
Anyone who has spent a day teaching knows that strong instruction is part art and part science. No two great teachers have to look and sound the same.
And yet, effective approaches can be broken down, planned, practiced, and implemented.
This is where checklists can serve up a huge return. A checklist demystifies processes, provides a tracking tool, and keeps work organized and focused. And, if you're actually checking things off, you get a nice dopamine hit too.
So whether you're supporting a teacher who is working on building effective entry routines or building a habit of using restorative questions in their relationship-building and discipline processes, a checklist can be a power tool for any instructional coach.

Two types of checklists
Before we dive into how to incorporate checklists into instructional coaching, let's think about the different ways someone may use a checklist to determine what type might be most useful. In his bestselling book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, Dr. Atul Gawande distinguishes between two types of lists depending on function:
1. Do-Confirm Lists: These lists are used when you do the work, then look at the list to double-check that you didn't miss anything. Take CHAMPS, for example. When I learned this framework for student task directions and management, I didn't go through a process ticking off each element of CHAMPS in order. Rather, I would plan a task and then confirm that I had accounted for my expectations for each CHAMPS element by looking at my checklist:
✅ Conversation
✅ Help
✅ Activity
✅ Movement
✅ Participation
✅ Success
2. Read-Do Lists: This is the type of list that you check off one step at a time while going through a process. Let's say you have a process for internalizing the module of a new published curriculum. A read-do checklist is ideal for telling us where to look and what information to synthesize, in a logical and sequential order.
Example: Internalizing A Curriculum Module
☐ Read and annotate the unit overview
☐ Locate the power standards
☐ Locate the supporting standards
☐ Unpack the standards (this is a whole checklist on its own for anyone new to using their State Standards)
☐ Study the summative assessment
☐ Locate the tasks aligned to each standard
☐ Study the mid-unit assessment(s)
☐ Study of the progression of objectives in the pacing guide
☐ Etc.
☐ Etc.
CHECKLISTS AND MOTIVATION
An objection that sometimes comes up against the use of checklists in in instructional coaching is that it can come off as prescriptive, especially for experienced teachers, and can give the impression that we believe teaching is a one-size-fits-all endeavor. In fact, someone wouldn't be wrong for suggesting that removing autonomy can reduce intrinsic motivation, but the same research would support the idea that people are also deeply motivated by the pursuit of mastery. With this in mind, with some balance and finesse, we can offer checklists as tools to support rather than micromanage. Incorporating agency into the process can be an important part of the process for some teachers.
INCORPORATING AGENCY
Rather than hand a teacher a checklist and tell them to implement it. Here are some ways to increase teacher ownership and agency in developing and using checklists.
✨ Ground in a model.
Watch a video, model the skill, observe another class, read an article, or pull a page out of your instructional playbook. You get the idea. Rather than stare at each other and just talk about what you're aiming for, bring a third point into the conversation so that you are both starting with a common end in mind. Even imperfect examples can serve to orient yourselves together and work from a common understanding of what you're aiming for.
✨ Co-create the list.
Support the teacher in identifying the steps and success criteria that are going to help them to incorporate the practices. Having the teacher ID whether it's going to be a Do-Confirm list or a Read-Do list will make a difference in whether you are going to write out detailed steps that they'll use during planning, for example, or a few key words and phrases on a post-it as a reminder that they can process in the middle of teaching.
✨ Focus on specific elements.
Depending on where the teacher is in their practice and implementation, you may want to focus on just one piece of a multi-step process. Have them video themselves, or observe them implementing the strategy. Then, through reflection and feedback, you can work together to adjust the focus on refining different elements of the list at a time.
✨ Iterate.
There are some circumstances where you're not going to modify a Standard Operating Procedure checklist handed down from on high. The directions of an IRS Form come to mind as an example. But for most checklists you're going to use or co-create with a teacher, you don't have to be married to the first version. The observation revealed something that was missing? Add it! The process isn't realistic for the amount of time available? Rein it in and focus on the most essential steps.
Subscribe to get the Problem of Practice posts delivered straight to your inbox.
