414 Supporting New Teachers and Classroom Management

Supporting new teachers during their first five years is crucial for their long-term success and retention in the profession. In this episode, Matthaeus Huelse and Tyler Irwin are joined by Dr. Andrew Kwok, an associate professor from Texas A&M University, to discuss the unique challenges new teachers face and how instructional coaches can make a significant impact. Dr. Kwok shares his extensive research on teacher preparation and classroom management, offering invaluable insights into how relational approaches and strategic support can transform the early teaching experience.

Listeners will gain practical tips on building strong student relationships, managing classroom dynamics, and how coaches can tailor their support to meet the needs of novice educators. Whether you're a coach, administrator, or teacher, this episode provides actionable advice to help new teachers thrive.




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Transcript

Matthaeus Huelse: 0:01

Calling all instructional coaches, curriculum specialists, teachers on special assignment, or whatever they call you. I'm Matthaeus Huelse.

Katie Ritter: 0:09

And I'm Katie Ritter. As instructional coaches, we are often responsible for our own professional learning and can sometimes feel pretty isolated in our role.

Matthaeus Huelse: 0:17

That's why we're here, bridging the gap with a wealth of tips, tricks, and building a community of coaches.

Katie Ritter: 0:23

So hit the restart button with us.

Matthaeus Huelse: 0:25

Recharge your coaching batteries.

Katie Ritter: 0:26

And hopefully you'll leave feeling just a little bit less on your own coaching island.

Matthaeus Huelse: 0:34

Welcome back to Restart ReCharge, dear listeners. Before we get started, uh, Katie didn't make it to the episode today. We have our very own Tyler Irwin as our co host for this episode. Tyler, how are you doing?

Tyler Erwin: 0:48

I'm well, thanks Matthaeus.

Matthaeus Huelse: 0:49

Yeah, I'm really excited to have you here with us today. And long term listeners of the pod will recognize Tyler from multiple episodes. So we're always excited to hear you on the pod. Today, our episode is going to take a look at supporting teachers in the first five years at the very beginning of their careers. Tyler, do you remember your first year as a teacher?

Tyler Erwin: 1:09

I do. Yeah. I was actually in a new role as well. Started out in special education and really learned a lot. Had a lot of great mentors, but it is a crazy experience to really dive in and Feel like you're learning something new every single day and just trying to keep your head above water. So yeah, good memories, but, um, definitely an interesting time in my career.

Matthaeus Huelse: 1:30

Yes. And our guest today is an absolute professional when it comes down to preparing teachers and knowing anything about that first process, we will dive into challenges that new teachers face and the role of instructional beliefs, how strategies for effective classroom management can help us as coaches build credibility. And anything else that falls into that category. Do you want to introduce our guest today?

Tyler Erwin: 1:54

I would love to. Yeah. So podcast listeners, our guest today is Dr. Andrew Kwok. He's an associate professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Culture at Texas A& M University. We are thrilled to have you here today, Andrew. He has a background as a former high school science teacher. So he brings invaluable experience and research expertise in teacher preparation, beginning teacher support, And classroom management, like Matthaeus mentioned, his work has provided deep insights into the early career challenges teachers face and the strategies that can best support them. So as mentioned before, we are thrilled to have you with us today, Andrew. We're so excited to hear you share some more about your knowledge and your insights. on this crucial topic. So welcome.

Andrew Kwok: 2:42

Thank you guys for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity to come and chat.

Tyler Erwin: 2:46

Yeah, very nice. We're going to dive right into some of your knowledge, some of the research that you've done. We know that. Obviously there is a crisis facing the teaching profession today with new teachers and even veteran teachers leaving the profession in record rates. Uh, teacher retention is, is obviously an obstacle that many administrators are facing in districts across the country. And a lot of that can be tied to those early career years. So that's where I want to start. Considering your extensive research on early career support, What do you feel are the most pressing challenges you found that new teachers face in their first few years that maybe are causing these bigger obstacles that we see?

