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Reflections

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Introduction

Communication Skills and Reflection: In this activity you'll begin to answer questions as you:

  • Review T2T leader roles.
  • Review communication skills and then use them to reflect on your collaboration experiences.

Roles T2T Leaders Take

  • Facilitator: Planning and leading meetings, activities, and staff development in one-on-one, small-group, or large-group situations.
  • Collaborator: Working together with colleagues to plan, implement, and evaluate activities.
  • Consultant: Acting as a subject matter expert on a variety of topics.
  • Coach: Helping teachers become independent instructional decision makers. This is brought about through reflection and relationships. This role requires coaches to step back and look at their relationships with collaborating teachers.

What other roles might you take on as a T2T leader?

It is important to have good communication skills and to use them to build a foundation of trust. No collaborative coaching experience can be successful without the establishment of trust.

Communication Skills

The strategies outlined below can be used in a variety of situations, such as collaborating with a teacher to plan a lesson or debriefing the outcomes of an activity you taught together.

  • Active Listening: Monitor and control your behavior, attending to the conversation, using pauses, locking out competitive thoughts, and leaning forward to attend to the speaker.
  • Paraphrasing: Let the other person know you are trying to understand him/her and value his/her thoughts. Restating what was said indicates acceptance of the ideas and offers encouragement to continue. Try not to use the "I" word when paraphrasing. Instead use "So." Using "I" means you are taking ownership of the ideas and are not honoring the speaker's thoughts.
  • Questioning: Strive to use two kinds of questioning strategies in your collaborative work:
    • Clarifying questions: These are factual questions asked to help the speaker be more specific and add clarity to the conversation. These questions do not require a lot of thought to answer since they are basically factual. Clarifying questions ask things like, "How was the information presented? How many students were in the group? What learning standard was used?"
    • Probing questions: These questions require the speaker to really think before answering. They are often prefaced with a paraphrasing statement and do not offer a solution. These questions help the speaker focus. Probing questions ask things like, "What might you do next? What did you learn from doing that? How do you feel it went?"

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