Coaching, Mentoring, and the CLASS: We Make House Calls

---

Are you expecting a visit from Federal Monitors in the near future and concerned about CLASS scores? T/TAS can provide immediate onsite assistance that can result in a measurable and timely bump in CLASS scores, while also building the capacity of your mentor-coach team to sustain immediate gains and support continuous improvement. This will also assist you in compliance with new mentor-coaching requirements detailed in 1302.92 (5) (c) (2) Head Start Program Performance Standards.

There is no need to wait until a professional development day becomes available; no need to bring your teaching staff to a central location for yet another day of training. No need to wait until next year. The process involves classroom observations by T/TAS consultant Michael Gramling in tandem with designated members of your mentor-coach team. Your mentor-coach staff will build the observation and feedback skills that in turn produce concrete, measurable, and observable improvements in teacher-child interactions. 

Here’s how it works.

• T/TAS consultant and nationally recognized author, Michael Gramling, will visit your classrooms accompanied by a staff-partner designated by you (mentor-coach, CLASS specialist, education specialists, supervisor, etc.), and together they will observe teachers as they interact with children throughout the daily routine.
• Following each teacher observation, Mr. Gramling will provide individualized strength-based feedback designed to help teachers become much less anxious about CLASS behavioral markers and scores, and become much more focused on the authentic conversations with children that produce those scores. It is a feedback session that helps the teacher and the mentor-coach better understand how language rich classrooms build communication skills in young children and how proficiency in communication leads to proficiency in literacy. Although conversational in format, these feedback sessions conclude with specific agreements by teachers to take immediate and observable steps to elevate the level of discourse in their classrooms that will in turn be reflected by higher CLASS scores.
• The staff mentor-coach partner will participate as an observer in the initial feedback sessions in order to become familiar with the specific techniques and language used by Mr. Gramling. However, as the staff partner becomes more comfortable with the content and more confident in the process, the partner will gradually take the lead in the feedback sessions. Mr. Gramling’s role will transform from “giver of feedback to teachers” to “giver of feedback to mentor-coaches.”

Michael Gramling has been using this model successfully all over the United States to help programs improve the quality of their teacher-child interactions in Head Start and in Early Head Start classrooms. Some programs have scheduled a one-day visit; others have asked Mr. Gramling to return for an entire week or longer.

To schedule a visit to your program or to learn more about how it could work for you, contact us at ttas.info@wku.edu or call 800-882-7482.