Andrew Kwok: 3:31

I think a lot of it comes down to classroom management and how beginning teachers can deal with. large groups of students, um, and kind of their response to that. And I think it's probably best that I back up and talk about my experience as a high school teacher. I taught several years at, in the Bay area, in Oakland, California, new teacher coming through an alter program, and then had probably six weeks worth of training coming out of undergraduate and became a full time teacher thereafter. And to make things a little bit more exciting. Um, I had a local newspaper track my every movement. They were there within my classroom. They saw and reported on the things that were happening and they published it the next day. And not only did I have little preparation. I also opened up my room for the public to see, which had some pros and cons to that. Some of the pros were that the public could see what's going on and see the struggles and the challenges that went through first year teachers minds. And they had a chance to, um, understand and empathize with that. Uh, the challenges were that any mistakes that I had, which were plenty, were also public. And so that was, as you can imagine. Pretty terrifying for a couple of different reasons. I don't think I really comprehended what that really meant, but I think the biggest impact was that portrayed, you know, if I didn't care about exposing my own, my own practice, but. I think the students were caught off guard when I said, or I'd relay a message of saying, Hey, I struggled or some students weren't that great. And then it was published the next day. And the students were like, is that me? Are you struggling because of us? Um, and in all honesty, it was, yes, it was. And so I had to figure out exactly, um, how to navigate essentially how to work with the media during that time. But it also exposed to the district and to the campus right away, Hey, this is real life feedback of what's going on entering the profession. And so I was able to get a lot of additional supports that I know others did not necessarily receive right away. And I had a lot of colleagues check in more regularly. One of the supports that I received that I know was somewhat common across districts is a classroom management coach. Someone who came in and focused exclusively on What behaviors was, were I doing? Was I doing? Um, and how did that impact the students? And I think that gave me a really quick rundown and a quick expedited training of how can I make sure my movements and my actions make them intentional to, to better impact and create a positive environment in my classroom. And so I think that's one of the biggest challenges that I see across what I went to, I eventually left the classroom and entered graduate school. We had colleagues who were trained for multiple years, others who went through AltCert and regardless of the preparation route, they all struggled with classroom management. So that's what really led me into the direction of researching that specific skill is because it was ubiquitous. Regardless of the preparation, regardless of the type of school you were in, beginning teachers struggled with. Management, and that's something that I really wanted to, uh, focus my attention towards because in reality, I felt like mastering management was also possible. Sure. Yet people weren't doing it or it was not being precipitated down to others. And so it has really been my goal. I'm trying to figure out why that hasn't been happening and what other things beginning teachers Learn to be able to succeed right away.

Tyler Erwin: 7:27

Yeah. I love that. It's interesting too, that you mentioned that you had a classroom management coach. Not only like how invaluable that relationship must've been and hopefully some of the tips and tricks that they gave you, some of the feedback. I'm wondering. In your experience, as you've done more research on this topic and maybe you've been exposed to other districts and other areas of the country and how they do things, how do you feel like coaches of all kinds, literacy coaches, tech coaches, classroom management coaches, what are some ways in which just anyone who's in that support kind of role can help new teachers? Knowing the insights that you have now after doing extensive research and being in the situation yourself. What are some ways in which these support type folks, coaches, in all their shapes and varieties, how can they help educators be more effective with classroom management? What is some of the magic that maybe that coach unlocked for you? Where can they be? I

