PLC Series | Post 4
Wednesday is when we officially begin our Rehearsal PLCs, and somewhere in the middle of preparing for it, I realized something: my teachers shouldn’t be the only ones practicing. My ILT and I need practice too.
In Post 3, I shared how we’re moving the deeper internalization work outside of PLC so we can protect our time together for rehearsal. Now that we’re actually getting ready to do it, there’s another piece we have to prepare for—the coaching.
I can create the agenda. I can create the coaching guide. I can identify the look-fors and build the process. But knowing what I want rehearsal to look like and being able to coach it well in the moment are two very different things.
So before Wednesday, my ILT and I are going to practice that part.
We’re going to practice the coaching.
There Are Really Two Kinds of Practice Happening
Wednesday is when our teachers will begin rehearsing high-leverage moments from their upcoming lessons. They’ll practice the actual teaching while their colleagues step into the role of students so they can work through the questions, responses, misconceptions, and instructional decisions that might happen in the classroom.
But that’s not what my ILT and I are rehearsing before Wednesday.
We’re practicing the other side of it—the coaching.
One of us will facilitate while the rest of us participate as teachers. The person in the coaching role will have to listen to the conversation, watch the instructional thinking happening in the room, recognize the highest-leverage moment, decide when to pause, ask a question that causes reflection, give feedback when it’s needed, and then get the teacher back into the practice.
Then we’ll rotate and someone else will coach.
Teachers are learning to rehearse instruction. We’re learning to coach the rehearsal.
And if I want one of those things to get better, I can’t ignore the other.
Knowing When to Pause Might Be Harder Than It Sounds
I think one of our biggest challenges is going to be learning when not to say something.
If you’ve ever watched instruction as a principal or instructional coach, you probably know exactly what I mean. You can watch five minutes of a lesson and notice the questioning, pacing, modeling, CFU, rigor, student engagement, academic language, differentiation…and suddenly you have a whole running list in your head. 😅
And maybe every single thing on that list is true.
But giving a teacher eight pieces of feedback isn’t necessarily good coaching.
What I want us to get better at is figuring out which thing matters most right now. What is the one adjustment that could have the greatest impact on what students are thinking, doing, or learning?
That’s going to require some restraint on our part.
Just because we notice something doesn’t mean we need to pause the rehearsal and coach it. We need to learn to recognize the moments that are worth stopping for and let the rest go.
I have a feeling this is going to be easier said than done. 🙃
Probe Before We Prescribe
This is another piece I really want us to practice.
When you’re sitting in the coaching role and you see something that needs to change, it’s really easy to jump straight to the solution. You see the problem, you think you know how to fix it, and you want to tell the teacher what to do.
And sometimes we absolutely need to be direct.
But I don’t want that to automatically be our first move.
Before we tell, I want us to get better at asking.
What did you notice there? What were you hoping students would do? What thinking did you want students doing in that moment? What evidence would tell you they understood? What might you try differently?
Sometimes a teacher may already know exactly what needs to change. They just need the right question to help them see it.
And when they don’t, that’s when we coach.
But even then, I don’t want us giving a list of everything we noticed. I want us to be able to give one precise, actionable piece of feedback connected to the thing that’s going to have the greatest impact on student learning.
One high-leverage move.
That’s it.
And Then We Have to Get Them Back Into the Practice
This may be one of the biggest shifts for us.
Traditionally, so much of coaching happens through conversation. We observe something, talk about it, give feedback, maybe agree on a next step, and then the teacher goes back into the classroom and tries it.
With rehearsal, we don’t have to wait.
If we pause and coach something, the teacher gets to try it again right there.
That’s why the cycle we’re practicing with my ILT is:
Watch → Pause → Probe → Coach → Rehearse Again.
The last part matters.
We’re not trying to have a great coaching conversation and then move on. We’re trying to help the teacher make the adjustment while we’re still together.
And that gives the coach immediate feedback too.
If I give what I think is a wonderfully clear piece of feedback and the teacher tries again but still isn’t sure what to do, then maybe my coaching wasn’t as clear as I thought it was. 👀
That’s useful information.
The teacher is practicing the instructional move, but the coach is practicing too.
This Has to Feel Like Practice, Not Evaluation
This is probably the piece I’m thinking about most as we get closer to Wednesday.
Rehearsal requires some vulnerability.
We’re asking teachers to practice their teaching in front of colleagues, receive feedback, and sometimes try the same moment again. If we’re not intentional about how we lead that, it could very quickly start to feel like a mini-observation.
That’s not what I want.
I want rehearsal to be the place where it’s completely okay for something not to work the first time.
If the question doesn’t land, good. Let’s work on it here. If the directions aren’t as clear as we thought, let’s clean them up here. If we’re not sure how we’re going to respond to a misconception, let’s figure it out here.
I’d much rather us discover those things together in PLC than for the first attempt to happen with students sitting in front of us.
What I don’t want teachers leaving PLC thinking is, They found everything I did wrong.
I want them leaving thinking, I’m more prepared to teach this lesson than I was when I walked in.
And creating that kind of environment is just as much about the coach as it is about the rehearsal structure.
That’s why we need practice.
I’m in the Practice Too
I’m very intentionally including myself in this.
I’m going to take a turn facilitating too, because creating this structure doesn’t mean I’ve mastered leading it.
I already know some of the things I’ll have to work on. I’m probably going to want to jump in too quickly. I’ll notice several things and have to remind myself to pick the one that matters most. I’ll have to practice asking a good question when my instinct might be to simply tell someone what I’m thinking.
And I think that’s important.
I’m not asking my ILT to master a system I’ve already mastered. We’re learning how to lead this together.
We’re going to practice. We’re going to give each other feedback. We’re going to notice where the process feels awkward. We’ll probably realize there are things we need to adjust before Wednesday.
Good.
That’s the point.
So That’s Our Work Before Wednesday
Before teachers ever enter their first Rehearsal PLC, my ILT and I will have already spent time practicing what it means to coach one.
We’ll rotate through the facilitator role and work through Watch → Pause → Probe → Coach → Rehearse Again. We’ll practice listening before jumping in, recognizing the high-leverage moment, deciding whether something deserves a pause, asking questions that cause thinking, giving one precise piece of feedback, and getting the teacher back into the practice.
I’m sure we’ll pause something we probably could have let play out. We’ll probably miss something and realize it afterward. Someone may give too much feedback. I fully expect to leave wanting to tweak something I’ve created. 😅
That’s exactly why we’re doing it now.
I don’t know exactly what Wednesday is going to look like yet, and that’s part of why I’m enjoying writing this series in real time. I’m not sharing a PLC system from the other side after we’ve figured everything out. I’m sharing what we’re actually trying, what we’re learning, and what we’re changing as we go.
Right now, we’re preparing the people who will lead the work.
Then Wednesday, our teachers begin practicing the teaching.
And after that comes the part I’m most interested in: Does what we practiced actually show up in the classroom—and does it change what students experience?
We’ll find out.
But first, we practice. 🖤
If you’re a principal, coach, or instructional leader, I’d love to know: Does your leadership team practice coaching before you’re expected to coach teachers? What does that look like on your campus?
If you’d like the ILT Look-Fors & Coaching Questions we’re using as we prepare, head over to Instagram @thewildflowerwithin_ and comment COACH on my Post 4 post (or click on the post below). I’ll send it your way.
And follow along there if you want to see how our first Rehearsal PLC actually goes on Wednesday. I’ll be sharing this work as we’re living it—the things that work, the things that don’t, and everything we’re learning along the way.
Julie | The Wildflower Within 🖤
Keep Becoming.
