushing through.

How do instructional coaches help teachers set goals for reflection?

Erica: We usually start with a wide net and focus on our universal instruction, our tier one instruction.

We ask, what are we doing to meet all of our students? Within that, we look at academic work or behavior. I have checklists we might work through, asking, for example, How often are you sharing agendas with your students?

As an instructional coaching team in our district, we’ve created a number of tools that help us narrow in on a teacher’s goals. They include questions such as, How often do you provide a multitude of opportunities for students to reflect on their learning? How do you anticipate behavioral challenges? How do you create an emotionally safe space?

By having my teachers utilize these tools, and reviewing their responses together, we’re able to hone in on a goal together. Then, as we’re watching our videos, we’re reflecting through that lens. 

How do you help teachers build a reflective mindset?

Debbie Slocum, Instructional Coach at Byron-Bergen Schools in New York: Newer teachers are overwhelmed.  Every day they’re putting out fires, and they’re making 8,000 decisions. 

I will ask them, On your ride home, what is it that comes to mind? What do you feel in your gut? What is it that’s making you a little bit anxious? I try to help them pinpoint that with questions. 

Then, I say, don’t overwhelm yourself with the globalness of a classroom. Just focus on the thing that bothers you. It could be one kiddo that never raises his hand. Or someone who never finishes their work. Then we start to reflect on that.

From there we focus on, What can you do that works for you, but especially works for that child? 

Reflection has to be continuous. It has to be a priority because everything’s changing. Our expectations for the kids keep changing. Technologies keep changing, and culture is changing. There’s a need for continuous reflection to keep up with the changes. 

What role does autonomy play in encouraging teachers to reflect?

Mandi Olson, Instructional Coach at Alpine School District in Utah: For any coaching process to work, teachers have to be involved in choosing what they want to work on. 

At first, teachers may choose something they already feel confident about. If it’s the first time they’re working with me, they deserve the right to develop a spirit of vulnerability and trust with me. If they want to show me that they’re good at something, that’s okay. That’s a start, and it’s a way in for me.

How do instructional coaches use reflection to balance teacher needs and district goals?

Mandi:  At our school, we want teachers to be diagnosing, intervening and evaluating their impact every day. Especially for new teachers, that’s a lot. 

After we have classroom management and procedures under control at the beginning of the year, we ask, What’s your learning intention? What’s your success criteria? How are you going to know that kids meet it every day? How are you stating that to kids? Can I walk in the room and ask a student what they’re learning, why they’re learning it, and what success looks like? That’s our goal.

We try to direct teachers that way because those are general enough statements that you can direct any lesson there. If there’s something else teachers want to focus on, we can work on that, too. But if we don’t have a clear learning target and clear success criteria every day, then that’s a good place to start with a new teacher.

How does reflection lead to teacher growth?

Brenda Tomanek, Instructional Coach at El Campo ISD in Texas: Reflection leads to us becoming self-aware.  

This is a trait that isn’t the easiest for many of us to acquire because it requires us to be vulnerable, humble, and self-critical at times.  As an instructional coach, it is my job to make sure the teacher doesn’t become too self-critical. I encourage them to use their reflection and self-awareness to improve their skill set. 

I have to let them not look at missteps in the classroom as failures but as stepping stones toward improvement.

Coaches have been trained to ask reflective questions. More than likely, the teacher will come up with what he or she needs to change through reflective questioning. They may not always know how to change it, but they can see what needs to change.

I’m reminded of the quote from Henry Ford, “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.” Reflection is the key piece that has to be there for a teacher to grow.

The post Four instructional coaches explain why reflection is essential for teacher growth appeared first on Swivl.

My professor left this note on the reflections he required during my semester of student teaching.

He was right – I did get lots of value from the routine. During this first real teaching experience, I received a barrage of information from my teacher prep classes and the results of lessons I was teaching. Reflection helped me make meaning from it all.

What I could not express then was that reflection was the perfect routine for maximizing my growth during this early stage of my career. I now realize that responding to those teacher reflection questions turned my daily experiences into lessons I could refer back to for years to come.

When administrators put reflection at the heart of new teacher programs, early career educators have a chance to thrive.

Make new teacher support more generative and less additive

Teachers have more to process in the first few years than at any other time. 

Each day brings new experiences and new information. Curriculum, policies, student data, and more. Then there’s the emotional experience. New teachers feel the joys and challenges of the job for the first time, leading to an understanding of the phrase “teacher tired.” 

If given a chance to pause and process, new teachers navigating have a unique opportunity for growth. All it takes is a few minutes per week of reflection. 

Reflection is a generative act. In other words, it builds on the thoughts and feelings teachers already have. It does not add to new teachers’ plates, but helps them digest what’s there.

