Restart Recharge Podcast

510 From Data to Action: Coaching Team Innovation

Season 5 Episode 10

Dr. Jorge Valenzuela is a leading performance and education coach, author, and university instructor at Old Dominion University, as well as a speaker for Lifelong Learning Defined. He is dedicated to empowering educators through training in instructional innovation, action research, project-based learning (PBL), STEM pathways, entrepreneurship, and essential life skills. Partnering with Corwin, Dr. Valenzuela helps schools enhance core instruction with student-centered and impactful strategies. A published researcher, he also hosts the Lifelong Learning Defined podcast, offering practical insights and support to educators worldwide

Matthaeus Huelse:

Calling all Instructional Coaches, Curriculum Specialists, Teachers on Special Assignment, or whatever they call you. I'm Matthaeus Huelse.

Katie Ritter:

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:

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

Katie Ritter:

So hit the restart button with us.

Matthaeus Huelse:

Recharge your coaching batteries.

Katie Ritter:

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

Celine:

Welcome back to the Restart Recharge podcast, where we're dedicated to bringing you insights and inspiration to invigorate your educational practice. Today we have a very special guest, Dr. Jorge Valenzuela. Dr. Valenzuela is a performance and education coach, author, university instructor at Old Dominion University, and Speaker at Lifelong Learning. Define. He empowers educators to lead with confidence and teach more effectively through his expertise in instructional innovation. Action research, PBL, STEM Pathways Entrepreneurship and Essential Life Skills. the partnership with CORE and Dr. Valenzuela Support Schools and strengthening core instruction through instructional innovation and project-based learning, really helping educators adopt those student-centered and impactful practices. if that weren't enough. He's also a published researcher and the host of Lifelong Learning Defined Podcast. Welcome Jorge, we're thrilled to have you. How are you today?

Jorge:

appreciate that. Every time I hear that, I still can't believe Dr. Valenzuela, so it just makes me happy. I, I still have. To pinch myself and I graduate tomorrow, but by the time this episode airs, I would have already graduated officially. So thank you for acknowledging that.

Celine:

Congratulations. To you. That is such a big accomplishment. I can't even imagine gone through so many different, amazing experiences in life, so I feel like that's a great way to intro, like to introduce, we have a large audience of different technology coaches, instructional coaches, and we would just love to hear about you and your background or your field just to get this conversation started. Who is Jorge and what should we know about you to get this thing started?

Jorge:

Well, it's officially my 23rd year in education. I started out as a STEM and a computer science teacher. My undergrad was in computer science. I later got into administration and supervision. I got my master's in that. Then I got into a leadership role at Richmond City Public Schools in Virginia. We had 50 schools and I was responsible for all of the STEM classes, all the engineering classes. And in that role is where I. I had my first opportunity of coaching adults, and I realized that sometimes from central office we're asking teachers or we're telling them to do things that we don't know how to do ourselves. I remember even back then, I had no interest in being a transactional leader, a transactional leader. It's the type of person who says, here's the curriculum, here's the technology, here's the book. Now figure it out. I wanted to be a transformational leader, someone who had the knowledge and the skill sets to be able to help leaders, lead teachers, because instructionally we have to model the things that they don't know how to do that we're asking them to do, and then for teachers so they can now work for kids. So now that they can model for young people. So I joined an organization called The Buck Institute for Education Now they're known as PBO Works, and at the time they were the world leader. In workshops or professional Development. in the pedagogy of project-based learning. I joined them in 2014, and I did that for a few years. What I didn't know was they were going to send me around the country. I got to see education in other contexts that I previously hadn't seen. For example, I was inner city, but I got to see education in rural places, in affluent places, in big cities, small cities, all races, any context that you can imagine in the United States. And so I developed the know-how for how to differentiate my message of project-based learning of STEM and computer science ed, tech good leadership, all these different things into. Being able to transform for my audience and give them the pieces of the message that they needed, but most importantly in the way that they can understand it. Because I think that as a teacher, our job is To translate. the very complex, in ways that people can understand it.

