Recommending Moves as Part of a Consult

A lot of powerful faculty learning happens during individual consults with a trained instructional coach. In these conversations, coaches draw heavily on their knowledge both of compelling practices to inform the conversation and of shareable resources to extend the learning beyond the consult. Instructional Moves content can serve as a source for these valuable practices and ready-made resources, which can be brought in during and/or after the consultation.

During the Consult

Below is the video of a consult between Josh Bookin, the HGSE Director of Support and Development and the IM Project Lead, and Carrie Conaway, an HGSE faculty member, on a core assignment for one of Carrie’s courses. Although Josh doesn’t explicitly bring any IM move or resource into the conversation, he is drawing from what he learned from IM materials as he coaches Carrie on getting to know her students, on scaffolding the assignment, and meeting the needs of different learners. Also, Josh drawing on his experience of problem-based learning (starting at 24:35 in the consult) is the type of reflection that can be well grounded and supplemented by referring to related Instructional Moves.

After the Consult

It can be very valuable to share resources with instructors after a consult. Sometimes these resources were mentioned explicitly during the consultation and other times they occur to the instructional coach later. Here is an actual example follow-up email sharing these types of resources with a faculty member based on a consult about improving her discussion leadership (all but the last of which are from the IM website):

So great to connect today and talk about your course. Here are follow-up resources related to our conversation:

Here you can find information here about how Tim McCarthy uses student “provokers”.
Here is Jane Mansbridge about how she uses pre-work and how she gives feedback on it.
And here are three IM moves about keeping comments on point and pushing for rigorous thinking:
And here is a chapter about “Questioning, Listening, and Responding” from Education for Judgment, one of my favorite books ever about teaching. It is like an extended love letter to leading discussions.

Let me know if you have any questions and/or if I can provide any additional support. And I hope you get some downtime during spring break!

Best,

Josh

Some Favorite Instructional Move References

Josh finds himself referencing certain Instructional Moves again and again in his work with HGSE faculty. Here are some of those gems: