Coaching
What is Coaching?
Put simply, coaching is a process that aims to improve performance and focuses on the ‘here and now’ rather than on the distant past or future.
While there are many different models of coaching, here we are not considering the ‘coach as expert’ but, instead, the coach as a facilitator of learning.
There is a huge difference between teaching someone and helping them to learn.
In coaching fundamentally, the coach is helping the individual to improve their own performance: in other words, helping them to learn.
Good coaches believe that the individual always has the answer to their own problems but understands that they may need help to find the answer.
"Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them."
John Whitmore, in Coaching for Performance.
Why? what are the benefits to me?
- critical thinking skills
- learning how you learn best
- boosted confidence
- improved performance
- better self awareness
coaching versus instruction
- coaching is non directive
- instruction is directive
- coaching provides the opportunity for the important conversations.
- coaching is a learner centred method that engages body, mind, and emotions to develop inner and outer awareness & responsibility with an equal relationship between learner and coach.
- a coach is a collaborative partner who works with the learner to help them achieve goals, solve problems, learn & develop.
unlocking a person's potential to maximise their performance
V.A.R.K
Do you know how you learn?
VARK tells you something about yourself that you may or may not know. It can be used to understand your boss, your colleagues, your parents, your workmates, your partner, your customers, your teacher, your relatives, your clients and yourself. It is a short, simple inventory that has been well-received because its dimensions are intuitively understood and its applications are practical. It has helped people understand each other and assists them to learn more effectively in many situations.
The VARK Modalities:
Visual (V) Aural / Auditory (A) Read/write (R) Kinesthetic (K)
Unconscious to Conscious: The Learning Cycle
1. Unconscious Incompetence - you don't know that you don't know about something.
A Good example would be a child who has never seen a bicycle, or has no idea that any language exists other than their own.
2. Conscious Incompetence - you have become aware that you lack a particular skill.
An example might be the child who has seen other children riding bikes, or heard someone speaking another language, and therefore wishes to learn
3. Conscious Competence - you have learned how to do something, but you still need to think about it in order to do it.
An example would be the child who can ride a bike but falls off if they stop watching where they are going.
4. Unconscious Competence - you have learned how to do something so well that it has become hard wired into your brain
you no longer have to think about how you do it, bust just do it. In fact, if you think about it too hard, you may not be able to do it.