Andrew Kwok: 8:27

think for, first off, I think districts need to prioritize it, right? And so the fact that I had a classroom management coach is pretty rare. And so I think districts and campuses should really invest in that specifically because they know it's important, but at the same point, they just hope these other coaches can subsume that role and be experts in that specific skill. When in fact, they're focused on literacy, they're focused on tech, they're focused on other things. So if they can create a priority for that, I think that would be the number one, um, recommendation, but then in reality, administrators will do what they want. And so coaches need to find ways to adapt. And so thinking about what are specific skills or ways to help support beginning teachers, I think the main thing oftentimes comes down to the idea of, I think kind of two parts, but the first one is to focus on relationships. How can teachers build better relationships and be intentional about that within the classroom? Um, management isn't just about the behaviors that happen. It's about building positive interactions. And so when you get that good relationship with a student, whether it's learning about their interests, sharing about your own, finding ways to have positive interactions between students themselves, Those sort of small little tidbits builds a positive climate, builds a positive culture in the classroom, and then builds investment in those students to the directions that you're going to provide. They're not going to listen just for the sake of listening if they don't have to. But they will listen to someone that they care about. So if that can be built in, I think that's the primary thing. But I think what can a literacy and a tech coach do is they provide the content. Can they provide more meaningful and engaging content? Meets the students where they are and allows them to see themselves reflected in that, in that lesson. So better engagement, you don't have to worry about disruptions. You don't have to worry about, oh, task behaviors. And so I think if there's ways that those literacy and tech coaches can think about who is the demographic of the students that they're working with, who's in that classroom, who are the most disruptive ones, and what are their interests, how can that be embedded into those lessons. And then let's also think about the specific, maybe pairings of students or ways that different activities will play out from that good engaging lesson that we can think about the directions, the instructions, the kind of peripheral behaviors that may be associated with that and look at it from the student perspectives, I think that could help produce a lot of the management that goes on.

Tyler Erwin: 11:15

Yeah. And I love how those things pair so nicely. Right. You mentioned the investment the teacher has to make in each student as an individual, they're going to see that student every day. They're going to have interactions with that student, that class as a whole every day, and maybe the coach won't, whether they're a literacy coach, a tech coach, they may interact with the students occasionally, but that's where with some of that knowledge, they maybe know more about the classroom, the demographic, like you mentioned, Hey, here's some engagement strategies. Here's a way you could do this station based activity and create some pairings of students that might be more effective. Here's how you can bring in some more relevant type of content that's going to keep them engaged. And so the teacher's doing their part, right, making relationships with individuals, and the coach is doing their part, providing content that's engaging. And really with those two things, it sounds like that's going to eliminate a lot of the classroom management issues that tend to pop up for first year teachers, because the students are going to feel like, okay, this is someone who cares about me. Oh, and I get to learn about things that are interesting, that are engaging, that I'm passionate about as a young person. And so not only do I feel like this isn't just a transaction, this is a relationship between myself and my teacher, but. We're learning about things that really interest me as well. I think that's really great tangible tips for coaches of all types because you can see how those two things play together. Really appreciate that. Matthaeus, I'm wondering if you want to dive a little bit more into the teacher themselves and how they view their role, perceive their role, their self image, as it were, as a teacher, and maybe how that relates to Andrew.

Matthaeus Huelse: 12:58

Look at that wonderful transition, Tyler. You set me up beautifully. Yes. I actually wanted to talk about next a little bit about teacher beliefs. You've done a lot of research in that and especially how teacher beliefs play Very important role in the first couple of years as a teacher. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you learned, the role of teacher belief and what it is, because I've said it like a thousand times and I don't think everybody understands.

Andrew Kwok: 13:21

Yeah, my work in teacher beliefs stem from the idea of classroom management. How do you view your relationship with students? How do you feel your interactions with them? And it has broadened out. That initial research was focused on how do you define classroom management? What is it that you're looking at and what is it that you're focused on? What it means to manage students. Uh, the difference that I found from that research is that. Teachers who view classroom management more holistically, as in, look at the idea of relationships, look at the idea of lesson planning and academics, and then consider then how that, um, has an impact on behavior. As opposed to those who looked at classroom management as predominantly behavior management, how can I control the student? How can I make sure that they are doing what I say they do, they need to do? That difference was drastic. What we call More relational versus less relational. The more relational individuals end up having better teacher evaluation scores. And so that kind of harkens back to that first point and summarized nicely by Taylor in the sense that relationships, lesson planning, building these key components within not just the classroom, but how a teacher thinks about classroom management is really key and can have. Ideally, eventual sex on the actions that they do. If they think relationships are important, they're going to prioritize it. I think later work that I've done has looked at the idea of culture and do student backgrounds, do their demographics, does their culture play a role in how you lesson plan and how you manage and consistently and unsurprisingly, that all plays a role as well. I think the difference between the idea of, I need to Manage the classroom the same for every student is very different than the idea of I'm going to be responsive to the student's needs. Certain students may need more leniency in certain aspects because that's something that they're struggling with as opposed to I need to provide certain rewards for other students because they're more externally motivated. I think that difference has been playing out and something that I'm super curious about and continuing to research is that difference between Being culturally responsive in how you manage and how you teach and the positive effects that has as opposed to those who don't think that's as important and really focus on establishing their own actions regardless of the student population. And I think when you look at beliefs, when you look at these ideas of how they're thinking about relationship, relationships. How they're thinking about culture. That all plays a big role into the eventual actions that they're going to prioritize in the classroom. And, um, to some of the work that I've done and others have done, uh, it does play an eventual role into making, uh, positive effects for student achievement, their behavior, their, um, desire to be in that classroom. Um, a whole host of other outcomes.

