What is Academic Coaching?
Academic Coaching provides students from elementary school to university the opportunity to learn the tools and strategies they need in order to succeed, essentially helping them learn how to learn.
Academic Coaching helps students by focusing on strengthening their executive functioning skills, therefore enabling them to better self-manage and become productive, independent learners.
What happens in an
Academic Coaching session?
Checking-in
Students connect with their coach & discuss how their week went, assesses what went well in their schedule, celebrate successes & identify where improvements are needed.
Getting Organized
Student works with their coach to manage their system of organization, ensure they have all the items they need to complete their work, identify their study space & organize their online items.
Time Management, Action & Accountability
Student works with their coach to develop an after school routine for the upcoming week by going through their upcoming school work, break large assignments into small, manageable parts & develop an accountability plan.
Modeling & Skill-Building
Students work with their coach to identify how to get started on their assignments, develop and expand their executive functioning skills, and enhance skills in note-taking, active studying, active reading comprehension, essay writing & math problem-solving.
Connecting with Parents & Looking Ahead
At the end of the session, coaches invite the parents into the session to ensure the plan of action and strategies learned are transferred to home.
In-Between Sessions
In-between sessions, coaches check-in with students & parents about their progress & provide support as needed. Students may also enroll for Specialized Tutoring, Study Buddy and/or Daily Check-in Sessions to further support their success.
Sessions integrate the following:
What's the difference between
Academic Coaching & Tutoring?
A tutor helps students understand subject-specific content, often through memorization & repetition, focusing on the short-term goal of re-teaching academic materials. Tutoring uses a directed teaching approach; responsibility is placed on the teacher and the tutor, to quickly increase student knowledge. The main goal is for the students to become successful in a particular course or subject. Consequently, on-going tutoring can create a dependency, since the child does not have to take charge of his/her educational experience; a skills crucial for success in academics & life.
A tutor can prepare you for a test on Friday, but an Academic Coach can prepare you for a lifetime of learning
An Academic Coach addresses the reasons why a student is struggling with content so that they can eventually learn on their own. There is a long-term focus on the collaborative development of academic skills and strategies that can be applied in all subject areas and used throughout the student's academic career. Responsibility for learning, therefore, is placed on the student him/herself, with the main goal being success in school. Weekly sessions reinforce learned skills by providing opportunities for students to incorporate them into their schoolwork and receive regular feedback from the coach. These weekly sessions also create routine and structure, while the coach provides motivation, thus building confidence.