Design, Build, Try Again: Using Practice-Based Coaching to Support Teachers of Young Engineers

Design, Build, Try Again: Using Practice-Based Coaching to Support Teachers of Young Engineers

Coaching Corner

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Welcome, everybody, to this month's Coaching Corner webinar, Design, Build, Try Again: Using Practice-Based Coaching to Support Teachers of Young Engineers. My name is Kristin. I'm with Vanderbilt University and supporting the work of NCQTL, the National Center on Quality Teaching and Learning. Before I introduce our presenter for today, I just want to take some time to share a bit about our series, our webinar series, and certainly our time together today. So some of you know that this is really an ongoing webinar series, and each month we introduce a special topic and then we explore practice-based coaching. It's really this way of building a bridge toward best practice and toward improving the knowledge and practice of those caring for and educating young children and improving outcomes for young children.

So, here we go. Today's topic: Design, Build, Try Again: Using Practice-Based Coaching to Support Teachers of Young Engineers. And our presenter will walk us through components of practice-based coaching as well as identify approaches and strategies that coaches can use with the teachers as we really recognize that effective coaching helps educators become more intentional in their practice, and it also provides a nice platform for supporting young children's positive outcomes in all developmental areas. So at this time, I really want to welcome our presenter and someone who I've had the luxury of spending time with throughout the past few years, Kristin Ainslie. So, welcome, Kristin.

Kristin Ainslie: Thank you, Kristin. I'm excited to be here.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Oh, glad you're here. Kristin is a curriculum specialist with the National Center on Quality Teaching and Learning, a former teacher as well. And so we feel very fortunate to have her here with us today. Thanks again, Kristin.

Kristin Ainslie: Absolutely. Thank you.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: And so several of you know, if you've been on with us before, we always like to kind of start our Coaching Corner webinars to get to know one another, put faces with the voices that you hear each month. Certainly one of our goals is to continue building a coaching community during these monthly webinars. And, again, all these wonderful hellos in the chat box, we are so fortunate to have time with all of you today. So what you can see here is a photograph. And it's not me, and it may not even look like anything around engineering at first glance. This happens to be my brother and also my oldest daughter. And again, this may not feel engineering-ish, but when I give you some context, maybe there'll be some connection. So this was a few years ago. We were visiting my brother in New Mexico. And when I was growing up, I spent so much time really watching, somewhat envying, too, these creations that my brother was able to come up with using Lincoln Logs, using blocks, I mean, you name it. He was planning and designing structures like moment to moment, and every day, and had very little direction from my parents. I mean, he just created it and took care of his own learning and engineering around things. As he got older, he was like doing remote control helicopters. And so when I think of engineering, I think of my brother -- solving problems, using a variety of materials like designing and creating things that work, building things that work. And my daughter here, well, she kind of reminds me of my brother. In fact, she refers to him often as "the engineering dude."

Kristin Ainslie: That is great. I love that. And here's me, Kristin Ainslie here, with my three kiddos. We're trying very hard to figure out how to work our camera on our computer. We're all learning together.

And this is a series of very humorous photos. But, anyway, we like to experiment with lots of things at our house. This year, I've been really excited to be involved in the Teacher Time. I don't know if any of the teachers you work with have been watching the Teacher Time shows, but we've been focusing on STEM topics, STEAM topics. And I have to say that this is often -- there's often so many engineering type activities happening at my house. There's Lego building, there's creations, there's problem solving. My daughter is incredibly into using recycled materials. She makes these creations and sticks them on the wall. She makes shelving out of cardboard. And it's just -- it always keeps us laughing, but there's so much that goes on with engineering. There's so much going on at our house with it.

