Use this when a teacher asks, What should I do?
Your experience matters. The goal is not to withhold expertise. The goal is to use it in a way that helps the teacher notice, interpret, decide, and learn.
The sequence delays your contribution until the teacher's thinking is visible—not to make coaching a rule against telling, but so that what you offer builds capacity rather than dependence.
The six-move coaching sequence
- Notice — Invite the teacher to describe what they are seeing before you interpret it. What are you noticing? What happened that made you stop and think?
- Interpret — Help the teacher make meaning from what they noticed. What do you think is happening? What makes you think that? What evidence are you using?
- Locate the goal — Clarify what the teacher wants students, colleagues, or the situation to move toward. What would progress look like? What matters most in this moment?
- Generate — Support the teacher in creating more than one possible response. What else could you try? If your first idea were unavailable, what might you do?
- Anticipate — Slow the move from idea to action. What might happen if you try that? How might different learners respond? What trade-offs or risks do you see?
- Contribute — Offer your expertise after the teacher's thinking is visible. Would it be helpful if I shared something I have tried? How does that fit with your reading of the situation?
Before you answer, check your impulse
- I know a strategy that worked for me, so I want to offer it immediately.
- I am uncomfortable with the silence and want to fill it.
- I want to demonstrate that I am useful or knowledgeable.
- I am under time pressure and want to solve the issue quickly.
- I am assuming the teacher wants advice rather than thinking partnership.
- I am worried that allowing uncertainty will make me look less competent.
Naming the impulse does not make it wrong. It makes the next move a choice rather than a reflex.
Three questions for the coach
- What does the teacher need from me right now? — An answer, a question, perspective, reassurance, modeling, rehearsal, evidence, or simply space to think?
- What will my response teach? — Will it strengthen the teacher's capacity to reason through future situations—or make my judgment the default?
- What is mine to contribute? — What knowledge, evidence, or alternative perspective can I add without closing down the teacher's agency?
When direct advice is appropriate
More direct guidance may be warranted when there is an immediate safety, legal, ethical, or student-wellbeing concern; when the teacher explicitly asks for a concrete example after thinking through the issue; when the teacher lacks essential information needed to decide; when modeling is the clearest way to make a practice visible; or when time-sensitive conditions require action before extended inquiry is possible.
Even then, close the loop: What did you notice? Why might this approach fit? What would you adapt? What did you learn from trying it?
A quick post-conversation reflection
- Who did most of the thinking? — Track the balance of talk and of reasoning, not just of time.
- Did I understand the teacher's interpretation before offering mine? — Note where you moved to your own reading too early.
- Where did I create agency? Where might I have reduced it? — Identify the specific moves that opened or closed the teacher's decision space.
- What did I learn about the teacher's reasoning? — Name what you now know about how they interpret practice.
- What will I follow up on next time? — Choose one thread worth returning to.
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