Celine:

I'm interested to know when you go into these spaces to speak, 'cause we know you do these large keynotes, what's your main thing that you try to attach to your message when you're trying to reach covering all those bases?

Jorge:

It really depends on the audience. I have, a few canned messages that are already done, but depending on the audience, it's tailored or I add certain things or I remove certain things. One of the things I do for. Any site I'm going to work with, I always ask the admin, what Are. three outcomes that you want for your audience, and What are some of the things, That you think or that you know are holding them back? So to answer your question. in the past I would be nervous. And I would want them to like what I'm doing as I've evolved in my work and as a speaker, Because see, as an education consultant, you are a speaker. and a coach. That's true. But you're also an entrepreneur. As I've gotten into this role, I've understood that when someone is inviting you to speak somewhere, like right now, you've invited me. My job is to pour into the audience. Yes. I come here to give, not to take. So I put myself in the mindset. Whoever's out there, whether it is young people, administrators, it's teachers, I'm here to give, I'm here to pour into them. And then when I'm done with that, I turn that off.

Celine:

I love that so much. I feel like that's how I dive into purpose too. It's like how can I pour into somebody else? And being that we have. Such a large audience of coaches. I know we have some new coaches that have just come in and They're nervous,, I was just in the classroom and that's how I came into my role. I was like, I've been in the classroom for six years. I just started this coaching role. How am I supposed to reach these veterans that are been doing it for years? They're looking at me like, who is this young child trying to show me what to do? So what advice would you give new coaches that are coming in. They're trying to have conversations with their admin and make change, like what advice would you give them?

Jorge:

All right, so it's twofold. for anyone experiencing anxiety, fear, things like that, that's a normal thing. There's research that shows that the thing that people fear the most, even more than dying is public speaking. public speaking just means you're the center of attention. So that might be speaking on a podcast, it might be speaking on a stage. It might be having a difficult one-on-one conversation with someone. But anywhere where you're the center of attention, The only way. to get rid of the fear is repetition. Repetition is the mother of all skill. Aristotle said, you are what you repeatedly do. I don't think that we were meant to be the center of attention. I don't think we were meant to be that, because if we were meant to be that, then it would be natural and there wouldn't be so much fear and anxiety That's associated with it. all I have to say is practice, practice, practice, and eventually it'll become a part of you. Number two. We always have to ask ourselves, am I the right person to be giving teachers feedback? Do I fully understand what they need? And if we do, that's fantastic, that's phenomenal. But if we don't, we have to be honest with ourselves. And then all we have to do is work on the things that we need to work on, Maybe one or two strategies a month, and then after six months, now you got 24 strategies. After a year you got 48. That's what I did. I have always been very honest with myself and I've always said to myself, well, you're really good at this, but this is a piece that you need work in. And I'll just give you an example. In my work, I've seen three types of teachers. There's a teacher who's all that she knows, she's all that. A Lot of times. she knows a lot better than the person giving her feedback because she's been teaching a long time.

Celine:

Yeah.

Jorge:

So you can't give them feedback in a way where you've exposed yourself and she knows that you don't know what you're really talking about. Now what you've done is you've offended this person and to get them back is hard. Now you've got the type of teacher who might think they're all that, but they're really not. They might do some things well, because everyone knows something. But they overvalue themselves. They think, well, I am. God's gift to everybody. This person, they need a nudge and we have to be mindful. Of their pride, of their ego, things like that. So the way that we give them feedback should be done in a way where we keep it very cordial, very respectful. Still say what we have to say, but we have to actually build a relationship first.

Celine:

Yeah.

Jorge:

Be because if not, we'll lose them. And then there's a beginning teacher or a struggling teacher, someone that really just doesn't know what to do, and we have to in this moment, remember when we started? And empathize with them in their journey. I would say don't hold people accountable for what they don't know. Hold them accountable when they don't want to know.

Celine:

That's good. Oh, that's so good. Okay, love that. All right, restart. Recharge. Podcast. We are going to take a quick break. Stay tuned for the next part of this episode.