Matthaeus Huelse: 16:32

Now, I'm really curious because you mentioned earlier, you had a behavior coach based on what you've learned. How did that behavior coach's support either differ or line up with the things that you have found? Was that teacher telling you to build those relationships or was this a conversation about like, how do I manage and control these particular students solo?

Andrew Kwok: 16:51

I think it wasn't ever an explicit portion of my classroom management coach. I think it was more just underlying. What sort of things am I doing to build positive interactions? So something that I, that really resonates in my mind is I remember she, um, counted the number of times I called on certain students. She also counted the number of times I had my back to the students. And those sort of things you would just never think of as a beginning teacher, because you're overwhelmed with just getting through the lesson. But those sort of components, yeah, they're behavior related, but at the same point, they're like making me think as a new teacher, from the student perspective, what is it that they're seeing me do as a teacher and how am I engaging them or not, how am I leaving opportunities for disruption and of being off task, what am I doing to consider that within my day to day actions? Thanks.

Matthaeus Huelse: 17:54

Yeah, a lot of what I'm hearing is that as coaches, we do have all this experience specifically in a subject area or where we're going, maybe tech or whatever it is that we are coaching, a lot of what we know needs to connect back to, I know what the breaking points are in this exercise. I know where students will get off tasks. I know exactly how this activity will play out in certain classrooms. And I, a lot of awareness of that seems to be a part where I can help out as a coach. All right, before we continue and, uh, have a couple more questions, uh, we were going to take it quickly to our sponsors, and then we will be right back with more questions for Dr. Andrew Buck. Hi there, Restart Recharge listeners. I'm Brooke, Community Manager for the EDU Coach Network at Forward Edge. If today's topic has you nodding along, thinking about how to better support new teachers, then you're in for a treat. We just hosted a webinar all about supporting new teachers beyond orientation, packed with strategies to help them thrive in the classroom. And that's just the beginning. In our network, we also dive deep into topics like moving beyond small talk, improving coaching impact with data. By joining, you'll gain access to a whole community of educators and coaches who are just as passionate about growth as you are. Plus, you'll get exclusive resources and ongoing support to keep you at the top of your game. Joining our EDU Coach Network is free! So, why not join us? Whether you are a veteran coach or brand new to the gig, let's work together to make a real impact. Visit educoachnetwork. com and check out what we have to offer. We can't wait to welcome you to the EDU Coach Network. Looking for a program that reaches all teachers and learning new tools to integrate in their lessons? Ed U badges is the answer. Ed U is an any time anywhere badging program that is designed to take bite-sized tools for instruction and teach teachers how to use them. Ed U has received the ISTI seal of alignment for educator standards, and each badge in our expanding library is aligned to the ISTI standards and the same model. Learn more about the program that teachers call addicting@edge.net slash edu badge. Welcome back from a quick commercial break. We are here with Dr. Andrew Kwok, and we're talking about supporting teachers new to the profession, setting them up for success. And we're going to go in and ask a couple more questions. Have you ever considered what would have happened if you weren't in that beginning situation where you were on display and you had the newspapers around you and you had your coach? Do you think that if it wouldn't have been this public, how would you have progressed as a teacher? What would your experience have been?