So the exciting thing is, is that the teaching practices that we'll talk about today that you can coach teachers on can be embedded into these fun and engaging engineering activities that girls and boys both often show lots and lots of interest in. So as we were looking at the grid, that was a really fun activity. I don't think I've done that one before. It did, it looked like a lot of people were comfortable maybe with some engineering practices, maybe some building, but maybe not on coaching as much. But I think that after our webinar, you'll see, okay, these are practices, these are activities that are really rich and offer so many opportunities for teachers to embed really great teaching practices so that you can observe and coach on. Okay, so today we're going to discuss how to support teachers with specific teaching practices using engineering concepts as the platform. We're going to explore examples of practice-based coaching in action and practice using coaching strategies together. And then we're going to continue building a community of coaches, as we do on these webinars. And I love that people are greeting each other over there in the general chat. It just really does already feel like a great community. So feel free to just continue that feeling.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Wonderful. You know, Kristin, I was thinking maybe we should have added an extra objective, like helping people figure out between the two Kristins, right?

Kristin Ainslie: Absolutely.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: I think we've added some photos here, so, too, you've got some faces when we're saying Kristin or Kristin. So thanks again for going over that. And several may be familiar with the practice-based coaching model, and so just letting everybody know, too, that we're going to continue holding tight to this framework as we think about supporting teachers with some very specific teaching practices that we can embed while working on engineering concepts. So we're going to talk about the steps of the model and we're certainly going to have people walk away with ideas and resources that they can use to move teachers forward as they continue to infuse engineering into the classroom. So what do you say we jump in, Kristin?

Kristin Ainslie: Excellent. Okay. So, what is engineering? When you think about engineering, we might think about the building of bridges, road construction. And we kind of are talking about that, but in the preschool years, it looks like this, of course. This is engineering -- could be engineering activities in the preschool classroom. These are some of our very favorite things as teachers that we put into our

classrooms and that we just really let children explore. And the engineering that really happens, the process of the engineering and brainstorming and problem solving piece comes when we intentionally plan for asking questions and intentionally plan the way that we want, the direction that we want the activity to go. So it involves finding out how things are constructed and work, thinking about how we can make things, structures work differently or sometimes even better. And the goal of engineering is to solve practical problems through the development of technology. That's really kind of one of its definitions. So, pretty fun, right?

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Yeah, and what a relief, because, you know, similar to the topic we explored in last month's webinar, which was science, it can seem like engineering could take on certainly a similar feel, meaning uncertainty about what does this really look like and what can it look like when learning from and with young children?

Kristin Ainslie: Here is such a common theme that we see in preschool classrooms. This little boy has created a structure maybe with some other friends included that looks like there's some bridging pieces, and I'm guessing that there's some balancing, and took some problem solving on his part to figure out what's going to go where and what's going to work. So engineering is about solving problems, using a variety of materials and designing and creating and building things that work. So it's not just about block building, but really, thinking about here's a child who's created a road and bridges with blocks. Again, lots of problem solving concepts here. And one of the teaching practices that we'll be talking about through the coaching today is helping children to problem solve, providing opportunities for children to get some really great problem solving opportunities happening. So here again, teachers can work on their instructional interactions really easily by planning fun and engaging engineering activities that involve new materials and that help children to think about concepts in new ways, doing things that children are already interested in. And I can only imagine from this photo all of the fun that's going on with these children involved, and also, all of the great teaching practices that a teacher can practice while playing with these children in this activity.

All right, so as we see these girls here creating and building, it looks like they have some manipulatives here, we have a chat question for you. So our chat question for you today is, what are the skills that children learn when teachers plan engineering activities? So think about that for a moment. Go ahead and type in the chat box. This is great. Wow, so many answers here. Balance, problem solving, collaboration, math, spatial concepts. This is great. This is engineering. This is more than just building a structure in the block area, but it's teachers providing these experiences for children, these opportunities. Great. Cause and effect, focus. I love it. Fantastic. Problem solving, math, cause and effect, spatial awareness. This is great. Okay, so you can continue thinking about this. I think we'll go on. I think we could list these skills all day long.