Katie Ritter (CoC Promo):

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Celine:

welcome back to the Restart Recharge podcast. We are here today with Jorge and we've already had an amazing conversation so far. How do you feel, Jorge? Because I feel like we've already dug into some good stuff

Jorge:

Celine. I think that for someone that is trying their hand at being a podcast host, you're doing a fantastic job. Phenomenal. I am enjoying Myself being in space with you and I like what you're asking me,

Celine:

I have to deep dive into this because this is one of the things that was brought up someone was like, we want to interview and talked with this guy, and I was like. Wait, he has a publication now. This is crazy. You do so much. we would love for you to talk, in addition to your brand about your recent publication, instructional Innovation Plus, and hear more about it, what drove you to start writing this publication? who's your target audience How can people get access to it? All the fun stuff.

Jorge:

Yeah. Instructional Innovation Plus is a book that I wrote recently that will be published by the ti. It'll be available for sale by the time this episode airs and it's work that I've been steeped in since 2007. In 2007, I was at Central Office. In Richmond City Public Schools, we had 50 schools, and even though I was responsible for STEM and computer science in my district, that was my content area. That's what they wanted me to supervise and wanted me to support our superintendent and our director of curriculum and instruction. They were bent on making sure that every quarter, every instructional specialist, anyone who had the title. Or had the license to supervise instruction in any way. She made sure that , every quarter, three times a year, basically, not on the last quarter, because it was the end of the year, but we would every quarter visit each of the 50 schools and observe all of the teachers. As a team. we partnered central office admin with building admin, principals and aps, and we would go into all the classrooms, we would learn our teachers and our students, and we did something called instructional rounds using learning walks. They didn't call it that back then, but that's what it is. And we would have these big data debriefs. After the walkthroughs, after the instructional, after the learning walks, and we would all discuss what we saw. We look for themes in the data, we would identify solutions for these problems of practice. For example, one solution might be boosting student engagement. Another might be improving reading scores, whatever. And, improving morale. So now we developed our professional development and we brought in other speakers and other coaches that would do the PD as interventions for the solutions we were looking for. So that type of action research was the way that I learned how to improve instruction. It wasn't perfect. And then I got into the PhD program and then I learned the science behind. Research and a lot of the strategies that we were working with teachers on what I was learning in PBL with the Buck Institute. So then it made it easy for me to now be able to put things in the right buckets. Right here is your, core teaching. Here's your instructional strategies, here's your educational technology. How are they integrated? If you're a leader, how do you support this? All these different things. So that's my gift. I think I'm able to organize research theory, of course, and all these different things, tools and strategies. What's for planning, what's for how to facilitate, and then be able to break that down for the audience is. When I got, when I became a national coach, I realized back then in 2017 that all the schools don't really need STEM and computer science. Not that they don't need it, but not all the teachers need it. Teachers need confidence in their teaching. That's the first thing, and they need to be able to take what their scripted resources or whatever they've designed, and on a daily basis, take the objectives, the pro, whatever it is, and be able to map a lesson each day.

Celine:

Yeah.

Jorge:

And then they need to understand how to facilitate that lesson using high yielding strategies. Building relationships with kids, of course, first thing, having high expectations, being able to now differentiate for who's in front of me and then when things don't go the way that I want it to go, how do I manage myself? So once I started to understand that what worked in Richmond, a piece of that is what's needed around the country, I was able to. convince a few superintendents, a few directors, because I had the receipts how can we do this in your district? So if you look at Corwin's website, who's my professional development partner for Instructional Innovation Plus, you'll see that there's a table of contents and it's got a breakdown of each of the chapters. Part one is all about preparing for instructional innovation. Part two is the actual model and the steps that a teaching team or PLC, whatever type of collaborative team is in your school, would take through the process of identifying what the problems are, having a problem statement, where we are, where we want to go, how we think that we're going to get there. Visiting classrooms doing the rounds and the learning walks. Then step three is now doing a data debrief, making sure we're on the same page. Then step four is designing PD strands for the administrator, for the beginning teacher, or the struggling teacher for the seasoned teacher. Milestones because sometimes you can't do it all in one shot. And then step five is implementation and more data collection. Now we're looking at the perceptions of teachers their beliefs, attitudes, confidence, self-efficacy, all the things we need to know to improve what we're doing. it's an iterative process that happens forever because instructional innovation should be going on forever in schools because it's really. When you do it through action research, the way that I've identified in my book, then what happens is you always know what your teachers and the kids need. if you look at the chapters as in Table of Contents on COR Wind site, and if you Google each of them, you'll see an article on Edutopia that I wrote a long time ago. as I do my work, I write it up, I put it on Edge, utopia, so other teachers, other administrators, they can learn what to do. And then as I do my workshops, here's an artifact that. you can refer back to. So I decided a couple years ago, well, let's make a book. And because I believe my job is to explain the process. But not share other people's stories. I've invited four different superintendents, principals and directors, to share little snippets at the end of each chapter how we implemented what I'm talking about. So what the goal is to build the teams around the country, but also to make newer additions of the work with other authors and other people that believe in it and like it. That's amazing