Tyler Erwin: 20:39

Yeah, I know for me, the big thing is a lot of our listeners obviously work in the field of instructional coaching. And like in our case, we're typically, we're known as more like tech coaches. So we're integrationists and ways in which to use technology to improve assessment and engagement and giving students feedback and those sorts of things we don't often think about. Oh, this could also impact or influence classroom management. And so I'm almost thinking about what are some ways we can shift our mindset? Because like you mentioned, these classroom management coaches are rare. I've actually never heard of that in any of the districts we serve. But they typically do have literacy coaches, math coaches, in our case, a lot of technology coaches. So how can we as coaches be more attuned to that, more attentive to that need? And find some big wins that, that we can offer up to make them more effective. I just feel like that's something that I've never thought about until I got on this episode with you. And I just feel like a lot of our listeners would really be interested to see how they could even shift their mindset a little bit. to be more supportive in this way.

Andrew Kwok: 21:48

Yeah. So going to Matthaeus question of what would happen, um, I think that I would eventually be fine, um, but that it would take a little bit longer, right? I think the, the, the underlying theory for individuals is that for, especially for classroom management is the idea of sink or swim, eventually you'll figure it out or you won't and you'll leave the profession. Now, I think that's a terrible way to go about things, so I, I think there's better ways of preparing, uh, individuals and giving them the necessary support. So addressing the idea of what are some key things for instructional coaches? What can they do to focus on classroom management, even though classroom management isn't their expertise or their forte? I think there is a couple of things. One is when possible to stay up to date for research based. and finding good practices to keep an eye out for. That also seems easier said than done, and I'm glad to be on a podcast to illuminate what some of those things are. There's a couple previous reviews that talk about some of the biggest and most important classroom management strategies that teacher prep should focus on. And I think the same thing can be said for instructional coaches. I want to give credit to the National Council for Teacher Quality. They create a review that Talked about five big practices that are focused on classroom management, and then five secondary ones that are equally important, but just not as focused on. The big five were the idea of rules, routines, praise, misbehavior, and engagement. And then the secondary five is managing the physical space, motivating students. Using the least intrusive method involving parents and the school community, and then attending to social, cultural, emotional factors that affect the classroom social climate. Now I know that's a lot, and I wouldn't anticipate any instructional coach of not only remembering what I just said there, but also being able to address each one, but I think at the very least choose one, and I think it can be anything that the coach feels. confident that they can recognize in a classroom or maybe find one that's most, um, relevant to their content or most relevant to what they're seeing in their specific group of teachers. And then just focus in on that and just say, I'm going to focus on the idea of student engagement or the focus on praise or to focus on, um, what rules are being given and how they are being, followed throughout the classroom. And just spend 10 minutes of the observation or maybe a half or full observation and just tracking what are two of those things, or maybe ideally talk with the teacher first, what is it that they feel like they're struggling with, and then just spend a minute or two to, uh, research it for a minute. And then think about what goes on in that classroom and just follow it. But I think that provides the necessary data to share back to the teacher. But I think the biggest benefit of an instructional coach is just having another set of eyes, even though they're focused on tech or literacy or math or whatever else, they also build good teaching. And so while they provide content expertise. They just provide another set of, another perspective on pedagogy that they wouldn't necessarily do. One thing that I found interesting that during my time as, as a teacher, one thing that was promoted and eventually adopted into my own practice was video recording myself. Just setting up a little camera in the back, seeing what happens, and in reality it's taking that student perspectives. And what was fun during certain times is I would catch myself back to the classroom and then notice that students were throwing paper, doing whatever else. And I would look at the, at that night, see what I did, see what the students did, and then come back the next day and tell the student, Hey, I'm done. I saw you throw that yesterday and they're like, what are you talking about? No, you didn't. I'm like, I have the footage right here. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. And I think I even showed it to a parent once who just did not believe me. I'm like, I have footage. And so it's not meant for that gotcha moment, but for my own instructional practice. But it's like that kind of evidence of getting another perspective, seeing something that you wouldn't normally see in large part, because as beginning teachers, And it's been shown over and over, they have so much cognitive load. They're thinking about so much and they're not thinking about the broader perspective or they're not thinking about these other aspects that are equally important. And so they need to be shown that over and over again so that they can make improvements over time when they have the capacity to allow for that.