And thinking about the early learning framework, all of these chat answers that you all know what children can learn when teachers plan engaging engineering activities, thinking about the early learning framework, we can kind of categorize these, of course, into mathematics knowledge and skills: geometry, spatial sense, measurement, comparison, patterns. Science knowledge and skills: scientific skills, methods, conceptual knowledge of their physical world around them, around children. Language development, too, receptive and expressive language. So many opportunities for language development. And then, of course, approaches to learning: initiative and curiosity, persistence, which is such a huge, huge one for children. Attentiveness and cooperation. I know lots of you all talked about the collaboration piece that children work on when they're building together. There's so much social-emotional pieces to engineering activities. So this is great.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Oh, it's so true, Kristin. I mean, success in learning really requires, right, the learner, the children, to be at the center of the experience and making connections across all developmental areas. So you're talking about intentional planning here of engineering activities, really presenting children opportunities to learn the same material in different settings and through different lenses.

Kristin Ainslie: That's right. And we -- okay, so that's exactly -- it's kind of exciting to think about how many teaching practices that teachers can work on through these engaging, rich activities. So the teaching practices -- we're going to focus on three today just for our time together. And the teaching practices have come from the NCQTL 15-minute in-service suites. The first one we're going to focus on today, providing hands-on learning activities. And so that's definitely engineering, absolutely. Children are creating, building with their hands, with their bodies. The next one is helping children with problem solving. And this is a little different than what we think about with, of course, all of the problem solving that we help children with with the social parts of their learning. But problem solving in terms of how do we get this block to balance on top of this structure? What could you do to get this cup to stick onto the top of this tube? All of that kind of challenge. How could we get these books over from the library to the circle area, that kind of thing. Also allowing children to explain their thinking. So thinking about, we're going to show you some examples here of what that looks like, thinking about how children can explain to you what they've created. So hands-on learning, bringing concepts to life by putting learning into action. So, just looking at this photo here, example, of course, of handson learning. These teacher and children have transformed this dramatic play area into an outdoor fishing scene. Lots of engineering happening here. The teacher has provided boxes for children to create boats, blue paper to cover the floor. Children made fish to catch and sticks and string that they can use to make fishing poles.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Oh, I want to be in that the classroom. I mean, the teaching practice here really shines through. Bringing concepts to life by putting learning into action. And this sets the stage for young children to be active, engaged, and really take initiative in their own learning. This is so great. I mean, I really want to be in that classroom, Kristin.

Kristin Ainslie: I do too, I do too, I absolutely do. Okay, so problem solving, thinking about, again, not necessarily the social problem solving that we all work on so much, but creating the opportunities for children to brainstorm ideas, plan their ideas out, and solve problems or challenges. So here's something that it can kind of look like. One of the guests that we had on a Teacher Time show, he's a teacher, a Head Start teacher, his name is Darren, he talks about problematizing, which we've all been using around the office, the word problematizing.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Okay, so as you were talking, Kristin, I really found myself thinking that this teaching strategy moves us to asking "how" and "what" questions versus even some of the "why" questions that sometimes or somewhat imply that there's just one correct answer.

Kristin Ainslie: That's so true, Kristin. And I think that when we think about the "what" questions, that's really an exciting way to get children begin to -- that brainstorming piece can be very tricky sometimes for children when we ask "why" questions. But when we're asking those "what" questions, "What do you think could happen," that really opens the door for children, again, to brainstorm. And then flows right into explaining their thinking. So asking children to explain their thought process. And so thinking about Kristin, I wonder if you would do this little role play with me. And if you would be the child, I'll be the teacher, and we can kind of just describe how this could look in a classroom.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Great.

Kristin Ainslie: Okay, so I'll be the teacher thinking about, I wonder if you could build a tower as tall as you.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: I don't know. Kristin Ainslie: Well, how could you start?

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Mmm, stacking blocks maybe.

Kristin Ainslie: Good thinking, that's great. Then what would you do next? Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Well, maybe I could stand next to it.

Kristin Ainslie: Oh, I see, you would measure yourself next to it. Okay. And what would you do if the tower was shorter?

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: I'll build it more.

Kristin Ainslie: Oh, you'd keep on building. Okay, I can't wait to hear how you do it. Will you tell me how you did it when you finish? Will you call me over?

