Trust – Ideas from Across Ontario
You can do a lot of things without trust, but mentoring isn’t one of them. So how do we build the trust essential for any mentoring relationship? Below you’ll see the professional wisdom your colleagues have been kind enough to share with me (and with each other) at hundreds of professional learning sessions across Ontario.
How are you building (and rebuilding) trust in your mentoring relationships?
Building Inclusion
- Structuring goal setting conversations to avoid misalignment of expectations
- Modelling a genuine interest in learning together
- Demonstrating appreciation of and belief in your colleagues
- Providing an oasis of calm
- Celebrating successes together
Modelling Mutual Respect
- Respecting confidential nature of relationship
- Remaining non-judgemental
- Walking in the person's shoes
- Demonstrating congruence between words and actions
- Being receptive to feedback yourself
Sharing Real World Challenges
- Sharing own challenges to level the playing field
- Acknowledging the messiness of learning
- Being vulnerable as this opens the door to deeper sharing
- Sharing challenges but also the quiet victories that occur each day
Listening, Listening, Listening
- Being available to listen (both mentally and in real time)
- Being authentically present
- Recognizing the power of silence and the importance of simply listening
- Listening to learn as opposed to listening to speak
- Listening with uncertainty
Goal Setting Conversations
Mentoring is a powerful, personalized learning design. Yet the dynamics of mentoring relationships are complex. When there is a misalignment of expectations significant challenges can arise. Engaging in collaborative goal setting conversations at the beginning of any mentoring relationship helps to set the stage for success. Two potentially powerful outcomes of these learning focused conversations are:
- Building relational trust
- Clarifying roles and expectations
Building Relational Trust
Being “present” by applying the elements of effective listening is at the core of building trust and rapport in any relationship.
Clarifying Roles and Expectations
Positioning yourself as a co-learner by sharing your own learning goals for the mentoring relationship is a powerful approach. Mentoring relationships that flourish are reciprocal – all parties learn and grow.
Goal Setting Conversation Map at a Glance
- What strengths and attributes do you bring to your role?
- What are your hopes, wishes and dreams for your students?
- What goals do you have for your professional learning this year?
- How do you see our collaboration best working?
- What are the best ways for us to communicate? (preferred tools, times, methods)
- Who else can provide support and mentorship?
- What are the next steps in our collaboration?
Goal Setting Conversations with your Teacher-Candidate Video (1 min 11 sec)
Professional Wisdom
Our new teachers are considering foundational questions as they enter the profession:
- Who am I as an educator and as a mentor?
- What do I believe is truly important about teaching and learning?
- How am I living these beliefs in my classroom, school, district and beyond?
Teaching and learning are complex and when you are new to your role there are a lot of firsts. The first time a student challenges you as a teacher. The first time a parent calls the school with a concern. The first time you write report cards. As a mentor you face all of these same challenges but you have a lot fewer firsts. For all of us in education, experience has been a teacher. Through your lived experiences in classrooms and schools you have developed professional wisdom. Your professional wisdom can be a touchstone for your colleagues as they navigate the many complexities of teaching, learning and leading. Professional wisdom is a gift you have to offer and also a gift you continue to receive. Being intellectually humble allows us to listen with uncertainty and to be open to continued learning and growth from our new and experienced colleagues (and our students). Placing students at the centre of our shared thinking and learning grounds our mentoring conversations in why we are all here. It reminds us at that any age, stage or phase of our career we continue to learn. That is the beauty of mentorship...it is an act of learning.
Facilitating Learning
In my ongoing work with teacher leaders we have explored how authentic learning for educators is an essential pre-condition for student learning. Below I offer some guiding thoughts for facilitating learning along with practical examples of how these ideas might support educators and ultimately students.
In her book Powerful Designs for Professional Learning Lois Brown Easton describes powerful professional learning as possessing the following characteristics or attributes:
- Arises from and returns benefits to the real world of teaching and learning
- Focus is on what is happening with learners (both student and adult) in the classroom, school, and district
- Collaborative or has collaborative aspects
- Establishes a culture of quality
- Slows the pace of schooling, providing time for the inquiry and reflection that promote learning and application
Guiding Ideas
Reflecting on these elements, if our purpose is simply to transmit knowledge then we might make 92 slides, read them and with one minute left in the session ask if there are any questions. While this might be a slight exaggeration of the "one and done" or "seagull style" approach to professional learning, it does speak to the importance of employing learning designs that provide opportunities for educators to collaboratively construct knowledge and to learn from and with each other.
The learning experiences we design and facilitate are simply provocations, the real work occurs every day in our classrooms and schools. Placing students at the centre of learning for educators helps address the "why are we here" whether it's in a formal workshop setting, role-based community of practice or part of an ongoing mentoring relationship. Thinking about how we can bring students into the room centres the "why" as supporting the well-being and learning of students is why we're all here.
A "why" for our role as facilitators might be to inspire and support the educators we work with and learn from to live the learning in their classrooms and schools. Providing embedded time for educators to think together about applying the learning in their context recognizes their lived experiences and honours the complexity and messiness of teaching and learning.
Practical Ideas from and for Board Coaches | Consultants | Coordinators
Here are thoughts from your colleagues about how they approach making professional learning not something that is “done” to participants but rather something they collaboratively construct.
