Introducing the Success Coach Volume 2 The Success Coach and the Learner

Welcome back to the Massey Martin newsletter. Today I continue my series focusing on the Student Success Coaching Model and, particularly, the role of the Success Coach. In this issue we’ll examine how the Success Coach relates to the students who come for assistance, in a way that is different from that of an advisor, remediator, or instructor. 

You will recall from our previous issue that a Success Coach’s purpose is to create a custom program of accountability, and provide a safe environment for students to address challenges.

How can this be accomplished?

Success Coach versus Academic Advisor

 The role of a coach must be clearly defined to extend the benefits of a coaching relationship beyond traditional mentoring and advising.  An advisor, for example, has responsibilities such as assisting in course scheduling or managing curricular obligations, writing letters of recommendation, assisting in performance review, and other academic requirements. Advisors may have only limited knowledge of a learner’s strengths and weaknesses.  

 A Success Coach, on the other hand, may or may not have expertise in the realm of the self-identified need(s) in their learner, but is skilled at helping the learner accurately reflect on their performance, assess their needs for growth, and gain insight into desired outcomes. Coaches also help learners create specific action-oriented plans to achieve their goals while providing a space for accountability and re-assessment of their needs.

 When a learner approaches a Success Coach, they have specific issues pertaining to their learning, retention, and use of the information they are required to gain from their PA education. Their problems don’t usually pertain to specifics in their classes, which an instructor might be able to assist with, but to overall difficulties they experience in graduate education. Some examples of these difficulties include:

• There is too much information for me to learn.
• I am too tired to study.
• I don’t remember what I study.
• I am easily distracted.
• I am too busy to spend hours studying.
• I have trouble making a study schedule
• I have trouble following a study schedule
• I can’t decide where to study
• I have always been a bad test taker
• I can narrow the answer to two choices, then I pick the wrong answer.

Building a coaching relationship with learners

The Coach-learner relationship should be based on rapport and trust, and this rapport and trust should be continuously enhanced. The Success Coach provides students with a safe space for informed reflection on academic, personal, and professional performance, while ensuring student well-being.

Expectations should be clearly defined for both participants, with the learner setting the agenda and the goals and the coach focusing on maximizing strengths that are identified by the learner to help achieve goals, that will lead to high levels of academic and professional achievement and personal satisfaction. The coaching relationship requires unique communication skills on the part of the coach and attention to privacy and confidentiality. 

The Contract

Orientation to the coaching process is a critical first step, and a coaching program will only work if there are explicit shared expectations of engagement by both the learner and the coach.

A contract may be most appropriate for an optional program since these programs often require additional time from the learner. I offer the following suggestions for inclusion in such a contract between the Success Coach and Learner.

From the Coach:

I will…

• Ask provocative questions and encourage my learner to arrive at his/her own answers whenever possible.
• Encourage realistic expectations and goals.
• Assist my learner to identify and fully engage in his/her strengths.
• Acknowledge when an issue is outside my skill set and recommend other resources.

From the Learner:

I am ready to…

• Take responsibility to make and sustain changes.
• Become more self-aware.
• Listen to suggestions and try new and different approaches.
• Share personal information that is relevant to my performance.

Shared Goals for the Coach and Learner

I will…

• Be punctual.
• Maintain confidentiality.
• Be open and honest.
• Be responsive to phone and electronic communication within an agreed upon timeframe.
• Be aware that setbacks are normal on the path to change and necessary in order to establish new mindsets and behaviors.
• Commit to upholding the terms of this agreement.

Such a contract provides not only accountability, but a clearer understanding as to what precisely the coaching sessions are meant to produce.

In our next newsletter, we’ll continue this topic by examining the nuts and bolts of conducting a coaching session between the Success Coach and the learner.