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Absolutely. [Giggling]

Kristin Ainslie: So that's some -- that's kind of a typical conversation, but really getting a teacher to really encourage children to explain how they're going to do something and how it worked in the end. Okay. So let's practice here. Let's get into the coaching piece of it and practice some of the coaching practices that we're going to go through today.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Great. So once we've identified the practices teachers are likely to need support around, we can begin supporting teachers through the process of setting goals and developing plans for achieving those goals. So that first step really, though, is to have that clear understanding of the teacher's strengths, needs, and interests, and this is known as the needs assessment. And it's based upon the actual teaching practices. So we can use needs assessment tools for really any set of teaching practices. Today, we are specifically going to explore a needs assessment that was created from resources, Tips for Teachers, and these came directly from three NCQTL 15-minute in-service suites. And the tools we'll talk about today can be used by a coach, but we want to remember that they can also be used as a self-reflection tool for teachers. So let's go ahead and get started.

So you can see here that these teaching practices, along with examples of what each one might look like in action, are found in Tips for Teachers section of three different in-service suites. So the first one, Fostering Children's Thinking Skills. The second one, Making Learning Meaningful. And the third, Providing Feedback. And all of these in-service suites can be found on ECLKC. And within our Coaching Corner webinar follow-up document, just also know, too, there'll be a link to where to find these. So today, our coaching example comes from a program that's decided to focus coaching on instructional interaction. So in this kind of example that we're going to be walking through, they would really like to see their children score higher on assessments of science learning and language development, and they've decided that these specific teaching practices will really help them meet these goals. So what you can see here is in the left-hand side, the teaching practices, we've identified and we've even selected very specific teaching practices. And the coaching team created this needs assessment that really asks teachers to reflect on their current use of the practices. There's this piece here, you know, to even reflect on and think about the support they might need in implementing the teaching practices. And if we zoom in, we can see those teaching practices in the far left column, and then the next three columns off are descriptions around the use of those practices.

So what we're seeing here is just one example format for a needs assessment. So let's say in this instance that Teacher Lauren filled out the needs assessment and then she sat down with Melissa, her coach, to really talk about it. So here you can see that they start maybe by discussing number three on the needs assessment. Lauren, she really feels like she's doing a great job now of creating opportunities for hands-on learning. She's saying here that her children are doing hands-on learning all day, whenever it's appropriate, and she doesn't really see the need to increase the amount of time that she's offering those opportunities. She feels very comfortable with this practice and she's always willing to get support, but she just doesn't feel like this is the right practice to focus on for coaching.

And Melissa, the coach, agrees and really gives Lauren some supportive feedback about the hands-on learning that she's seen in Lauren's classroom. And so next, they're actually going to talk about number one and number two. So you can see here that Lauren's really not comfortable using either of these practices yet. We've got two here you can see, and then with number one. She says that she knows a little bit more about how to get children to explain their thought processes, she just needs to do it more often and get comfortable with it. So that's part -- right here. You can see, "I'm comfortable using this." No. "Would I like to use this practice more often?" Yes. "How much support do I need to help me do this?" She's thinking a little bit. And then here she's more unsure about what it might look like to actually create opportunities for problem solving. And what gets decided is that she would like to work with her coach, Melissa, on this very specific teaching practice.

So, to get started, Coach Melissa really just kind of, you know, after going through this with the teacher, she pauses to really think about their conversation that they had around the needs assessment, the input from the teacher, and thinking about, together, where to go next. And Melissa's pretty familiar with the Fostering Thinking Skills in-service suite, and so she adapts a few of the activities from that suite to really help Teacher Lauren have a better idea of what the actual teaching practice might look like in action. And then they want to be able to make that connect to what already is happening every day in Lauren's classroom. And then they work together side by side, shoulder to shoulder, to really set a goal for implementing this teaching practice. So I'm wondering, Kristin, how about we just dig even deeper and get a bit more detailed around developing an action plan.