Celine:

and I feel like just gonna draw back to one point you made about building teachers' confidence. for me as a coach, I am always thinking about different ways, not necessarily to lighten their load, but to. encourage them to use some of the things available to them, especially now with all the tech and ai. even just in their basic daily practice, taking away things that are adding more stress but also engaging the students. That's been such a huge topic, how do we keep our students engaged because they're accessing all this new technology in their everyday life. What are some ways that we can, in addition to reading your book What are some ways that we can encourage our coaches, to not only engage in what you've published, but we can help our teachers build confidence in their practice in today's age?

Jorge:

So what I see online is a lot of performative behavior, language, videos, podcasts, where a lot of people are just saying, what's. Trending right now. What's popular right now. And I think that if we focus more on what we're doing, like everyone's using ai, everyone's using it. But what are you using it for? So I use it for content creation. I use it for therapy. Sometimes I use it to map my meal plans in the gym. I use it when I'm trying to understand an email, when I'm trying to understand what someone, what the underlying message that someone wrote me. What are they really trying to say? So now that you are using it in this way, personally or professionally, guess what? Other people need that too.

Celine:

Mm-hmm.

Jorge:

So find a way to explain that to them. To fulfill their need. You see, start with the need and then the tool. if you have a teacher and they're having a lot of trouble, maybe grouping kids, maybe differentiating, just have them take a picture of the classroom, what's going on. upload that into Chad GPT and say, Hey, this is my space, these are the type of children I have, these are the needs. I don't even know what to do.

celine (2):

Yeah.

Jorge:

help me put it in steps. Make sure it's research informed. Like I told Chad, GBT like this, so I've got the paid version. It's only $20, but I go to personalization. Personalization. And. All right, so you hit customize Chad GPT.

Celine:

Mm-hmm.

Jorge:

And that basically, it says here, what traits should Chad GPT have? I wrote pragmatic, backed by science. Straightforward. No BS match my tone. Tell it like it is. No sugarcoating, no pseudo questions, full sentences, real clarity. Sound smart, grounded, direct. Like you're actually helping, not babysitting. So in your pocket you have an assistant. And young people, everyone's using it. Basically. Everyone that I know. I'd say is to now show people how you're using it, but just make sure that it aligns with what the work is calling for.

Celine:

the teachers are all freaking out about. I won't say everyone's freaking out. there's pockets. There's teachers that are like, oh, I'm using it for this, this, and this. I'm having my students try it.

_1_05-08-2025_091045:

And then there's the veterans who i'm not having my students touch any computer at all.

Jorge:

and people were like that when STEM came out. When CS for all started, they were like that when email started. The thing is that with AI I don't think any of those things at the time impacted everyone. I think this now impacts everyone I know in the tech field. we're talking about high tech jobs. I know about this because I have friends that work in IT. My wife is an HR director for one of the top four, consulting firms in tech all around the country. they're having Google and all these companies are having record. Profits. But they're downsizing. Why is that? ai they need a few people that understand how to use ai. People that don't Understand. it, I don't see how they're survive moving forward. And the wonderful thing is that with AI and social media. You can brand yourself, you can create content. That's where everything is going. if people are gonna hire someone, they're gonna hire someone whose expertise and work is visible. Yeah, I'd say level up.

