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.

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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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