Tyler Erwin: 27:03

Yeah, I love that answer. As we're having this conversation, I'm thinking back to myself as a first year teacher, and I didn't give attention to. Most of those 10 things you listed, but I love that you're recommending to coaches like, Hey, pick one you feel comfortable with, or one that's really relevant. One that stood out to me, Andrew, as you mentioned, parent and community involvement can be really hard to do. It takes a lot of time and investment on the teacher's part, meaningfully involve parents in the community and do so regularly and consistently. But then I was thinking about what like Matthaeus and I do as tech coaches. And we're really showing like the value of AI, for example, and how it can help us with some of that communicative load and being more regular and consistent with emailing parents and, and generating content for the community to consume. And those are ways in which like, as a tech coach, we can maybe help with that one small aspect and be a little bit more considerate of it when we're working with that teacher. And that's one example of many, but I love those 10 different points. I think for our listeners, that's going to give them a lot to think about and a lot to chew on. And when they are working with teachers, be more aware of some of those elements because they have such a big impact. on how the classroom goes, on how the, the outcomes of the lesson are achieved. And so thank you for sharing those with us. I think that will give all of us a lot to reflect on as we move through this teacher crisis that we see and, and help first year teachers be a lot more successful.

Matthaeus Huelse: 28:43

So pulling this kind of together and looking at what almost would be your desired or most optimal way to prepare a teacher and get them ready. I know that we all struggle with the perceptions of the profession as a whole, and it's hard to retain people. Now, your start to the profession was very public, very transparent, incredibly transparent to the, to the point that it hurt, I'm sure. But I'm wondering, I knew that when I just started that there's a certain sense of continuously having being observed and always someone having over my shoulder. There is this in between of we want to create an environment where teachers want to be part of this and they want to be teachers, but there's also. This dislike of having someone hover over your shoulder. So where is the sweet spot in terms of creating an environment that encourages teachers to stay, encourages teachers to grow without feeling like having someone behind you telling you the way to go and losing your own sense of teaching in that sense?

Andrew Kwok: 29:44

Yeah, some of the work that I've done with coaching and coaches is making sure that the coach builds trust with the beginning teacher. I think. It's really easy for beginning teachers to be concerned about some sort of evaluation. I think the main idea of coaching is to build the trust and make sure that teachers understand that you are there for their growth and their development. And not there for evaluation. They're not there to tell the principal or administrator or whoever else about all the bad things that are happening. And I think that's difficult for beginning teachers to, to grasp is that someone is only there for your help and to make sure that they have what's necessary, and I think that kind of reduces that initial concern or anxiety with what happens. Like the other thing is to trust the expertise of that individual and to show, and sometimes it's providing evidence that I know what I'm doing as a coach because they can particularly hear it, especially when they get someone who is out of their content area or doesn't know them, um, and doesn't know their students as well. And I think the beginning teacher can feel very possessive over that or be very guarded in terms of, you know, Do they really know what they're saying? I think that's natural, right? They feel like they can do it on their own. But in reality, the coach has to, is going to the very beginning, focus on relationships themselves. They need to make sure that they have that respect and that trust from the beginning teacher so that they can then relay information that is vital for the beginning teacher success. And I think similar to what we mentioned before is don't do too much, right? It's as an instructional coach, you may see a whole host of things that are wrong, hopefully not, but you may want to write and tell about every single thing. And I think that's where it becomes similarly problematic of too much going on. And at that point, they're either cognitively overloaded, too much feedback, or they just may not trust the instructional coach from that point and think they're just nagging them. And so if you can really just pin it down to One or two things that they should work on for the next time. And even best case scenario is talk with the beginning teacher beforehand. What is it that you want to work on? You may have your own ideas as an instructional coach, but if they're not responsive to it, it does not matter. So you want to build that investment from the start so that they have the opportunity. And then if you want to throw in a tidbit of, hey, work on adding more praise or work on something else in addition to that, I think that would be completely fine. But I think it really just comes down to, can the coach not just provide good expertise, but can they have a good team? A good working relationship that is built on trust.

Matthaeus Huelse: 32:57

If you could, this, the last question, we always end our episode with, uh, top three tips to give to our listeners, but one, I want to have one extra tip ahead of time. If you could give any piece of advice, one piece of advice to any new teacher in the profession, as someone who has done extensive research, being in their shoes and haven't gone through your experience, what's one piece of advice you could give, or you would want to give to every new coming teacher?