Celine:

Even our coaches, we have to figure out ways to get our teachers involved, or at least give them a basis. I feel like that's what we've been practicing, like what are some ways even get them to be knowledgeable and be literate in the world of AI so that can understand students that are using it they're gonna use it anyway. And ways to navigate the classroom with this being present so, aside from just ai, if we're looking ahead, are there any emerging. trends and technologies or classroom curriculum that you think will make, an impact in instructional innovation or do you see anything that, coaches should be aware of that they should start leaning towards or doing less of as we're shifting gears in the world today?

Jorge:

Artificial intelligence can do a lot of things. Some people say it can do everything, but it's not going to give you teaching confidence. It's not going to make you a confident coach. You have to earn that. It has to be earned. And it has to be maintained because they can be lost also. So what I'll say is this, if we're expecting teachers to teach, with technology, their content area, standards, competencies, then professional development should be so. If we're expecting teachers to teach with technology, AI integration, still teacher content, if we're expecting them to teach using instructional strategies, then professional development must be facilitated using instructional strategies so that it's modeled how to deliver the information, how to integrate the tool. So now they practice, they reflect on it. Now they can go back and actually implement that with kids. I'd say always focus on your pedagogy, on your good teaching practice. Start with a few strategies. Eventually you can graduate to project-based learning. Project-based learning is an instructional approach. It's a teaching methodology. Most importantly, it's a research informed way to teach. It uses an amalgam of strategies from behavioral and cognitive learning theories. It's constructivist teaching where learning happens along the way. It's a continuum. It happens in steps. Knowledge construction is built upon and teachers can learn how to do this. But their coaches have to be able to show them how to do that as well. So I'd say start there because once you understand your pedagogy and your core practices and then you start ending, adding innovation, project-based learning is an innovative teaching strategy. Artificial intelligence is also innovative. Computational thinking things that we didn't know how to do. Now we're adding to our core foundation, the house is strong. Then whatever happens, it happens because we have fluency in the basics in the foundation, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, these guys used to spend 90 minutes a day just working on their joints and on their ankles and on their wrists and stuff like that. Just making sure that those things are strong.'cause your foundation has to be strong.

Celine:

love the Kobe reference. It just brought me back to my teaching days. I used to always show them a motivational video that highlighted Kobe's practice and him waking up hours before the team actually practices and practicing yeah,

Jorge:

and that's what happens when you go hard like that. So I Do 90 minute intervals, three to four times a day. And I got that from Michael Jordan. There's a book called Relentless Going from Good to Great to Unstoppable, and I don't really believe I'm there yet. But by doing that throughout the years. I've surpassed my 10,000 hours number one. But number two, it creates distance between you and other people.

Celine:

Yeah.

Jorge:

And so I actually saw the video of Kobe saying that, and it affirmed what I had been learning and what I had been doing. And even now, right? You gave me a compliment. Like you're such a great speaker.

Celine:

Mm-hmm.

Jorge:

Well, if you notice, I made mistakes, I got stuck, right? I might be better than the average person because I've practiced. But off the cuff, I'm not always great, right? I'm still learning. But the more you do, the better you get. And most importantly, you get confidence because you know what you're doing and what you're saying. So even if you mess up, you give yourself grace.

Celine:

Thank you so much for that. I feel like there's so much more I wanna talk about, but I'm not gonna keep you here all day 'cause I probably could talk to you all day long. So I'm gonna give you a couple more additional questions as we slowly wrap up. first question. actually, let's go back to the book. you said the book's coming out soon,

Jorge:

Well, I have two books. Instructional Innovation plus you go to corwin.com, or you go to my website, lifelonglearningdefine.com for a signed copy. And I have another book that's a second edition project-based learning plus. And PBL Plus, it focuses on essential life skills, on career readiness, emotional intelligence, artificial intelligence integration, things that weren't fully explained in the first edition. Now it's in second edition. That's out in July. Again on corwin.com. Who's my professional development partner for both of these programs? Instructional innovation Plus that's for leaders and project-based learning. Plus that's for teachers. Or you can go on my website lifelonglearningdefine.com for assigned copy.

