Week Six

Week 6: April 12- APRIL 18

EXPLORE

Please do the following:

Journal

Read the quote at the top of the page:

• What does that quote mean to you?

• What, if any, insights does this give you about coaching?

Watch this video

• Keep the quote above in mind as you watch this video about how coaching works

• As you watch, think about the steps and the tools of a coach that you've learned so far and where in the video you think you see them.

WhatsApp

• Share with your WhatsApp group something that came up for you in either the quote or the video.

Journal: Meaning of the video

• What does the nodding mean at the beginning?

• Why does the coach hand the pencil to the teacher?

• What does the road sign and the knot represent?

• What does drawing the boxes mean to you?

• What does jumping from the top of the box mean to you?

Review the Arc of a Collaborative Coaching Conversation below. So far we have focused on the UNDERSTANDING half of the conversation. This week we are looking at the Questing style questions that move us toward the EXPERIMENTING half of the conversation. Now watch above again and and match the steps and tools you think are happening in the video some of the steps and tools in the stages of the Collaborative Coaching Conversation (there may not be a perfect match, that's okay).

Questing Part Two:

To remind you, Questing is an approach to asking questions that has the intention of being attuned and supportive as we accompany a teacher in a coaching conversation. Questing questions leave a teacher feeling connected rather than interrogated. Coaches use this kind of question to clarify their understanding or to open possibilities.

In our first question unit in week three we introduced “Questing” questions that show or check understanding. These are an extension of active listening. Before you continue

CLICK HERE to take a quiz to review material from our last Questing unit.

In this unit we review those kinds of questions. We also review questions that are open-ended and invite exploration. This is because, in the first half of a coaching conversation we want to focus on active listening and questions that check our understanding. We want to stay fully inside the words and story of the speaker:

Questions that clarify what they are saying

When you don't understand something, wait for a pause and then gently interrupt to ask the speaker to explain it to you. Then ask for clarification, "a moment ago I I didn't understand what you said about…"

Questions that summarize to check understanding

When the person speaking has finished talking or takes a long pause you can summarize in the form of a question. “So it sounds like you tried hard to solve the problem but you couldn’t find an answer?” Your goal is to summarise that part of the conversation to make sure you understand clearly what the person is trying to say.

Questions that check what the speaker is feeling

Empathy is at the heart of good listening. To experience empathy, you have to yourself in the other person's story or situation and imagine what it would feel like. This is not easy because we can’t know what another feels, but we can guess using our empathy. This is good to ask with a question “it sounds like that was frustrating.” This is a reflection, but it invites a response of confirmation or more information.

Questing for understanding shifting to Questing for planning:

As we move from the understanding half of the coaching conversation toward to the planning and action half we can move to questions that are open-ended. These questions have no correct answer and require the speaker to explain or explore part of what they’ve said. These are designed to help them consider the challenge more deeply or from a different perspective. Here are some examples:

Open-ended Questions:

• Tell me more about __________.

• How do you feel about this?

• What are you thinking of doing?

• Do you have an idea about why this keeps happening?

Perspective Challenging Questions:

As you work with your teacher you may find places where they seem “stuck” in their stance about an issue. These are the sorts of issues where, as you listened and tried to fully understand their perspective, you were seeing the situation quite differently. If you were able to engage them with empathy and active listening, if you were able to use questing to clarify your understanding of their experience and they really seem stuck. This is the time to shift to a different kind of question. This is a question that asks about their stance.

Examples:

Teacher: “None of these kids in my class are motivated to learn.”

Coach: “You think none of them are motivated?”

This highlights for the teacher a limiting belief (stance) that is probably not true. Limiting beliefs make it difficult to see all the possibilities. By gently highlighting a limiting belief you bring it into the teacher's awareness. Sometimes they will want to stay with that belief, but often they will say something like, “well, not ALL of them…” and that starts the conversation off again and you return to active listening. By reminding them that not ALL of the students are unmotivated you open up new options for them to think about.

Limiting beliefs often have absolute language like: nobody, everybody, all, none. Other times they have vague language like “this, they, that.” In both cases what you challenge is not the belief directly but the vagueness. In both cases you ask them to be more specific: “None of them?,” or “What specifically….”

Examples:

Teacher: “I can’t do this”

Coach: ”‘what specifically can’t you do?” or “what is stopping you?” or “what specifically is the problem?” or “What needs to happen for you to be able to do it?”

These are still open questions, questions you don’t know the answer to, but they are direct and challenging. These are questions inviting change. It’s important to understand that when you ask these questions you must immediately return to the beginning: empathy, presence, active listening. You need to really listen to how they answer or struggle to answer and focus on understanding.

Sometimes this is called "Cognitive Coaching" meaning, coaching that helps another person think more deeply.

Check-in Questions

Finally there's another kind of question you may want to use as a collaborative coach. You may noticed the trainers using "check-in" questions. These are questions that we use to see how the speaker is feeling about the conversation and whether they are ready to move on.

Examples:

• "Did I capture what you're saying?"

• "Is that the problem you'd like to work on today?"

• "Do you want to say more about that?"

Watch: the following video. The speaker is an awkward speaker but gives a real example of the power of coaching as a way of helping people create their own plans for improvement.

Journal: What did you learn or what learning was reinforced by watching the video?

ASKS Questions

The last category of questions we want to remind you of are ASKS questions. You'll remember from the face-to-face at the Dominico that we introduced four areas or kinds of learning:

• Awareness/Attention learning: This kind of learning invites the question: "What do you need to be noticing or paying attention to in order to move forward or solve your problem."

• Stance learning: This kind of learning is grounded in beliefs about oneself, others and the way the world is. Shifts in these beliefs can lead to dramatic learning. The perspective challenging questions above are examples of questions that can lead to learning that provokes a change of stance."

• Knowledge learning: This kind of learning invites the question "What do you need to know to move forward or to solve your problem?"

• Skills learning: This kind of learning invites the question "What do you need to be able to do to move forward or solve your problem."

Journal: Take a moment now and write down one question from each of the ASKS categories that you can ask yourself about your own learning of coaching.

EXPERIENCE

This week we would like you to have at least two conversations (in person with family, via Skype or WhatsApp or Zoom with a colleague/teacher/peer) in which you help them solve their own problem by using presence, active listening and empathy to understand their challenge. When you shift to asking a Questing question, to open up new possibilities, remember that, as soon as you ask ONE question your job is to step back and return to listening and understanding. This next round of listening will support the speaker in exploring whatever new options or issues the question has opened, they will be "thinking out loud" as they consider possibilities. You listening will be reflective. The goal is for the speaker to be/feel understood, both before and after you ask a question. What may happen is that the definition of the problem may change as they think about it and become more clear.

In order to have these conversations your speaker will need to have a problem or challenge that they are facing but haven't solved. You might be talking with teachers about teaching online. You might be talking with friends or family about how they are handling their experience of lockdown, or about something that is completely different. What is most important is that it is something on the speaker’s mind and/or heart.

Your work is to be and remain fully present. Build on your listening and empathy skills, and to practice using questing kinds of questions and then moving back to listening and understanding. When the speaker reaches a stuck point, try using a question about their "stuckness" -- and open-ended or perspective challenging question (See above), then return to a focus on active listening and understanding.

The chart below will remind you of the skills in active listening and help you to self-assess your learning, and hour your skills for active listening are developing:

REFLECT

After your coaching conversations please fill out your coaching journal and your skill journal so you can keep track of your own thoughts, feelings and learnings in this experience!

FILL OUT REFLECTION FORM: (to be posted)

PRACTICE

ZOOM meeting: (April 16, 17 or 18)