Kristin Ainslie: That sounds great. So the goal created from the needs assessment, again, is the opportunities for children to brainstorm, plan, and solve problems. This was a joint decision, collaboration between Coach Melissa and Teacher Lauren. This is what the observation will be centered around, and this is what they have decided to create as a goal for Teacher Lauren. So here's what the form looks like. Again, this can take on any form, but this is one example here. "What it will look like in my classroom." So during small groups and at the art center, I will provide activities that might create problems for the children to solve. I'll ask questions and give the children time to come up with their own ideas. And then this next part is how will Lauren know when she's met her goal? So I'll know I have met my goal when at least twice during small groups and twice during art center each day one of the children will have a chance to solve a problem that Teacher Lauren has created. So the action plan from the goal will be thinking about activities that could create problems when she's writing her lesson plans. She's going to ask questions about the problems and give children time to solve the problems. And she's going to encourage brainstorming and give feedback to children about their problem solving. The resources, she's going to use her curriculum, of course, and her lesson plan forms. The whole teaching team is going to be responsible for this, so she's going to collaborate with her teaching team. And then she listed a due date. For asking questions about the problems and giving children time to solve them, she's going to list possible questions for problem solving. So she's going to pre-plan these questions before the activity. It's not just going to be a, let's hope there's a problem, but it's going to be really about providing those opportunities for children to solve problems through the questions that Lauren's going to ask. And the whole teaching team will help with the last one, encourage brainstorming and giving feedback to children about their problem solving.

Okay. So, when we are preparing now for the focused observation. So we've got the plan. Lauren and Melissa need to talk about what will happen when Melissa comes to observe. So everything should be really collaborative, again. The pieces are so connected that I really feel like it leads us to vary the questions around the focused observation. So we would love to hear from all of you about preparing for focused observation. And, again, this is a collaborative piece with teacher and coach. There are two pieces to this one here. We'd love to know what data could Melissa, Coach Melissa, collect on the goal? And again, remember that that is helping providing opportunities for children to solve problems and brainstorm. So you can go ahead and chat in here what data could Melissa collect. And then also thinking about your multiple answer, on the right side, what coaching strategies could Melissa use? So go ahead and fill those out, and we'll be back in just a moment. Wow, I am so impressed with all of the chat answers. I wish I was the teacher that you all were coaching, because I think that this is just exciting. I know that you've all got this really well, all of the -- thinking about the data collecting on the opportunities that she was providing for these children for problem solving. It looks like most of you will videotape, which is a great way. Some of you will also model for Teacher Lauren as well as that side by side verbal or gestural support. So that is great.

We are going to now watch a video, and this video shows a teacher, and just put yourselves in the role that you are in, in the role of a coach, thinking about Teacher Lauren in this video, thinking about what you might say to her and what you might -- what your feedback might be to Lauren as you watch this video. And we will advance now and... we can play the video.

Teacher: Wow, there's lots of things, friends. We have a very busy table today. Don't we? We wanted to make sure you guys could build your buildings however you want. Lots of supplies. All right, George, let's move some of these cups. Everything on the table you can stick on your board.

Girl: I do it with you?

Teacher: You can come in just a minute. Right now our table is pretty full. So when somebody's done, then we'll have some more room.

[Child speaks inaudibly] Teacher: Right here.

Child: Oh, I'll stick it.

Teacher: You stick it in the glue. Child: A little bunch?

Teacher: Yeah, you can put a whole bunch. You're going to need a lot of glue to hold these things on, friends. When we glue paper on paper, it doesn't take very much glue, but when you're gluing heavy things, it takes a lot more.

[Boy speaks inaudibly]

Teacher: How can we make that work, Joshua? I don't know, because this is different. Look it, this is foam, and that's Styrofoam. Your straw can push down in the Styrofoam, but I don't think it can push down in here. Maybe you could put some glue and stick your straw on. Is it going in the Styrofoam?

Joshua: Nope.

Teacher: Or you could make a hole with the stick. [Joshua speaks inaudibly]

Child: What are you guys making?

Teacher: We're making structures. Look at his. Look at his tall tower he made. I think that's the tallest art project he's ever made at school.

