It’s that time of year when educators are faced with contract decisions: do I stay in my current classroom or do I make a move to a new grade level, new school, or entirely new position? An increasingly popular career goal has become to move into a tech coaching role. I know I’m biased, but this is hands down the best position in schools! I get asked all the time, “how do I become a tech coach?!” so I want to share some advice to all the aspiring edtech coaches (or whatever they call the position at your school).
1. First, make sure you aren’t just running from the classroom, and you have a real understanding for what the position is. This is the best job in the world when it’s the right fit, but it is hard sometimes. No, you won’t be grading or lesson planning after the school-day every day. No, you will no longer have parent meetings, state testing, and a myriad of other things to worry about. But, you will face a lot of resistance, mis-understanding, deadlines, and your own set of challenges. If you aren’t in it for the right reasons, you aren’t doing any good to the teachers (and ultimately the students) you’re charged with serving.
2. Make sure you are walking the walk. What I mean by that is, it will be hard to justify moving you into a tech coach role if you aren’t really using a whole lot of technology, and more importantly, aren’t using that technology in really meaningful ways. I’m not suggesting using a new tool everyday; that wouldn’t be what’s best for your kiddos. But, definitely spend some time having a really deep understanding about the impact the technology you do use has on transforming the student experience. Don’t be afraid to try new things. Once you are a tech coach, you’ll want to be able to talk about a variety of experiences you had in the classroom, and those experiences need to go far beyond district-purchased drill and kill programs. Check out Eduprotocols (either the books or their site) or Google Apps for Littles for some really great ways to use technology with your kids that make a big impact on student learning, and will require a very little learning curve for you.
3. Be a champion to close the digital use divide! Don’t have a tech coach in your building/district already? While you may not currently be in a formal role to work with teachers, there are plenty of ways that you can plant seeds and implement guerrilla tech coaching without a whole lot of extra effort on your part. Have a really awesome lesson that exemplifies meaningful use of technology coming up? Invite your principal to come in and observe. Having the support of admin is really critical for a tech coach, so this could be a great way to get on their radar. On that note, you can also invite other teachers to come check it out, or even to give you feedback. You can host a monthly “appy hour” in your classroom to highlight new tools and strategies for teachers. Share quick tips in staff meetings. Any little thing that will help share your passion for good use of edtech with other teachers is a good thing.
Have a tech coach in your building or district already? Find ways to partner with these individuals. Coaches are always looking for go-to teachers to try new things and champion working with them. Sign up for their coaching cycles if they offer them. If they don’t do coaching cycles, reach out to them regularly for additional support, feedback, and co-planning. Ask if you can help them with upcoming PD. Encourage other teachers to work with the coach by sharing your own experience working with them. As someone who hires tech coaches, I am very unlikely to hire a teacher at a school where we have a coach who avoided our coach like the plague when they were there. If that teacher frequently sought out our coach, I’m a lot more likely to want to continue the conversation. Why? Because I know that they…
4. Exercise a growth mindset and positive attitude. Coaches have to have a growth mindset, and they have to have a positive attitude if they plan to make any difference in schools. Good coaches are incredibly collaborative beings, both with admin and teachers in their school, and with other coaches in their professional learning network (PLN). If you have a coach, reach out to collaborate with them… good lessons can always be even better! If you don’t have a coach, are there other teachers you can collaborate with on a lesson, project, or committee? Having these collaborative experiences will really help prepare you for the role. I always look for a coach that can speak to collaborating with other educators, particularly another coach if they had access.
The positive attitude ties in a lot with my first tip. If you find that you’ve just become really negative about being in the classroom (which, I can’t say I blame you right now!), try to find those bright spots to reframe your thinking. It will be good practice as a tech coach; we do a lot of searching for bright spots. My old cheerleading coach used to aways tell us, “girls, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar!” As a tech coach, you’re going to want to catch all the flies you can, and your attitude toward others can really make or break your ability to do so.
5. Get active on social media and any internal district channels to share out what you’re doing in your class. Does your school have a hashtag? Make it goal to share a bright spot from your classroom once a week. Snap a quick pic, send a quick tweet. Slowly work your way to a once a day goal. These don’t always have to be something your students do with technology (although, I’d definitely recommend peppering that in). Heck, it doesn’t always even have to be about your kids. Give another teacher a shout out or share something you learned at the PD day. Creating a public presence for yourself will become increasingly important if you’re looking to get a tech coach role anywhere but your current district when your building principal may not necessarily be able to speak on your behalf.
6. Engage with other coaches as much as you can. One of the best forms of PD for coaches is to engage with other coaches in a PLN. Even if you aren’t a coach yet, you can be learning with and from those who are in the role. You might get an easy idea on how you can support teachers. You’ll definitely learn more about the role, particularly the challenges, so you can be thinking about how you would handle certain situations. Some popular hashtags on Twitter are #ETCoaches, #TOSA, #EduCoach, and #GoogleEC (Google’s certified coach program). You can also follow EDU Coach Collective on social media (@EduCoachNetwork). Our mission is to create a PLN of instructional coaches to improve student learning through collaborative partnerships with educators; to connect, learn, and grow with coaches. If you attend conferences in person, seek out coaching sessions and talk to the other coaches in those sessions. You never know where one of those connections might lead.
7. Attend Coaches Camp! Coaches Camp is a two-day summer training that was created specifically to support instructional coaches. It is every tool, strategy, and exercise that an instructional coach needs to maximize the impact of their coaching program- regardless of coaching specialization. Aside from getting an entire degree in for coaching, this is the most comprehensive, time-sensitive way to prepare yourself to become a coach. You can check out this article on 4 reasons why attending Coaches Camp is a non negotiable and calculate your ROI. You can also use this convince your boss to attend Coaches Camp letter template.
8. Update up your resume. Now, this last one might seem a) obvious, and b) a little superficial. From a content standpoint, you’re going to want to include things in a resume that highlight how you’ve implemented technology with your students and any experience you have supporting teachers and leading PD. From a visual standpoint, you may want to consider making your resume visually appealing. Coaches are often incredibly creative people. I like to see this exemplified from the very start. Will I turn down an interview because the resume isn’t “pretty?” Absolutely not. Will a unique and creative resume catch my eye and almost immediately make me schedule an interview because I think it could be indicative of your personality and what you could bring to the job? Yes. Canva has lots of templates for resumes if you’re not sure where to get started.
9. Nail your interview. Last but not least, be sure you’re prepared once you get that interview. Coaching roles are becoming pretty competitive because there’s a lot more people who want them than there are positions to fill. Check out this post for three tips on how to nail an edtech coach interview.
What tips would you give to someone asking how do I become a tech coach? Drop your advice in the comments below!
Tech To You Later!
-Katie, Ed.D.