. Celine:

okay, next question, three tips when building a strong data-driven

_1_05-08-2025_091045:

amongst educators that you think you could give to coaches?

Jorge:

First thing is you and your team need to become a cohesive teaching team. And what I mean by that is that you're all on the same page. It doesn't mean you all agree with each other on everything, but it means you're on the same page. A strategy that I have in the book is called to make a set of norms and shared agreements. Sit down and learn from each other how you want to work together. Anyone who's been in a long-term relationship and It's been successful, they already know. That there was a lot of difficult conversations that needed to happen first behind the scenes before they were really on the same page, and they had to make agreements about who's going to do what. So the same thing goes on a teaching team, on a collaborative team, on A PLC. You have to listen with empathy to understand. And work together and become a team first. The second thing I would say is to understand who they're serving and how to provide them two things, the right strategies for the right, for their specific audience, but also timely feedback. Timely feedback is mentioned. Invisible learning. John Hattie's work, which I'm a big fan of as a way to help. People improve. People need timely feedback and it's gotta be kind, specific and helpful. And then the third thing I'd say is to give people feedback. Well, that's the same thing, right? Well, I'll say this, stick to giving people feedback, not pushback. whoever you push back on, just know they're going to do it right back. And if they're intimidated by our position or status, they'll do it behind our back and ruin our programs. That's just reality. a lot of people say, well, I'm gonna keep it real. I'm gonna keep it 100, I'm gonna do this. Well, you can do that, but what works in the street? But what works for you? yeah, And your daily life may not work in your professional life. Because the same rules don't apply there, so you gotta be mindful of what you're doing.

Celine:

That's very true. True Perfect. Okay, so to close out A couple other additional ones, that you can pick Is there anything coming up that we can, like, where can we find Jorge next? Are you gonna be somewhere, I know you've been highlighted in ISTE before. Or do you have a favorite moment keynote that you wanna share with us? of the fun things? And you also shared with me your dissertation. would you like to share more on that?

Jorge:

So on my dissertation, because computer science is my teaching license, it focuses on integrating computational thinking into K through 12 instruction, so that's what it focus on and we found some really good insights. This summer, I'm happy to say that I'm booked practically every week. I'll be somewhere. My two highlights Are this, I am the mc at the ISTE Leadership Exchange, so I'm really happy about that. I'm very proud about that. I get to lead 300 leaders in iste, so that's an amazing thing. And number two, I will be speaking at visible learning. At the conference, so I will get to engage with the Corwin audience for the first time since our partnership started. So I'm really excited about everything ahead. I'm just being present as much as possible. There's an old Eve song, it's called Blow Your Mind, and she said it took a whole lot to get me here. And I'm going to take my time. So I'm just being patient, being humble, being appreciative, understanding what's going on around me, knowing who's who. See who claps and who doesn't, just to understand, you know where I'm at and that's it. But just being very appreciative of everything. It's taken a long time.

Celine:

And we're so excited for you and your journey and where we can catch you next.

_1_05-08-2025_091045:

thank you so much for joining us today, Jorge. Is there anything else you'd like to share with us today? no. Nothing I would say about the work, but I would say the most important thing in life are relationships, it starts with self, the people in your home, and then whoever you call family, and then everybody else. So just make sure that. You keep your side of the fence clean. You do right. you are good to people. Yeah, That's it.

Celine:

I agree Alright, Jorge, for president? No, I would vote for you. thank y'all so much for joining us today on the Restart Recharge podcast. We had Jorge Valenzuela join us today. It was an immaculate time and I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please. Make sure you like and subscribe and stay tuned for our next episode.

Matthaeus Huelse:

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

Katie Ritter:

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

Matthaeus Huelse:

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Katie Ritter:

So press the restart button,

Matthaeus Huelse:

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Katie Ritter:

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