Kristin Ainslie: All right. So that, I thought, was a great video to show because I felt like that was such a fantastic hands-on activity. I mean, Kristin, don't you think that was a really fun kind of activity for this teacher to plan? I think that there was so much going on with the children and the teacher. So thinking about what your feedback, what your reflection and feedback might be to encourage reflection about how she's implementing her teaching practice of, again, helping children to -- providing opportunities for children to problem solve and brainstorm.

So we're going to do another chat question here. And this is going to be, what would you say to Lauren to encourage reflection about how she's implementing her teaching practice? And you can see the goal here on the left. You can scroll down a little bit if you can't see the whole thing. But then you can again go ahead and chat right here after watching that video. All right, everyone, thanks for that. There is so much activity today on the chat. And just, I love just thinking about emphasizing that reflection is really about asking questions and getting the teacher thinking rather than just providing that feedback for her. So with this reflection, we're going to pop this one here. Whoops. There we -- [ laughs ]. There we go.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: I was thinking, too, Kristin, reading through all of those responses, it was such a great reminder of how all of these pieces are really, truly held in and supported by the collaborative partnership that gets established between a coach and a teacher. And I was also thinking, too, just intentionality comes to mind. Because just like teachers, moment to moment, right, they're having to make choices about responses and strategies they use to support young children's growth and development in learning. And certainly as coaches, we're moment to moment choosing specific elements and strategies to use. And absolutely, reflection is really, truly about, you know, asking very specific intentional questions to support teachers' thinking as opposed to feedback. Although side by side with reflection in the practice-based coaching cycle is feedback. And we want to make sure we're beginning with supportive feedback. And so you'll see in a moment, you're going to see some different statements highlighted on the screen. And Kristin and I really would like to ask you guys to read through those statements and choose the one that you feel as a coach would help give Lauren the most supportive and the most concrete information about creating opportunities for problem solving. So let's go ahead and get this up here, and we'll go ahead and pause and give everybody time to scroll through and read all of them, and then, again, choose the statement that you feel is most supportive and gives concrete information about creating opportunities for problem solving.

Kristin Ainslie: Wow, hi, everyone. We're back now. That was great. I think there's so much going on in these statements. And it looks like a lot of you have chosen two of the statements almost exclusively. Some of you have chosen thinking -- you offered the children a variety of supplies, and the directions were very open-ended, allowing the children to make choices. And you asked a question that gave Joshua an opportunity to solve a problem when you said, "How can we make that work, Joshua?" So this is fantastic, really great. And, again, thinking about the most concrete feedback, the one that really, really has to do with what Teacher Melissa's action plan and goal is. So excellent. This is great, really great reflection. So, one of the trickier parts is the constructive feedback. Kristin, what do you think about that?

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Oh, my classroom, and we see so many wonderful things, and it can be difficult sometimes to kind of pick out when we get ready to give feedback. So I really appreciated your highlighting those pieces as we looked through those statements together. What's related to the goal? What's really specific? Because sometimes, too, it's easy to kind of veer away, but we want to make sure that we're giving feedback that's specific to that teaching practice that had been identified in the action plan as part of the goal. So, and I think, too, when we think about -- so we've got supportive feedback and we've got constructive feedback. And providing constructive feedback I think is sometimes -- it can truly feel like the hardest part of coaching. And so what I was wondering if you would do with me, I wondered if we could give an example of how, you know, we often would find ourselves, right, in a situation that we'd want to talk through with somebody else. So I wonder, Kristin, if we could kind of go through an example of how a coach could maybe problem solve, like this particular experience maybe with another colleague.

Kristin Ainslie: Absolutely. I think that would be really valuable, because I've definitely been in this situation before that you and I are going to give a little example about. So this will be great.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Okay, okay. So what do you say, do you want to approach me with something that you'd like to talk about and problem solve through?

Kristin Ainslie: That sounds great.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Okay. So I'll be Melissa.

Kristin Ainslie: Okay. Perfect, perfect. So, Melissa, do you have a minute to help me out with something?

