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 Coach Final Project

The Final Project is a chance for you to reflect on everything you’ve learned and/or discovered throughout this Certificate Program.  You will create an 8-10 min video sharing on the goal that you set, documenting the process of working towards your goal, reflecting on your achievement and sharing the process/outcome with our learning community. The most important part of your personal project is that it’s relevant to you, and you can demonstrate, through documentation and video, the impact your work has had on your school. 

Watch Tina’s Final Project

Tina’s Final Project Reflection

What were your goals for this microcredential and how did you plan to meet those goals?

• Have a deeper understanding of my role and responsibilities as a coach.
• Build stronger relationships with educators, leaders and diverse learning community
• Develop strategies to support my coachees and colleagues

How did you plan to meet those goals?

• Learn from and connect with our mentor and other coaches
• Going through the coaching modules and applying them in my context
• Understand and apply appropriate coaching stance(s) that will meet my coachee’s needs

What would success look like if you met your goals? What steps do you think you need to take to reach those goals?

• Great coaching conversations, having my coachees walk away feeling more independent is rewarding
• I think I need to keep interacting and learning with my coachees, leaders, colleagues and PLN for me to be able to reach my goals and be better in coaching

What challenges did you think you and/or your stakeholders might face and how did you plan to overcome those challenges?

• Having common planning time with teachers and supporting their students can sometimes be challenging because other than teaching they have other administrative jobs and meetings to attend to. Same goes with leaders and parent community, finding common time can be challenging considering the nature of their job, responsibilities and priorities. My schedule is more flexible so that helps in overcoming challenges such as time and task priorities. I think coaches are more privileged in terms of having flexible schedules.

What did you think the impact would be on your school environment as you worked towards and ideally, achieved your goals?

• Educators can focus more on teaching because they are more supported in developing technology-rich units;
• Students are more engaged and have more access to authentic learning experiences
• Leaders continue to recognize the value of coaches as co-advocates underpinning professional growth / capacity building, designers of student-centered learning environment and team players as we promote collaborative working within and beyond our school community

What are you hoping to see in your school environment as you conduct and conclude the project?

• Stronger coaching culture at the school through on-going conversations and collaborative work
• Teachers and students are more empowered learners and leaders
• Leadership team and parent community leveraging the presence of coaches for more partnership and projects

Course Engagement Reflection

• This microcredential course from Eduro Learning allowed me to re-think, reflect upon and refine my roles as a coach. I would say I still have a lot to learn and employ but this has been a great start because the content, the strategies, and application to my day-to-day work are simply phenomenal. They are so invaluable, especially being able to discuss my thought process with Kim. I often say, it’s like unfolding so many potentials to coaching that I wouldn’t probably have thought of if I wasn’t having those meaningful conversations with Kim.
• The biggest value of this coaching program so far is unpacking each module where I get to synthesize and put the pieces together and understand the vast scope of work that coaches, like myself, need to support the school community with. As I apply coaching concepts and strategies that I am learning from this course, I am developing more appreciation for my colleagues and the work that they do and how important it is for us to develop collaborative working relationships in order to be successful in what we do. I always say it’s truly important to build relationships over capacity, because without that trusting relationship coaching can also be so challenging.
• This course covers a wide array of what I need to coach, to advocate, to lead, to support the vision of the school and our leaders, and that of educators, the learning experiences of our students and even how to support the parent community while I am immersing myself to professional growth opportunities provided by this microcredential course.

Level Up Your Impact with Our Certificate Programs

There are so many ways to make an impact in your school community. If you’re looking to level up your impact, either as a school leader, a coach or a teacher, explore our certificate programs: Women Who Lead, The Coach, and COETAIL. Or, if your goal is truly unique, register for a private mentoring package. If any of today’s post resonated with you, join us for the next cohort of WWL, The Coach or purchase a private mentoring package! Registration for our global cohorts opens once a year, make sure you’re on our mailing list to be notified as soon as they open! You can find all of these learning opportunities on the our website!