Coaching Plans:

Empowering Students Through Goal-Setting

Who are we?

Erika Sterup, MA, NCC, LPC

• Assistant Director of Truman State UB
• MKN Secretary
• Licensed Professional Counselor
• Former Community College Instructor
• Primarily responsible for supervision of Truman student staff, participant direct contacts/documentation, academic-year curriculum design

Truman State University UB

• Serving 11 schools in rural Northeast Missouri
• Weekly/bi-weekly after-school meetings in person
• 3 full-time administrative staff
• Near-peer mentor model with approximately 12-18 student staff each academic year
• Total served per grant year is 90 students
• Students enter program Jan o

What Is Coaching?

The National Academic Advising Association defines Academic Coaching as a 1-on-1 interaction with a student focusing on strengths, goals, study skills, engagement, academic planning, and performance.

Objectives of Coaching

• Establishing a relationship between the Coach and the student that is conducive to the student seeking assistance and guidance for effectively navigating college culture.
• Helping students make connections between their behaviors and their personal, academic, and professional goals.
• Increasing students’ self-awareness of their strengths, values, interests, purpose, and passion.

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What makes Appreciative Advising or Coaching different?

• Avoids deficit-based thinking (which focuses on what the student lacks), and reflects first on strategies students have used to perform well and how to apply those strategies to other areas in the future.
• Uses co-constructed plans, where two-way communication is valued and the focus is on teaching the process of problem-solving rather than the solutions themselves.
• Recognizes how emotions are largely connected to motivation and eventual success. Coaches intentionally address students’ anxiety and encourage them to challenge themselves by setting high expectations.

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The Coaching Process

Many models of coaching have similar processes, which are labeled in slightly different ways based on the coach’s target population. For Truman State University Upward Bound, we use the model outlined by Bloom, Hutson, He, and Konkle in The Appreciative Advising Revolution (2014).

Disarm�Taking concrete steps to create a welcoming atmosphere and put students at ease.

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• Smiling, eye contact, remembering names, tone of voice, posture, proximity
• Appropriate small talk or questions about their week in general

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Discover�Taking concrete steps to learn students’ stories, obstacles, supports, and accomplishments.

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• Positive, open-ended questions about their interests
• Eliciting stories about successes, accomplishments, skills, lessons, and strengths

Dream�Learning about students’ hopes and dreams for their careers and lives.

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• Appreciating risk this represents for students to disclose; self-monitoring negative reactions
• Pointing out congruencies or discrepancies in students’ narratives without judgement

Design�Co-creating a specific, step-by-step plan that converts dreams to reality.

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• Engaging in reverse planning, breaking larger goals into weekly tasks
• Sharing information and strategies that may be unfamiliar to student

Deliver�Creating agency in students through encouragement, accountability, and troubleshooting.

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• Strong positivity and firmly-expressed belief in students’ real strengths and abilities
• Warning students to expect roadblocks and modeling how to look for creative paths to success

Don’t Settle�Reviewing successes and challenges to redesign the plan for continuous improvement.

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• Creating positive restlessness, a recognition of what was done well and how it could be better
• Modeling high personal standards and holding high expectations for students

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Admin�Focus

• Disarm – taking concrete steps to create a welcoming atmosphere and put students at ease
• Discover – taking concrete steps to learn students’ stories, obstacles, supports, and accomplishments
• Dream – learning about students’ hopes and dreams for their careers and lives
• Design – co-creating a specific, step-by-step plan that converts dreams to reality
• Deliver – creating agency in students through encouragement, accountability, and troubleshooting
• Don’t Settle – reviewing successes and challenges to redesign the plan for continuous improvement

For the first few weeks of the semester

Staff�Focus

• Disarm – taking concrete steps to create a welcoming atmosphere and put students at ease
• Discover – taking concrete steps to learn students’ stories, obstacles, supports, and accomplishments
• Dream – learning about students’ hopes and dreams for their careers and lives
• Design – co-creating a specific, step-by-step plan that converts dreams to reality
• Deliver – creating agency in students through encouragement, accountability, and troubleshooting
• Don’t Settle – reviewing successes and challenges to redesign the plan for continuous improvement

For most weeks of the semester

Everyone�Focus

• Disarm – taking concrete steps to create a welcoming atmosphere and put students at ease
• Discover – taking concrete steps to learn students’ stories, obstacles, supports, and accomplishments
• Dream – learning about students’ hopes and dreams for their careers and lives
• Design – co-creating a specific, step-by-step plan that converts dreams to reality
• Deliver – creating agency in students through encouragement, accountability, and troubleshooting
• Don’t Settle – reviewing successes and challenges to redesign the plan for continuous improvement

For the last few weeks of the semester

Tools

Written�Needs Assessment

Initial�Coaching�Meeting�Prompts

�Coaching�Plan�Document

Staff �Notes

Staff Training for Coaching

In case we have time left…

Effective Coaching Essentials

Self-Awareness – Be aware of your own biases, strengths, limitations, and motivation for helping. Recognize when you’re using jargon that may be unfamiliar to students.

Warmth – Openness and friendliness make you more approachable than formality or aloofness.

Trustworthiness – Be reliable and responsible, do what you promise, and maintain confidentiality.

Competence – Make sure you have the necessary knowledge and skills to be helpful. Admit when you don’t know something, then model follow-through by finding out.

Positivity –Overcome the tendency to find fault; instead consistently look for and appreciate the best in each student. Social acceptance is a powerful motivator.

Communication – Actively listen to students, give immediate and honest feedback, and share your own experiences when appropriate.

Professionalism – Though goals are co-created, you are still responsible for keeping the conversation productive and appropriate. Student growth should be emphasized over staff’s experience of helping.

Wrestling with Paradoxes

Subjectivity and Objectivity – A helping relationship requires that the Coach be truly empathic with the student, understanding and appreciating their perspective as much as possible. At the same time, the Coach must be able to step back and see where the student is contradicting themselves, believing cognitive distortions, or making assumptions that are limiting their progress.

Strategy - Commit to communicate consistent, honest feedback against a background of extensive positive support.

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Wrestling with Paradoxes

Cooperativeness and Directiveness – Inviting students to be co-creators of their own goals is a key factor in their motivation, and it is difficult to predict how long it will take to build trust and rapport with a student. Coaches should expect individual differences in the ease and speed at which students get through coaching meetings. At the same time, the Coach must be responsible for completing tasks within a reasonable time frame.

Strategy – Select limits related to time or to topic before beginning 1-on-1 meetings. Look out for conversations getting off-course and be prepared to redirect in an honest, positive manner.

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Wrestling with Paradoxes

Acceptance and Change – Particularly for adolescents and potential first-generation college attendees, it is important to validate students as vital members of the UB and future college community. At the same time, Coaches must maintain high expectations and make students responsible for continuous improvement in agency and competence.

Strategy – Focus language on students’ behaviors, consistently reinforcing the difference between who a person is and what they did in a particular situation.

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