Coaching within Education
What Is Educational Coaching? & 10 Ways It Can Help Your Teen Today
You might be familiar with the concept of tutoring, but what about educational coaching?
More than a buzzword, educational coaching is a unique approach to empowering teens to make the most of their potential.
It can dramatically improve your teens’ performance and put them on the right track to reach their academic goals and more.
What is coaching in education?
Think about what a sports coach does.
Let’s say that your children join a basketball team. There are numerous skills your kids must learn, like how to dribble, pass, and shoot.
A great basketball coach wouldn’t just teach these individual skills and nothing else — the team would never win any games!
Instead, the best coaches understand the value of a holistic approach, where the players are motivated and self-driven, and understand how they should operate in the context of a team.
The same is true of an educational coach.
Educational coaches don’t just teach students the subjects they’re struggling with or force them to memorise math formulas.
Instead, educational coaches teach students how to learn. They enable students to become self-motivated, focused, and proactive.
As a result, not only will your teens discover the value of education, they’ll also gain the fundamental skills and character traits they need for long-term success.
Let’s take a closer look at educational coaching and how it can benefit your teens today.
What is educational coaching?
Educational coaching helps students become better learners by motivating them to solve their problems in an encouraging and empowering environment.
Rather than prioritising a particular outcome (e.g. get a good grade in a certain subject), educational coaching focuses on the process of how to become a self-driven and independent learner.
Through this process, students achieve sustainable and lasting success — both inside and outside of the classroom.
What is the difference between coaching and tutoring?
Educational coaching and tutoring might sound similar, but there are key differences between these two approaches.
Let’s take a look at these two models in education, so you can choose the right one for your teen.
Tutoring
Do your teens struggle with getting good grades in a couple of specific subjects, despite their hard work?
They’re putting in a lot of effort, but they just can’t master quadratic equations.
Or maybe, no matter how hard they study, they can’t seem to do well on their English exams.
In these examples, you might consider engaging a tutor.
A tutor is typically someone who is skilled in a specific subject, like math or English. A tutor would work with your teen to achieve an outcome-related goal, such as passing the next exam.
If your teen has an excellent learning attitude but is struggling with one particular subject, then tutoring might be helpful.
But if your teen lacks focus and intrinsic motivation, then tutoring isn’t going to help.
This is where educational coaching comes in…
Educational coaching
Parents regularly come to me and say things like:
· “My teen is smart, but he doesn’t work hard and he gets bad grades.”
· “My teen constantly complains about school. I feel like I’m always nagging her to study!”
If this sounds like the situation you’re in, don’t worry — you’re not alone.
Problems like these are all too common, but there’s good news:
Educational coaching can equip your teens with the mindset and skills they need to succeed in school and beyond.
Unlike tutoring, educational coaching walks your teens through the process of developing intrinsic motivation and cultivating the right learning attitude
Your teen will learn how to learn, no matter what the subject.
Rather than focusing too much on grades, educational coaching is a collaborative, process-oriented approach that will enable your teen to become more motivated, focused, and disciplined.
Naturally, your teen’s grades will improve too!
How does an educational coach help teens?
The power of educational coaching is that it equips your teens with the skills they need for success long after they graduate from school.
Let’s take a closer look at the top 10 benefits of one-to-one educational coaching for your teen:
1. Cultivate inner motivation and drive in your teen
Do your teenagers procrastinate on their homework and assignments?
When they finally sit down to study, do they get easily distracted?
It’s not easy to cultivate long-term motivation and drive — especially when your teen isn’t inspired to complete the task at hand.
Educational coaching helps students to cultivate important traits like:
· Perseverance
· Hard work
· Focus
· Discipline
· Confidence
2. Help your teen to understand the importance of education
Do your teenagers struggle to understand why they need to learn history or geography?
Do they complain about having to memorise pointless facts — ones they’re confident they’ll never use in the future?
When we don’t understand why we’re learning something, it’s easy to get frustrated. That’s why process-oriented learning is so vital.
