Why Coaching is the Key to Student Success

Connecting with students can be challenging. Having coached and helped some of the most disengaged students, we've learned how to guide youth to connect with their authentic goals.

Coaching as a discipline is growing in popularity. Top execs pay big bucks for coaches. But what is it that a coach does?

The role of coach can be contrasted with the role of a consultant: A coach empowers, while a consultant advises. A coach offers questions, while the consultant offers explanations. A coach focuses on listening, while the other often focuses on delivering expertise.

In the classroom, many teachers are comfortable in the consulting role, but miss the opportunities to act as coaches for their students.

Think about how you most frequently interact with your students… What does it look like? How do you sound? What do you talk about?

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When teachers are purely consultants, students become passive, disengaged, and learn to wait for someone else to give them the right answer.

Coaching, on the other hand, helps students tap into their natural motivations, feel empowered, and generate their own solutions.

Here are a few simple tips to help you tap into your inner coach so you can help even more students find success. Try them out, and we know you'll see immediate results!

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The Coach Approach:
Helping others tap into their natural motivation, feel empowered, and generate their own solutions.

5 Tips for Classroom Coaching

1. Get on the same level. Don’t talk down to people. Students open up with those on their level. A great coach builds relationships on trust and mutual respect. Show students you care about them as people.
2. Learn what “success” means for them. Be careful to not project your own version of success on students. Instead, find out what they value. Ask questions to learn what they think is important and build from there.
3. Help them develop options. When we have no choices, it’s easy to feel stuck and powerless. Great coaches help students see lots of possibilities. Choices create a sense of control. Ask questions about options, and guide their thinking so students learn to generate alternatives by themselves.
4. Give them control. Look for every opportunity to put the student in the driver’s seat. Especially when making a plan, avoid the temptation to tell students what YOU think is best. To feel empowered, students need to know that THEY have made the decisions.
5. Offer accountability. When people are held accountable, they become more responsible. A coach views accountability as a tool for support. Instead of imposing deadlines and enforcing consequences, ask the student what role you can play in helping them. Act as a caring partner, not an unimpressed police officer.