The Coaching Student Agility Protocol
The Coaching Student Agility Protocol
A Scientific Approach to Growing Student Skills
In today’s world, developing 21st-century skills like collaboration, self-direction, and adaptability is essential. That’s why Agile Classrooms, a 21st-century skill development framework, helps students grow these skills in a structured way. To support you in coaching students as they develop these skills, we offer the Coaching Student Agility Protocol.
What Is the Coaching Student Agility Protocol?
The Coaching Student Agility Protocol is designed to guide you in coaching students through the Five Self-Directed Learning Routines of the Agile Classrooms Framework—Refinement, Sprint Planning, Check-In, Review, and Retrospective. These routines help structure your classroom, fostering skills like self-direction, collaboration, and resilience.
How It Works: Step-by-Step
Select a Learning Routine: Focus on one of the five Agile Classroom routines (e.g., Check-In, Review) and assess student progress using your existing rubric.
Set Measurable Goals: Work with students to define their next target level, ensuring their growth goal is clear, specific, and attainable.
Identify Root Causes: Why aren’t students progressing as expected? The protocol helps you reflect on obstacles, skill gaps, or challenges in self-direction or collaboration.
Plan Experiments: Like a scientist, students create small, focused experiments to test new strategies and actions, helping them improve in manageable steps.
Track and Reflect: After each experiment, document outcomes. What worked? What didn’t? This iterative process helps both you and your students refine and improve.
Example: Using the Protocol with Students in the Check-In Routine
Here is an example of using the Coaching Student Agility Protocol with students during the Check-In Routine. The Check-In Routine is a brief, self-directed formative assessment that helps students visualize their progress and identify any obstacles in their learning.
During a Check-In, students assess the progress of their tasks, move them on a visual board, and share any impediments that are blocking their progress. Using the protocol, the teacher helps students set measurable goals for improvement, and together, they identify strategies to remove obstacles.
To help guide this process, we use two key tools:
The Example Coaching Form: This form demonstrates how the protocol is structured and provides an easy-to-follow guide for implementing the Check-In Routine with your students.
The Check-In Rubric: This rubric helps measure student progress during Check-Ins and makes it clear where students are and what steps are needed to reach their goals.
Take a look at the Example Coaching Form and Check-In Rubric below to see how these tools work together in practice.
Why You’ll Love It
🔧 Turn Rubrics Into Coaching Tools: This protocol helps make your rubrics actionable. It transforms them from static grading tools into a living part of the growth process, guiding students through their next steps.
🌱 Empower Student Agility: Equip your students with agility—skills like self-direction, collaboration, and resilience. By focusing on iterative progress, students develop the confidence and competence to navigate challenges independently.
💡 A Perfect Companion to Agile Classrooms: If you're implementing Agile in your classroom, the Coaching Student Agility Protocol is the perfect companion. It helps you bring structure and purpose to student growth, turning Agile principles into actionable steps that foster meaningful progress.
Ready to Get Started?
You can bring structure, clarity, and purpose to your classroom today with the Coaching Student Agility Protocol. Download this powerful tool and start coaching your students through their Learning Sprints—giving them the skills they need for a lifetime of learning and adaptability.
Looking for more ways to deepen your students' learning experience? Check out our workshops and additional resources to bring even more agility to your teaching practice.
Unlock Student Agility Through Agile Learning
The Coaching Student Agility Protocol is here to help you turn rubrics into real results and create a classroom culture where students take ownership of their growth and learning—whether you’re teaching in the classroom or applying these principles elsewhere. 🌟
Stay Agile,
John Miller