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Absolutely. What's going on?

Kristin Ainslie: Okay, well, I've been working really hard with one of my teachers on creating opportunities for engineering, right? So she watched the Teacher Time webinar and she wanted to work on it in her classroom, and she always seems really excited when we meet. And she agrees with me, she smiles and she nods and she takes notes and she makes suggestions and has great ideas.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: So it sounds like there's several cues that you're observing from her that tell you she's engaged and excited about coaching.

Kristin Ainslie: Yeah, that's exactly how I feel, and I leave the meetings feeling really energized, like we really made great progress. But then I go to the observation.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Okay, so your tone of voice just shifted here, and something seems different. What has focused observation time been like for you?

Kristin Ainslie: Well, I feel like she doesn't try anything from her action plan. And it's not that she's doing anything wrong. She's such a sophisticated teacher and she has a lot of great skills, it's just that she's not trying any of the ideas that her and I collaborated on that we worked so hard to plan.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: This can feel so frustrating for us as coaches, you know, and even concerning. We often wonder, right, what we might be missing in the coaching experience, within our interactions. We can even feel pressure to find an answer. So tell me more. Perhaps we can try to understand this better together.

Kristin Ainslie: Yeah, I mean, I hate to say it, but I am feeling really frustrated. And I don't know what's going on and I feel like I'm spinning my wheels. And it's starting to feel personal, like she's just agreeing with me at the meetings, but then she doesn't actually think the ideas will work, and maybe she's not being as honest? I'm not sure. This isn't the first time it's happened. It's starting to feel like a pattern, and it's just so hard to get excited about going back and observing. Do you have any ideas?

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: This is a really tough one. It'd be hard to know what to do, and when this teacher seems engaged but disengaged like all at the same time. So would you like to role-play this for a moment and maybe we can see if we can find some ways to start the conversation with her.

Kristin Ainslie: That sounds great. Let's do this and let's plan out all of the things that I could say and all of the things that she might say. That would be great.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: I loved it. And I felt like, you know, I was like, I'll be Melissa, just like we're Kristin and Kristin. We became Coach Melissa and another colleague Melissa. So, thank you so much for doing that with me. And it was so wonderful to kind of really walk through the practice-based coaching cycle around engineering and share in these experiences and hear responses from all - everybody out there who joined us today. Thank you again, everybody, so much.

Kristin Ainslie: That's great. I agree. I think that there's so many -- so many people who feel that way during coaching and observing, so I'm glad that we were able to do that. So some resources that we have for all of you. You can find all of these materials here that we have kind of drawn the practices for on the 15-minute in-services suites on the ECLKC, the suites of Providing

Feedback, Fostering Children's Thinking Skills, and Making Learning Meaningful. You can look at the Tips for Teachers in those. And those will also be on your follow-up, so don't forget to sign in at the end. There's also, if you wanted to point your teachers that you work with to some of the Teacher Time webinars that are on the ECLKC, we did just have one on engineering. So it would provide a lot of examples and ideas for teachers who maybe want to plan more of the engineering type activities in their classrooms.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: Wonderful resources, Kristin, yeah. Sorry. Wonderful, wonderful resources to connect all of us to and kind of remind us we had a luxury of being able to highlight them throughout our time together and then also giving reference to where folks can find them. So thank you again for joining us today. It was such a pleasure.

Kristin Ainslie: Absolutely. I would talk about engineering and help with coaching anytime. Have me back.

Kristin Tenney-Blackwell: We'd love it, we'd love it. And it was a pleasure to have time with all of you learning about ways to support teachers of young engineers. And we really hope that you'll join us for the next Coaching Corner webinar scheduled for April 16th. We're going to be talking about using video in coaching, and our guest presenter will be Megan Fillman from the University of Virginia. We also want to welcome you to come in and be part of our practice-based coaching live chat that's going to be scheduled for April 15th. And Mary Louise Hemmeter from Vanderbilt University will be hosting that. So great things coming up, everybody. And look forward to connecting with all of you soon.