Coachmaster


This looks like an interesting tool to make coaching skills easier to grasp and pass on to others. This is precisely what is needed for our updated version of the VITAE course.

In the new UnderstandIT project where we are trying out ConCurrent E-learning Design as an approach, the VITAE course is being used as a case study to see if an approach originally designed as an engineering tool can be transferred to the design of a course. In the original VITAE course we envisaged teachers learning to mentor their colleagues but as the pace of change accelerates,  it now seems more appropriate to adopt the coaching approach, which is why this tool would be extremely relevant especially if the questions can be adapted to suit the situation of encouraging teachers to integrate ICT in their everyday practice.

The change from mentoring to coaching is in recognition of the fact that no-one can be the complete expert in this area since it changes from day to day.

As an example, I used Ning to run three courses two years ago and was very happy with the result, however I cannot now reccomend Ning as a low risk experiment since it has now become exclusively a paid for service. I therefore have to have the humility to recognise that while Ning worked well for me, I would have to do a bit of research before finding something similar which could offer the same advantages or more.

So coaching may make it easier to place the responsibility for action where it belongs, which is with the coachee. The Coachmaster tool makes this clear in the way that it works.