As a coach, it's imperative that you move away from always telling, and begin questioning.

"Questioning allows the teacher to reflect on the link between their behavior and outcomes; moreover, it creates many more opportunities for the coach to gather information that can be used to guide coaching interactions (Gavoni & Weatherly, 99)."

When you coach by telling, you are going to form prompt-dependent coachees. Instead of being able to respond to environmental cues and information around them, they may become dependent on you as a coach.

The 8 Ws of Deliberate Coaching helps coachees look for positive changes in their environment and encourages them "to self-identify:

1. their own behavior (good and bad)

2. the results of their behavior

3. why the behavior is occurring

4. what to do instead

5. why the behavior is important (particularly in terms of the impact on consequences that matter to them personally) (Gavoni & Weatherly, 101)."

"Pinpointing is the process of describing precisely what outcome is desired and precisely what behavior should occur to achieve the outcome (Gavoni & Weatherly, 113)." Precision is the backbone of pinpointing.

In education, the overarching goal is to reach a high level of student achievement and in order to reach this goal it takes precise and purposeful planning for short- and long-term goals.

Precision can be increased by SMART Pinpoints and Task Analysis.

Time is limited, especially in a school environment. It's important to know how to find the best course of action and target the right problems. Don't overload yourself with problems to fix, we know there are so many; so, prioritize and focus on a few at a time.

"...workplace performance has historically lacked an assessment of why behavior occurs (Austin, Carr, & Agnew, 1999). Without this knowledge, you're coaching blind, relying on a time-wasting trial-and-error approach (Gavoni & Weatherly, 125-126)." Try using a Performance Diagnostic Checklist (PDC) which assesses antecedents and information, equipment and processes, knowledge and skills, and consequences to help identify areas of need in a classroom to improve conditions for fostering instructional/behavioral strategies to make progress towards a performance goal.

"We need to track progress to see it (Gavoni & Weatherly, 138)."

It's important to be able to show the impacts of the work you are doing. Your work will be of greater value to administration and other stakeholders if there is data to show that the benefits outweigh the cost and effort. Having hard and fast data and means of communicating this data will help you avoid the "coaching telephone game" where information on the work you are doing does not ever reach the individuals making decisions based on it.

Ways you can protect against the coaching telephone game, as outlined by Gavoni & Weatherly:

1. Train for Impact: target the most critical data in an objective manner.

2. Tracking the Behavior Leads to Result Alignment: identify the most important behaviors to coach and train those who are well-suited for making the behavior changes you are hoping to see.

3. Demonstrate Value with Measurement: use an appropriate and effective measurement system.

"People don't reach goals, no matter how small, when they fail to consistently engage in the behaviors that will lead them there. If you value something, you must first learn to recognize the behaviors that will lead you toward your goals, as well as recognize the behaviors that will lead you away from them (Gavoni & Weatherly, 145)."

Start by assessing your current strengths and the areas where you need to improve. For assistance in this area, use the Coaching Self-Assessment and Checklist.

Then, make sure your coaching approach is socially valid and leads to compliance even after you leave. You may ask, how do you know if your coaching methods are socially valid? The easiest way to find out is just to ask those you coach. You may also consider providing your coachee(s) this Social Significance Evaluation tool for evaluating the social validity of your coaching pinpoints and coaching strategies (based on The Social Validity Manual: A Guide to Subjective Evaluation of Behavior Interventions by Stacy L. Carter in 2010)