It shifts the focus from the outcome (memorising a set of facts) to the process of learning (finding joy in understanding concepts, developing new skills, mastering the material, etc.).
Educational coaching is a powerful method to instil in your teen the value of lifelong learning.
3. Guide your teen to set meaningful goals that he or she feels inspired to work toward
Some students enjoy planning for the future. Other students get overwhelmed by the thought of doing such planning.
Educational coaching helps your teens to develop short- and long-term goals that are meaningful and inspiring.
Rather than relying on temporary motivation to get things done, your teens will develop a sense of purpose and will set process-based goals they’ll want to work toward.
4. Enable your teen to eliminate negative attitudes and limiting beliefs
Limiting beliefs are false beliefs that stop us from pursuing our goals.
If your teen has a negative attitude toward school, it could be due to a limiting belief. For example, let’s say that your teen keeps getting bad grades on his English essays. He might start to internalise a limiting belief like:
“I’m just a bad writer, so there’s no point trying to improve.”
In reality, your teen might be a decent writer — he just needs to learn how to better structure his essays.
With the right educational coach, your teens will learn how to overcome negative thinking with science-backed techniques, so they can make the most of their potential.
5. Teach your teen responsibility and respect
Do you feel like your teenager doesn’t show you much respect?
Every parent wants to teach their children the value of respect, which leads to a more harmonious family life.
After all, it’s frustrating to be continually arguing with your children when you just want what’s best for them!
Educational coaching teaches students responsibility and respect by equipping them to invest in their own personal development.
This is done in an empowering environment where the student feels supported, heard, and valued.
When your teenagers feel like they’re in control of their lives and their opinions matter, they’ll become more responsible and respectful, both at school and at home.
6. Build resilience in your teen
It’s not about the goal. It’s about growing to become the person that can accomplish that goal. – Tony Robbins
Academic success is a worthwhile goal to work toward, especially if students want to pursue scholarships or higher education.
But what’s even more important than getting good grades?
The character traits, mindset, and skills your teens will develop along the way to accomplishing their goals.
Resilience is the ability to work through life’s difficulties with determination — and it’s definitely a crucial life skill to develop.
Educational coaching provides students with the guidance and support they need to persevere through challenges, build resilience, and develop a growth mindset
7. Teach your teen proven techniques to learn information effectively
Homework. Extra-curricular activities. Chores. Social engagements.
It’s hardly any wonder that most teenagers feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day!
Fortunately, getting good grades isn’t about studying more. It’s about studying smarter.
8. Provide step-by-step systems so your teen will prioritise tasks and manage time more effectively
Students today are juggling a myriad of responsibilities.
Your teens might feel overwhelmed by their packed schedule, and I don’t want to downplay how much they have on their plate.
At the same time, I also want to say this:
We all get the same 24 hours in a day.
Some students know how to effectively manage their time, and prioritise tasks, while others lack the step-by-step systems necessary to be as productive as possible.
The key is to implement the time management strategies.
9. Teach your teen test-taking strategies for less stress and better grades
It’s not a secret that tests are a significant part of your teenager’s life.
Yet many hardworking students underperform in exams due to anxiety, careless mistakes, and a lack of test-taking skills.
There are powerful test-taking strategies your teenager can use to start doing better on tests today.
10. Empower your teen to improve focus and overcome distractions
We live in an increasingly distracted world.
Statistics on teenagers and social media addiction are worrying, with 57% of teens saying that social media distracts from homework.
Over time, these statistics will only become more worrying!
Through educational coaching, your teens will:
· Eliminate distractions
· Improve focus
· Create an effective daily plan
· Stop feeling unmotivated and overwhelmed
· Pre-commit to the healthy behaviours they want to engage in
Here’s the thing…
Distractions and technology aren’t going anywhere. But with the right support through one-to-one educational coaching, your teenager will develop healthy habits and routines, and become an effective student.
Taken from Daniel Wong’s blog