Massachusetts mentor sees reflection for new teachers lead to growth

Not only does reflection for new teachers lead to growth, but it helps coaches and mentors improve, too.

Jeremy Brunaccioni is a 20-year elementary teacher from Massachusetts who supports new teachers as a mentor. During a recent new teacher partnership, reflection led to growth for both the new teacher and Jeremy. 

“I think [reflection] was beneficial to the both of us,” Jeremy noted. “For me, it was often reaffirming for my practice and would sometimes lead to new ideas. For him, it was an opportunity to think about how he might tweak a lesson, react differently to a student, or differentiate a lesson.”

For reflection to yield its true benefits, it has to be ongoing, as Jeremy observed. 

“We quickly fell into a pattern of identifying areas we wanted to refine and were able to support one another. We chose teacher language as a focus and both made gains during the course of the year,” he said.

As both mentors and new teachers bring their reflective approach to their classrooms and interactions with colleagues, it can have a transformative ripple effect on the entire organization.

It all starts with a simple goal

With new teachers already busy, reflection could be considered “one more thing.” But the beauty of reflection is in its simplicity. It takes little time, and makes other time spent more productive.

Reflecting with Sessions requires just two steps: setting a goal at the beginning of the week, and reflecting on it by the end.

Including goals as part of the reflection process is important for two reasons:

• Goal-setting helps new teachers build self-awareness. Setting a goal requires teachers to identify areas of their practice where they want to grow, and define challenges in need of solutions.

• Goals keep reflections focused. Without a goal, reflections can become meandering. However, a goal keeps the reflection focused and productive.

When channeled through reflection, new teachers’ energy and ideas become renewable fuel for growth. Concerns and anxieties become catalysts for finding solutions. 

It all starts with setting a simple goal to revisit by the end of the week.

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Educators often hear, “The best PD is just down the hall.” 

While there’s much to learn from collaborating with colleagues, you can take this saying a step further: “The best PD is in your own classroom.”

This saying points to the value of making reflection part of your routine. Reflection is a habit that “allows teachers, student teachers, and teaching assistants to understand themselves, their personal philosophies, and the dynamics of their classroom more deeply.”

It only takes a few minutes per week to reflect, partner with a peer to get feedback, and take action towards incremental changes in your everyday routine. Those small changes become habits, and those habits become automatic. You can then move onto more complex challenges, beginning a virtuous cycle of improvement.

The new Sessions for Reflection helps you turn reflection into a weekly routine without turning on a camera. At its heart, Sessions for Reflection is a writing process that helps educators dig deeper on their own, and make collaboration more productive and insightful.

How Sessions for Reflection works

Step 1: Set a Goal

Goals are the backbone of the reflection process. Even micro goals, set on a weekly basis, can start to make a difference in your thinking and how you approach your classroom environment. We recommend starting each week with a small goal, and as you gain more confidence and time, increase the rigor.

Examples of goals: 

• Increase my wait time between asking questions
• Practice closing the redirection loop to positively encourage behavior change
• Model identifying negative feelings and how to reconcile them in the presence of my peers

Step 2: (Optional) Incorporate Video Evidence

Video evidence is helpful when you want to add more context. Remember this is completely optional! When you are ready to incorporate video evidence, you will always have the opportunity to do so after setting your goal. 

Pro Tip: To simplify review and cut down on annotation time, limit your video evidence to 10 minutes in length. If you would like to incorporate an existing video from your library, our trim and cut tool has got you covered.

Step 3: Reflect 

As you’re wrapping up for the week, it’s time to think, wonder, and articulate how well you’re meeting or exceeding your goal for the week. Use the Reflection page to explain what went well and what you’ll need to work on in the future to realize this goal or embark on a new one.

Step 4: (Optional) Ask for feedback

Reflection alone can only go so far in determining your next steps. Involving a partner will help you accelerate your thinking. Just hearing your ideas reflected back to you helps you step back and process those ideas differently. You might shift the way you think about your most important takeaways and next steps as a result.

Pro Tip: You can share a Session with your peer through Direct Share. Your peer’s steps are simple:

• Review your Goal;
• Annotate your video (only applicable if a video is present)
• And post their own Reflection, perhaps offering you some next steps or advice for the future

If you need any support with Sessions or our other tools for reflection, contact us at support@swivl.com.

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Teams by Swivl is honored to have been recognized as a winner of Tech & Learning magazine’s  Awards of Excellence: Best of 2021 for the Secondary Education category, a first of its kind award for Swivl.

With winners announced in 2022, the awards program celebrates edtech products that exceptionally supported teachers and students in Primary, Secondary, and/or Higher Education in 2021. Teams by Swivl software solved a pressing challenge for educators by providing effective coaching insight and fostering professional development and growth.