- Starting with relationships
- Building community along with curricular knowledge throughout the learning
- Affirming practice via acknowledgement of educators...this builds trust and demonstrates professional respect
- Leaving space to co-construct learning...this allows for responsiveness to emerging learning needs
- Balancing content delivery with knowledge construction opportunities
- Providing practical "classroom ready" next day, next week ideas
- Bringing joy, humour, humanity and laughter to the learning experiences
- Placing students at the centre of our shared thinking and learning (i.e. the why)
Measuring Impact
Quite a number of years ago I was fortunate to spend a full day learning with Thomas Guskey around moving beyond the workshop and focusing on the ultimate purpose of professional learning – impacting students. His framework below has been a touchstone:
Scaling Questions as a Tool for Debriefing
Opportunities for individuals to reflect on practice and debrief with mentors can be powerful learning for both parties. One approach to debriefing conversations is scaling questions adapted from the solution-focussed conversation work of Nancy McConkey.
Scaling Questions Conversation Map at a Glance
- On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst lesson you’ve experienced and 10 being the best, how was this lesson for you?
- Oh a <e.g., 6> – What were the positive things that made it a 6?
- How might you bump it up a notch to a 7? (specific ideas)
- Continue with Coaching stance or shift to Consultant or Collaborator based on needs
A purposeful seeking out of strengths is at the heart of this approach with the debriefing beginning with the positive impressions of the educator no matter what the number. In my experience with using this approach, very often the input or advice you were going to provide comes from the teacher themselves. The person has given their challenges considerable thought and the “bump up” question acts as a prompt for them to articulate specific ideas for improvement. As a skilled mentor, you then take your cue from your colleague in terms of next steps and support moving forward.
Enhancing Your Practice via Scaling Questions
At the end of a visit to a teacher’s classroom you could ask them a scaling question about how helpful your time with them was.
- On a scale of 1 to 10, how helpful was my time supporting your learning and the learning of your students today?
- Oh a <e.g., 6> – What were the positive things that made it a 6?
- How might we bump it up a notch to a 7 the next time I come? (specific ideas)
This approach provides you as a coach with direct feedback about your impact and practical next steps to consider as you continue to support learning in the classrooms and communities of practice you are engaged with. Here is a recent Make Math Moments Podcast where I explore this idea (and many others) with Jon Orr and Kyle Pearce.
Appreciative Inquiry
Appreciative Inquiry is an attributes-based approach that can be used to facilitate reflective conversations as part of the ongoing dialogue between mentors and colleagues.
At the core of Appreciative Inquiry is the belief that all participants come to mentoring relationships possessing many strengths and that by building on these assets, the answers to the issues and challenges they face can be collaboratively constructed. This thinking is why we always begin with an examination of what is working well in current practice (themes of success). Many of these themes can then be applied as actual strategies to collaboratively address specific challenges and issues.
Appreciative Inquiry Conversation Map at a Glance
Themes of Success
- Thinking about your commitment to making a difference for all learners...tell a story about the best experience you’ve had in your role?
- What lessons did you learn that continue to be important to you personally and professionally?
Issues and Challenges
- What issues you are encountering? (i.e. What are the stones in your shoe?)
- Looking ahead, what are the wishes you have for your role?
Collaborative Strategy Harvest of Ideas
- What specific ideas, strategies, and resources are you considering to address the issue or concerns expressed?
- So What / Now What – share an individual action plan of possible next steps (next day / next week / next month)
This approach supports engagement in meaningful mentoring conversations. Imagine asking the teacher you are coaching about the best thing that happened in their classroom, the challenges they are facing and how we might collaborate to address these issues.
Working with Resistance
Think about a time in your professional career when you offered resistance... What was your motivation? What was the outcome? What did you learn?
Worth considering is do we think resistance is a trait or a state? In other words, we have all offered resistance at some point in our personal and professional contexts.
Substance
Sometimes we offer resistance because we think the idea or change being proposed is simply a bad idea. A powerful question I always ask myself (and others) when initiatives are proposed is how will this support educator and student well-being and learning?
Process
Another reason for resistance is we don’t feel consulted or involved in the change being proposed. I liken this to the “fake markers and chart papers” experience where often our group was asked to contribute insights and ideas but no evidence of our input was to be found in the final outcome.
Readiness
Sometimes we’re just not emotionally or mentally ready for the change being proposed. It’s that feeling of being overwhelmed with the 19 things already on our plate and not having the capacity to take on yet another initiative without something being removed.
Possible Approaches
We often ask ourselves how we can overcome resistance but additional questions we might consider include:
- Why is this person or group offering resistance? (Substance / Process / Readiness or a combination of all of these factors)
- How might approaching our conversations with intellectual humility assist in deepening our understanding?
- How can I place educator and student well-being and learning at the centre of our conversations?
Forget Efficiency
Working with resistance takes time. If we take a “my way or the highway” approach it may provide a quick resolution, but you may potentially harm relationships with this approach. On the other hand fostering authentic collaboration to address any issue is complex and requires building (or rebuilding) trust over time.
Focus on Listening
The 50% of any interaction we can influence is our half. Finding the time, space and grace to listen is a tremendous gift we can bring to any conversation. Listening with uncertainty as opposed to listening to speak can build trust and open the door to deeper conversations.
Be Open to Change Yourself
If we are intellectually humble, we are listening to learn with the recognition that our views although deeply held may not always be right. Some of the resistance we encounter may be opportunities for our own reflection and learning.
Have Multiple Conversations
The more complex the issue or challenge the greater the number conversations that will be required to address it. What happens between the conversations is important too. Demonstrating congruence between our words and our actions builds trust as does modelling the humanity, humour and heart we bring to our work in the service of educators and students.
Navigating Complexity
Relationships are complex, messy and need continued care. Below are links to additional ideas and resources about what we as mentors can be mindful of in our approach.
Mentoring for Mentors Resources
___________________
Mentoring Essentials eBooks & Glideshows
___________________
All Mentoring for Mentors Resources
___________________
Wishing you a mentoring journey filled with quiet moments of beauty and thanking you for the difference you are making to the lives and learning of your colleagues and ultimately our students.
In appreciation,