Andrew Kwok: 33:23

For the purposes of this podcast, I would say, listen to your coach. I like that one. Yeah, we're going

Matthaeus Huelse: 33:29

to call it right. That's great. That's awesome. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Andrew Kwok: 33:33

Um, but I think in general, what I tell all beginning teachers is build relationships with your students. Understand what, who they are and what it takes for them to succeed. Because everything that we've talked about is the idea of, can the beginning teacher relate to the students? Yes. Similarly, can the intractable coach relate to the beginning teacher? And that all plays a vital role in their success. Cause when an individual only thinks about themselves and thinks about what it takes for them to be successful in the classroom, that ruins the point. The teacher is there for the students. And if they don't understand who they are and what it is that they need both academically, behaviorally, relationally, then in my opinion, everything kind of falls on deaf ears.

Matthaeus Huelse: 34:23

That's a very good point. Alright, do you have three tips for our coaches or our listeners that they can take away?

Tyler Erwin: 34:31

Three best takeaways, Andrew. What do you got for us?

Andrew Kwok: 34:35

Unsurprisingly, the first one would be build a relationship with your beginning teacher. Make sure that they understand who you are and that you focus on who they are. The second one would be to talk to them to identify what they wanted to work on. What aspects of either content and or behavior that they may want to improve on so that you can provide the necessary observation and expertise. The third one would be. little research on your own. Identify some areas that could be improved for not just your own practice, but, um, that could be beneficial for beginning teachers and to, to push yourself to be able to, um, Help in a variety of different ways beyond just what your content efforts rely on.

Matthaeus Huelse: 35:25

Great. Well, I thank you so much for sharing this. Before we let you go, is there, we give all of our guests a minute to brag about anything they got going on and share their socials if they want to be found online. So anything you want to share with our audience?

Andrew Kwok: 35:39

Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to come speak and share a little bit about my work. By all means, this is a little bit different than an academic audience, which I would just say, go look at my Google Scholar, but that's a little bit different. But use Google Scholar and then you can search my name or look at some of my bios in my Texas A& M directory. And to find some of the work that, that I do, I'm happy to continue to, um, share and speak on that sort of stuff. And so if it is relevant to the work, um, or to the practice that you guys are doing out there, I'm happy to continue to share and have those sorts of conversations.

Matthaeus Huelse: 36:17

Thank you so much for being here and talking with us. Yeah. We'd love to maybe have you on again and yeah. Listeners, thank you so much for giving us your time and have a great rest of your day.

Tyler Erwin: 36:27

Thanks Andrew.

Matthaeus Huelse: 36:32

Thanks for spending time with us today. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with an educator friend.

Katie Ritter: 36:38

And connect with us on social media at rrcoachcast to let us know what you thought of the episode and what topics you want us to discuss next.

Matthaeus Huelse: 36:46

New episodes drop every other Tuesday. Be sure to subscribe to Restart Recharge wherever you listen to podcasts.

Katie Ritter: 36:52

So press the restart button,

Matthaeus Huelse: 36:54

recharge your coaching batteries, and leave feeling equipped and inspired to coach fearlessly with the Restart Recharge Podcast.

Katie Ritter: 37:01

A Tech Coach Collective.

Andrew Kwok: 37:07

Social media, I'm, I have a love hate relationship with that, and I don't think there's really too much benefit, but if you can find me, you can find me without issue, but I don't really do anything. It's not really beneficial in that end.

Matthaeus Huelse: 37:19

No, I don't even blame you. You're the, we had two recordings today. You're the second person that did that. Usually we're all about that, but. I completely understand. I am also not a huge social person myself. I

Andrew Kwok: 37:30

mean, other people I met, like whenever I listen to podcasts or anything else, they're very quick on the button to plug all the things that they have. And I'm like, I have it, don't use it. And it's barely beneficial. So I could, yeah, by me, by all means. But I think just the opportunity to, the fact that you people listen to this and hopefully they've found some nuggets of information to help them, I think that's more than satisfying for me.