“Five or six years ago I got a new Facebook friend. He’s in his fifties… I was his 7 grade social studies teacher. He asked, ‘Mr. Thompson, do you still play with your mustache?’ I had no idea I was doing it.”
That is Jim Thompson. Thompson is an instructional coach who partners with teachers to reflect on and improve their instruction through video selfies. This is his seventh year. Through a confidential process, Thompson helps teachers set instructional goals and guides them toward fulfillment. Thompson’s goal is to help teachers become more reflective and intentional in their classrooms. Thompson is a former teacher and principal but says that the key to his program is that he does not evaluate teachers. “I’m not going to tell them what to do and I’m not going to give them a score.”
At the beginning of his program teachers record a ten-minute
video of themselves, watch it, then write a letter to Thompson answering four
questions:
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What did you learn?
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What surprised you?
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What is a goal that you have identified and
would like to work on?
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What is an instructional strategy that you would
like to learn to help fulfill your goal?
Thompson does not need to see the video. From that self-analysis, he works with teachers to set goals and he helps them with strategies to meet those goals.
He admits that he does not have all the answers but also that his role as coach is more nuanced than that. If a PreK teacher asks him how to get the 4-year old students better prepared to board the bus at the end of the day, Thompson might answer, “I have no idea. But what would it look like if it was a little better than it is now?” From that discussion, strategies can emerge.
Thompson emphasizes the importance of the teachers leading the discussion. “We are acknowledging that they have a voice. When I work with teachers, they choose the goal – I don’t choose the goal. Then there is no ownership, no voice. Whose goal is it? It isn’t theirs, it’s mine. Once it’s their goal, they’re going to invest and work hard on it.”
“Jim has been a great mentor and really gotten our (instructional coaching) program off the ground,” says Diana Walther of Byron-Bergen Central Schools. Walther is a former high school English teacher who is beginning her first year as a full-time coach with the district in September.
“The best way to improve as a teacher is to find your current reality. Teachers don’t know what it looks like when they do what they do,” says Thompson. “Very few people have seen themselves teach.”
Thompson is working to change that, one video at a time.
For more information on Video Coaching please contact [email protected] or 585-352-2443.