Coaching as an enabler for teaching
Posted on August 06, 2023 by Martin Krafft, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.
How my coaching training and practice allows me to show up as a more wholesome teacher.
My Goal Centric Coach training and practice is the key enabler to engage my multifaceted educational and practical backgrounds for the benefit of my students.
My growth mindset, empathy, and humility serve me well as an educator, as they equip me with the confidence and bandwidth to make sense of real-life moments of choice with my students and it allows me to create an atmosphere of collective, inclusive learning – where learning isn’t a one-way street of delivery, but a process that takes place in my presence, not through me.
As a teacher, it is of utmost importance for me to evoke awareness in my students by giving everyone voice and dignity to bring their whole selves to class and contribute to the best of their abilities. Coming from different cultures, we all come with different experiences and preferences, which have formed our individual map of reality. I want my students to be aware of their map, continuously refine and enhance it, and safely navigate on it. For this to happen, a space of safety and trust in the classroom, where everyone feels empowered and safe to participate, is non-negotiable.
For my class design, I use backward design. Being aware of where I want to arrive by the end of my course, which is also manifested in the syllabus, the journey towards that goal depends on where I meet and pick-up my students. Hence, I need to build agility into my lesson design. To stake out very roughly where my students are at in way of awareness, I will reach out to them ahead of the course with very broad questions to inform the initial session(s). As we move along together, I will reflect and adapt after every session to make sure we remain on track. It’s like a ship’s journey: you know your departure and arrival ports and you plan the voyage between them with a course line drawn onto a chart – but once you commence your voyage, you will never execute it exactly on that drawn course: you have to respond to weather, traffic, and other unplanned events. Sensible course correction is as important as diligent voyage planning.
Throughout my course, I will foster an atmosphere of participation and engagement through breakaway group sessions, debates, and quizzes. Appreciating, that we all have different preferences of engagement and communication, I will not impose a single means of communication, but will offer equivalent documentation of meeting success criteria through other means (written, video, drawings, ….). Commitment and active participation are expected and non-negotiable for passing my course., just not limited to one form of expression.
My ambition is to tap into the collective genius of the entire class because I would think it arrogant to believe that I individually master greater knowledge, wisdom, or capacity than a dozen well-functioning brains in my class. My role as an educator is to orchestrate, not to dominate – on a growth and learning journey that has no final destination.
