Guest Post: Coaching in Practice

We want to give you a peek inside our Coach Certificate & Mentorship Program. Coaches taking part in this academic-year-long journey have graciously given us permission to post some of their learning and reflections from the private coursework they are undertaking during this program. Where possible, we have shared the course and the action task to give context for the guest post.

The Topic: Coaching Fundamentals

The Task: Respond to the following question: Did you ever have an opportunity for coaching that you misjudged and used the wrong coaching stance (ie: maybe you thought you should take a coaching stance, but the teacher really needed consulting). What happened? How did you identify your error? What did you do to resolve it?

What happened?

I think the biggest pitfall I run into is becoming a consultant too quickly because I have so many ideas that I want to share with the teachers and I get excited about the possibility of what a lesson/unit could look like. I should have been coaching – listening to their needs, learning goals and context, but I end up identifying the problem or solving solutions for them instead of listening, paraphrasing and letting the teachers come up with their solution instead. In particular I can think of a time where the teacher shared an idea and rather than digging deeper into their questions, I defined their problem & solution for them.

How did you identify your error?

The person I was coaching lost interest and wasn’t passionate about the problem or the solution that I gave to them. I failed to really listen and hear what their goal was, and to help them grow in the process. I did all the learning and growing for them.

What did you do to resolve it?

I think recognizing where you went wrong as a coach, apologizing to the coachee and regrouping from the circumstance to move forward is important. We will all mess up at some point, and recognizing it, acknowledging it and calling a spade a spade helps you to build relationship with those you’re trying to coach so that they can learn to trust you. With trust, the building of the relationship and future possibilities for learning will have a much stronger hope of impacting students in a positive way.

Read more from The Coach participants as they share their learning from the microcredential program…

Cary’s post: The Coaching Cycles

Jo’s post: The Coach Approach

Amy’s post: What is the Value of a PLN as a Coach?

Meg’s post: Gaining Skills and Self Confidence in Coaching

Tianna’s post: Increasing My Coaching Skills