Shine Your Light
Brighten the Future
10
Conferencing Questions and Statements
1. Clarify: (Mentor) – Confirmatory paraphrase (summarize in your own words to be really specific on what the protégé really wants 2. Mentor and protégé selects and modifies a data collecting that will best record information for reflection. 3. Closing: (Mentor) “I look forward to seeing you, (date and time).
Collecting the data 1. Use the instrument upon which you and your protégé decided. 2. Collect data on only what was decided in the pre-conference. (You may want to make notes for yourself of issues you may wish to discuss for future observations.) 3. Record only what you see and hear for the protégé. No inferences or judgements. 4. Be specific as possible. 5. Note approvals for yourself only – must be specific as to behaviors, skills, strategies, etc. used by the protégé of which you feel she/he seems particularly proud or that connotes extra effort. You must be sincere. Analyzing the data Be sure that the data collecting instrument is legible for the protégé to read on her/his own. You may want to give the instrument to her/him prior to your postconference. From the analysis prepare you approval statements and your questions that you want to begin the post-conference and that you want to guide the conference. You may want coaching from another mentor that you trust will be confidential. Post-observation conference questions and statements Before we look at the data, tell me how you felt about the lesson. What did you feel went really well? How did you know that it went well or what did you see, hear, feel that made you know that the lesson was going well? Did you accomplish what you intended? What did you notice that caused you to (rephrase the answer)? As you studied the data, were there any patterns that you noticed? What did that tell you? What did you learn from the assessment? If you were to teach this lesson again, is there anything that you would do differently? What if you were teaching a gifted class? What results do you predict after making those changes?
If the answer is “No change,” you may want to ask what she/he would do differently if the students were very different from those in this lesson. This question will help the protégé to expand his/her thinking. Do you have any questions? Would you like for me to make some suggestions or would you like to hear some things that I have done or have seen others do in similar situations? On what would you like to focus in the next observation? (At this point there should be one or two specific points that the protégé can articulate for the next focus.) It is critical that this decision is made before closing the postconference so that the protégé is able to see the continuity of the mentoring. Before you leave a post-observation conference, have some idea of what you will look for in another observation. It helps see what you are doing as an on-going thing.