Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is Organizational Coaching?
Organizational Coaching focuses on how students engage in their academic work. These skills include time management, study skills, organization, and planning for both short-term and long-term assignments. Unlike academic tutoring, which is focused on helping students learn specific content, or counseling/life coaching, which is focused on a student’s overall development, organizational coaching helps students answer the questions “what are you doing to achieve your academic goals” and “how can you modify your habits to successfully achieve these goals with reduced stress and increased autonomy and confidence”?
What does an Organizational Coach do?
An Organizational Coach acts as a mirror to help students reflect on their current work habits and as a guide to help them explore and incrementally modify those habits to more successfully approach their school work. A successful Organizational Coaching relationship involves the following activities:
Helping students develop an organizational system that works for them
Making daily and/or weekly homework plans and breaking down larger assignments and projects into more discrete and achievable tasks
Exploring and discussing the study skills and executive function skills necessary to complete those plans
When students succeed, helping them understand the study skills, habits, and executive function skills that contributed to that success
When students fall short of their stated or intended goals, helping them recognize how they can revise their habits and processes to better manage the rigors of their academic work
Discussing the processes related to learning, and direct them to content and process resources that will support their work
The Organizational Coaching relationship is built on mutual trust between the coach and student. My aim is to help students feel supported in exploring and developing healthier work habits, while ensuring their progress towards their stated goals. While the development of these skills may (and often does) have a positive impact on other areas of the student’s life, organizational coaching work does not address personal or mental health needs outside of their impact on academic habits and performance.
How is Organizational Coaching different than Tutoring?
Where Academic Tutoring focuses on “what” students are studying in the classroom, Organizational Coaching focuses on “how” students approach their work (e.g., homework and reading for courses, studying for tests, completing assignments).
What does Coaching involve for the student?
In addition to trust, the most important element of the coaching experience is a student’s readiness to discuss their academic habits and explore new ways of addressing their work. While this may seem easy to do on the surface, many students have never explored their development of academic habits as a separate subject. All too often, good grades are seen as the sole markers or indicators of academic success. This false dichotomy puts students in categories of either “good” (good grades) or “bad” (bad grades) that can have a strong influence on how they think of themselves as students and as people. The goal of coaching is to move students away from this binary approach to their studies, and focus on the individual choices they make in their work. In order to do this, students need to be open to discussing their school experiences and learning needs (including diagnoses) and how they impact their attitudes and approach to school.
How long until my student sees results?
The focus of the Organizational Coaching relationship is the development and successful integration of new academic habits into your student’s day-to-day life. As a result, the length of time necessary for students to see “results” is contingent upon both their needs and their ability to successfully integrate new behaviors into their work. While there is no set time frame for success, many of my students report beginning to see progress within 4-6 weeks of weekly coaching sessions.
How can I support my student during their Organizational Coaching?
As a parent, you get to be a positive and supportive presence in your child's life. Many of my students and their families seek my services following a major set-back—a low grade on a progress report, fear of failing a class, feeling lost and unsure in a hard class. The most successful coaching experiences from both parent(s) and students’ perspectives occur when each party is open and honest about their needs, and when parent(s) are accepting of and loving towards their child while encouraging progress each step of the way.
What resources can you recommend to help my student?
There are several content and coaching resources that can support you and your student’s work. My colleague and Curriculum Consultant, Dr. Christianna Andrews, has put together a list of the best coaching and academic support tools for you and your student, which can be found here.
In what subjects do you provide tutoring?
I provide Academic Tutoring in the following subjects:
English/Language Arts
History/Social Studies
Mathematics
Do you offer test prep services?
I have extensive experience providing content-specific guided test prep tutoring and coaching in both the SAT and ACT tests. My test prep program consists of three stages:
Assessment. Each student completes an initial practice test to establish a baseline score and help identify the content areas that may need to be emphasized during targeted practice. Next, we meet for a consultation to discuss each student’s educational history, goals and timelines. We use this conversation and the results of initial practice test to craft a test program that meets their specific needs and goals.
Targeted practice. This stage primarily focuses on content and strategy. First, we discuss content-specific and overall strategies for each section of the test. Then, we practice using these strategies, focusing primarily on the content we identified in the consultation and initial practice test.
Timed practice. The act of taking a test under timed conditions is inherently stressful, often leading students to doubt their abilities after receiving confounding results. This stage of the program focuses on gradually introducing each student to timing in a more comfortable environment, so they can learn to manage the stress of test-taking. Practicing under timed conditions also hones their ability to use the strategies and master the content they reviewed during targeted practice.