Academic coaches benefit all

By Jim Price
Contributing Writer

Everyone needs help now and then, even at NLC. There’s that physics concept you just can’t quite grasp, that sociology paradigm you just can’t get to shift, that point you keep missing in philosophy. You know the drill. The best-laid plans of mice and men, as they say ... so when you stop and think about the pitfalls awaiting you along the path to educational enlightenment, why not ease your burden a little bit? Check out Academic Coaching.

I was just a student here when Dr. Yolanda Romero asked me if I’d like to coach her History 1302 class. I’d taken the course the semester before and had done well. She wanted someone like me to assist her students with their coursework. It was a paying job, she informed me; I’d be a DCCCD employee, would actually work for a different department than her, but would have no job duties beyond helping students do better in her classes. Considering how demanding I’d found her class, I considered it a daunting prospect. Still, it was a paying job on campus, and that was a combination I wanted. I agreed to be hired and started immediately, early in the fall 2002 term.

At NLC, coaching and tutoring are two different things. A tutor teaches one student at a time. A coach teaches as many as are there. Teaching isn’t really even the right term, at least for coaching, because rather than trying to re-teach what Dr. Romero has already been teaching, I spend most of my time on two fronts: factual review for all tests (both multiple-choice and essay) and structural guidelines for essay tests.

In addition to the obvious task of cementing information uptake, it’s also my job to say, regarding essay tests, “Write them this way. Make them look like this. Put them in this order. Don’t forget to mention such-&-such.” It’s not something that would apply to every class or every professor, but then that’s the beauty of academic coaching. You don’t go by a formula when you coach. Rather, you go by what works in each case — and you know because you have been there.

“So,” you’re saying, “this sounds good, but there isn’t an academic coach in my what’s-it class.” And you have a point. I asked my boss, Judy Keller, a bit about that issue. Here’s what she said.

JP: How does an instructor go about getting an academic coach?

JK: The instructor selects a student who is in his course. The student usually had an A or a B in the course. He asks if the student wants to do it. Then we just get the paperwork going.

JP: How does a student, or a group of students, let an instructor know that his or her students are interested in having an academic coach?

JK: Some faculty don’t know about the program. The students could suggest it to the instructor. I would be glad to visit with the instructor about the program.

JP: Do you think the Academic Coaching program will survive the budget cuts?

JK: I don’t know. It will be evaluated this summer and — I don’t know. That’s a terrible way to end this, but that’s just how it is.

So, there you have it. It may not seem like much, but it can be, depending on the class and the professor.

“The American Frontier never existed.” Hmmmm, now what’s that all about? I better ask a coach.