Roller Coaster of Learning

Kelly Tenkely has been a wealth of information to me as my PLN grows to new heights. She posted the following charts and comments on her blog recently.
"....Seth Godin called, How Big is Your Red Zone? In the post he shares three graphs (I have created my own with a similar feel below). The first graph shows how our joy grows over time as we learn how to do something new. At first our joy over learning it may not be huge, it is sometimes difficult and frustrating to learn something new. But, over time as we get better at the task, our joy in interacting with it grows. There may be some dips of boredom with our newly acquired learning but overall the trend is upward.

The second graph shows the hassle of the same activity. At first the hassle is large because as I mentioned before, it can be difficult and frustrating to learn something new. Eventually over time the hassle is less as our expertise and experience with the learning grows.

The last graph shows the two overlaid. There is a gap between the initial hassle and the initial joy of the learning. Seth’s contention is “that the only reason we ever get through that gap is that someone on the other side (the little green circle) is rooting us on, or telling stories of how great it is on the other side.”

-Kelly Tenkely, 2010 "Dreams of Education"


This concept really spoke to me in terms of the role of an instructional coach. Teachers want to learn and improve on ideas in their craft of teaching. Staff are at different points in their learning and as a coach, we must be sensitive to differentiation of professional development for each staff member. As learners, new concepts can be frustrating and time consuming but as a coach you are the green dot encouraging and supporting people to get past the point of "hassle" and to the point of feeling good about their accomplishments for students. As teachers continue along this journey, the instructional coach support lessens and becomes a reflective role to increase that sense of joy to the highest point. Celebrating accomplishments and the joy of learning with your colleagues makes that journey worthwhile as you watch students and teachers succeeding on new levels.
As a teacher, it also made me take a second look at how students feel as they are learning and aquiring new information. Are we being the "green dot" for students to get them through frustration and differentiating for their needs to get them to the place of "joy"? How can we ensure we are supporting each student to decrease their hassle and increase their joy?