Show report
Coaching and mentoring in e-learning
Introduction to coaching and e-coaching
Here are some of the key questions that came up during the
session.
Q. What is coaching, compared to mentoring and tutoring?
One view of the distinction between these forms was as follows:
- Coaching is person- and performance-centred
- Mentoring is professional-centred - i.e. learning
through the advice of a more experienced person
- Tutoring is focused on a specific task or set of
tasks
With specific regards to coaching, Tim Gallwey in his book
The Inner Game of Work (Texere Publishing 2002) has put forward
the equation P= P-I. This is Performance = Person's Potential
to Perform minus Interference. The coach's job is to remove
the interference.
Other views of coaching included the one that 'a coach draws
something out - doesn't put something in'. In other words,
a coach need not be an expert practitioner. A mentor will
offer most if not all of what a coach can offer, but will
also have expertise as a practitioner, while a tutor will
tended to be more task-orientated.
Q. What do you call the person you coach/mentor?
Various terms were suggested such as coachee, protege or mentee.
More commonly, the term 'client' is used (with 'customer'
being reserved for the organisation that foots the bill).
Q. Does it matter if the mentor and the 'mentee' never
meet face-to-face or speak on the telephone?
All the speakers who had experience of both online and offline
learner support agreed that that there was no real difference
in the quality of the experience where mentoring/coaching
happened totally online. Client preference, however, tends
to favour offline, working face-to-face or by telephone.
Q. Can face-to-face practitioners easily adapt to the
online medium?
The consensus was that the job is primarily about questioning
skills and empathy. All good coaches should possess these,
whether or not contact is verbal or written.
Q. What are successful examples of e-coaching?
Clare once enabled a client in Australia successfully
to integrate into her new job, over a period of a month, purely
via email.
Alan had an example of a woman in Georgia who was a data entry
clerk, who became completely qualified with Microsoft certification
within 10 months, through a combination of e-tutoring and
e-learning.
Zulfi described a long-distance dialogue with a woman in India
who was trying to get into UK market. The key point here was
how someone in the UK was able to provide local knowledge
on an ongoing basis.
Q. Why coach online?
Global mentoring programmes break down time barriers and can
connect people with exactly the background or expertise that
you need, regardless of geography.
The online world can be easier for introverts. This is part
of the general shift that the Internet has created (The Revenge
of the Introverts!).
Zulfi suggested that there can be cultural advantages to online.
For instance, Asians can tend to be too deferential to the
coach, which prevents the equal relationship and dialogue
that leads to the most success.
Online, there is none of that! Online, in asynchronous modes
such as email, also gives the client time to consider before
answering. This of course has disadvantages as well as its
benefits: instinctive responses are sometimes more genuine.
There is also the opportunity for the coach to refer back
to the exact words used, even copying the text to remind the
client what they said earlier.
All in all, it gives more time for a considered dialogue with
no time constraints and complete flexibility. You just have
to be able to write!
Q. How do you develop trust online?
By 'listening'.... you can demonstrate via the written word
as well.
There was an ongoing debate about what actually constituted
the 'e' bit of e-coaching. All agreed that this meant coaching
at a distance with technology at the heart. However, did it
mean talking to someone at a distance could be included in
the definition? The reality is that if there is any synchronous
communication it might just as well be done by phone and if
the two-way audio connections were provided via the web, does
that now make it e-tutoring?
With the advent of improved video (either online or through
mobile telephony), the distinctions between traditional models
of coaching and may get very blurred. The key questions at
the start of a coaching relationship will be do the coach
or client want to communicate synchronously or asynchronously
and do they want to speak or write? Soon anyone in the UK
could offer all of these options to someone the other side
of the World via web technology.
The main part of the day involved case studies. On the following
pages we briefly summarise two of the most interesting.
Next>>
Introduction
Case study 1: E-coaching as part of blended
solution in a retail bank
Case study 2: BT Ethnic Minority Network
|
