Beverly Amer, CMA, Principal Lecturer, ACC & ISM, President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow
With all the attention directed at retention and student success, it would seem we’ve tried everything to move the needle towards institutional and ABOR goals. Yet there may be one piece we’ve missed, and it could make the difference: coaching.
So what is coaching? Isn’t it the same as advising? Actually, no, according to Donelle Hogarth, Director of Training at Lifebound, a national higher education student success coaching organization. Advising is outcome-focused (e.g., degree plan, probation, employment). The goal of advising often is to direct a student toward resources and facilitate a path to achieve that outcome.
Coaching considers outcomes, but the focus is on empowering the person to grow into developing mechanisms for making good decisions and owning the responsibility for their path and the choices they make along the way. This changes the focus from tackling an isolated problem to providing strategies for the student so when challenges are encountered later, the student has the tools to self-diagnose and solve the issue at hand. Advisors often see repeat visitors when new situations arise, with an attendant expectation that the advisor – not the student – fix it, while coaching relies on equipping and empowering the student to take charge on their own.
For a faculty member who has spent many hours talking with students about what to do when they miss a deadline, fail an exam, or seem to be drifting, I tend to put myself in the problem-solving driver’s seat and take charge to fix it. While the student may appreciate the help in the moment, it actually does nothing to build their skills in tackling their problems later on. Clearly, moving from advising to coaching requires a mindset change.
Where to start? One way to help the student move closer to solving their own problems, instead of repeatedly coming back when the next challenge occurs, is to use an ABCD model. The “D” is drive, or motivation. Ask why the student is here, what caused the situation? The “C” is choices. “D” affects “C” so understanding drive informs the choices available. The “B” is behaviors. Once choices are known, then the student can choose the behavior that best fits those choices. The “A” is academics. The D-C-B all impact academics, yet we often jump right in to solving the academic issue because that’s what the student has come in to address, but the real problem lies down in the D-C-B elements. Taking a few more minutes to unpack the underlying drive (motivation), choices and behaviors can lead to a more lasting resolution of the academic problem. This turns the attention toward self-reflection and the student’s own creation of a first step and path to a solution.
An extra bonus is that it doesn’t have to be a long conversation, but the lasting impact of changing the focus can be dramatic. For example, one recent conversation with Seth (not his real name) about repeatedly missed deadlines could have gone the route of me telling him to use a planner to track those due dates. This response would have gone straight to the “A” level without any understanding of the “D,” “C,” or “B” below it. Yet when I stepped back and asked Seth what was going on and why he was taking my class (the “D” level), a host of external issues emerged: family pressure to be home for events each weekend and working part-time while carrying a full course load so he could stay on track for graduation were just two of them. The transition to “C” choices was a bit easier for him to process (e.g., cut back on hours? Apply for a scholarship?) after he articulated his situation, and he then began to process the behaviors that needed changing (explaining to family that he needed to treat college like work, asking for an adjusted work schedule) so he could succeed at the “A” level.
Think about the way you typically address students who come to your office hours, lab, or other one-on-one interaction. If your usual approach is to jump right into advising at the “A” level, try stepping back for a moment to look at their D-C-B. Focus on helping the student to use this model instead of having you quickly fixing the problem. And see if you aren’t able to give them the tools to turn a potentially difficult situation into a plan for moving closer to success. It may be possible to accomplish both institutional goals for retention and success through this straightforward mindset change.