Over the past few years, educators have worked to deal with increases in student mental health and behavioral issues caused by the pandemic and the response to it. Schools and districts have turned to Teams by Swivl for easier, faster, and more convenient teacher support through self-reflection, peer collaboration and coaching. It all revolves around discussions of classroom video that happen in Teams. 

With appreciation and gratitude for such an honor, we’d like to share how Teams by Swivl supports teaching and learning:

• Teams by Swivl helps teachers and students grow their skills and demonstrate achievement. Used via mobile or desktop applications, Teams allows educators the opportunity to securely upload and view videos for self-reflection, peer collaboration, coaching, as well as new teacher preparation and training.
  
• The Sessions feature in Teams by Swivl gives teachers, coaches and administrators a clear and actionable way to give feedback over classroom video, maximizing the impact of each video shared and discussed within the platform.
  
• With Swivl Robots providing 360° views of the classroom, and Teams’ screencasting functionality, Teams allows students to feel connected to their lesson in a meaningful and authentic way, whether watching live, in-person, or remotely. Additionally, usage of annotation tools inside Teams highlights key components of lessons for students’ review, making lessons interactive with educators. 
  
• When students feel connected to a thriving learning community, both students and teachers succeed. Teams by Swivl addresses SEL in providing that connection, with coaching and mentoring providing the opportunity for students to share challenges and celebrate triumphs.
  

As we look ahead in 2022, we are reminded that regular self-reflection and video coaching is vital for post-pandemic recovery and beyond. Swivl will be here to support educators every step of the way.

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Relationships among educators and with students are foundational to the positive culture you create in your school community. As we shared in our recent blog, Why Video Coaching is Important This Fall, “teachers who have a strong, trusting relationship with their coach or mentor can use that relationship as a model of what to build with each student they teach.”  When educators participate in video-based coaching it is imperative that the tools they use facilitate respect, trust, and instructive communication to help sustain strong relationships.

We already know video is the ideal medium for observations because the most actionable feedback is gained from gathering and examining evidence of a teacher’s practice in a real classroom setting. Unlike in-person observations, videos portray authentic classroom environments where both teacher and students can act naturally, unencumbered by a visitor. When videos depict authentic classroom experiences, feedback becomes more specific and leads to greater growth outcomes too. Feedback tools like our Time-Stamped Annotation also make it easy for educators to set goals, track their progress, and communicate about what was observed in class. 

This is why Swivl is making feedback a priority with our Teams product release today, with Sessions.

Sessions make for better feedback

Feedback without clarity results in confusion. Classroom observations should have clear intentions. In our newest feature, Sessions, we’ve made it so you set your Intention upfront. As with many meaningful activities associated with delivering feedback, the first step is to define your “look-fors” not only for yourself but for your feedback partners. Important questions to ask yourself when setting an Intention for your video:

• What do you hope to accomplish in this video? 
• Does the evidence you will record allow you an opportunity to achieve your Intention? If not, before you proceed it might be helpful to go back and record another short segment of the instruction that allows you to explore the context of your Intention. 
• Where do you want your viewers to focus so they know how to reflect, question, and comment throughout your video?

Example: “In this math lesson, I would like to analyze which students struggle when I ask them to describe the method they chose to arrive at their answer.”

To continue your Session make sure to provide feedback, in the form of Time-Stamped Annotation on the video. This is the real “meat” so be clear with your response. The more time you take to reflect on what evidence you choose to address, the more evidence there will be for others  to respond to and reflect on. This is also a great time to highlight your “glows” and identify your “grows” with Web Bookmarking. Start comments with Prompts for guidance, and utilize Rubrics that tie into your organization’s coaching or self-reflection frameworks. When combined, these tools pave the way for structured, meaningful feedback on every observable teaching practice exhibited throughout the video.

When you are finished with Time-Stamped Annotations, it is time to consider the entire observation, summarize your experience, and define next steps.

Specifically: 

• Did you meet the Intention you set? 
• If not, what will you do differently next time? 
• What are your next steps from here?
• How will you use what you learned in this video to impact other areas of your instruction going forward? 

Example: “I learned that a majority of students in my green group struggled with describing the methodology they chose to develop the answer to the problems. In my next video, I’ll work on some new strategies to help them break down those building blocks of problem-solving and utilize scaffolded questioning to help them answer my targeted question around methodology.”

We have left ample room for you to develop a meaningful Summary response so take your time when using this space to conclude your actions in this Session.

Watch this 30-second video on Sessions to see just how easy it really is.

We hope that these improvements will bring greater purpose for your experience inside Teams so you can focus on the heart of the observation process: Clear and prescriptive feedback based on video evidence.

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