Collaboration, Coaching And Mentoring In Learning Processes

Learning has become easier than it was despite the distance or location of a trainee. American adults can proceed with their classes through the Internet and still achieve better grades than those attending lessons in their physical classrooms. This is possible due to the availability of various critical learning processes, which include Collaboration, coaching and mentorship. Collaboration refers to a situation where two or more people engage in an attempt to gain knowledge about something. Distance learners can form groups through Internet classes. Members can share their ideologies through these formed groups with the help of mentors. This not only eases the learning process but also makes learning more exciting and interactive.

On the other hand, mentoring is referred to as offline assistance for someone who needs to expand his or her knowledge or work based on a given field of study (Garvey, Stokes & Megginson, 2017). It’s always long-term and is perceived as a critical component of online learning for distance students. One feature of uniting mentorship with coaching is the fact that both are bridges towards offering analysis, reflection, and action, enabling a client to gain skills that can be used to achieve various goals. Mentorship is being provided in three ways.

• Traditional one-on-one mentoring, in which they engage in their own way.

• Distance mentoring involves the two parties being in different locations.

• Group mentoring involves a single mentor mentoring a cohort or group of clients.

Mentoring is termed as an informal transmission of knowledge and support relevant to a recipient who gains potential support in the learning experience. As various researchers quoted, there is a need for mentors to deliver support for online students as this increases their chances of succeeding. Online students or instead collaborators need help from mentors to gain knowledge (Garvey, Stokes & Megginson, 2017). It is characterized as involving someone with vast experience and who wants to learn. Its structure is dependent on the amount of psychosocial support, career assistance, role models and communication. The person learning experience is referred a Protégé/protégée.

In education, it is offered to support learners in completing their various programs, building their careers and occupations and furthering their education. The existing peer mentoring, which involves students of universities plus alumni engaging in an interview of questions and answers, is also applicable to adult learning through mentorship. Students with the best answers receive recommendations from industry experts building their CVs (Garvey, Stokes & Megginson, 2017). However, mentors are expected to have great experience in the field of teaching, be confident in working with adults, and always have trust in their careers. Also, should possess good listening and communication skills.

A good mentor should always be positive and encouraging to create a conducive environment for the learner. However, the mentee also plays an important role in that he or she is expected to show interest, be serious and treat the mentor with respect. This will automatically encourage mentors to work the extra mile to ensure they both gain. Willingness to share skills, knowledge and Experience also plays a major role. For example, the mentor uses his experience of how it was before they became so perfect. This will automatically build common ground with a mentee, who will then come to feel motivated. Demonstrates positive attitude and role model position by showing mentees what it is to be productive and successful in the field. Mentors should always treat their mentees with the utmost professionalism. Good trainers have good communication skills and are guided by ongoing learning and growth to be in a position to illustrate the changes involved and how they can affect future progress as well.

Coaching is a process of improving an individual’s performance through learning. It involves conversations aimed at supporting people in learning and developing skills and guiding them in achieving some required goals. For a successful coach, one needs to be well-equipped with knowledge and understanding of the whole process (Garvey, Stokes & Megginson, 2017). Not forgetting skills, techniques and better knowledge of the contexts in which it is taking place. Unlike mentoring, it is based on creating a conducive environment where one can learn from her or himself, hence termed a self-directed process. Coaching is important in learning institutions since educators and students gain skills that guide them in developing a coaching approach to their learning process. Developing a coaching culture provides students with a learning focus that is used by all in the school environment in the field of learning, understanding one another, and allocating responsibilities. Moreover, it creates chances for educational leadership and enhances teaching practices and the success of learners. Not forgetting their engagement and well-being.

Educational leadership is an added advantage gained from coaching as educational leaders can gain coaching skills in their leadership approach. When an educator gains coaching skills, he or she can develop leadership since it forms part of leadership. Garvey, Stokes, and Megginson (2017) supported this by saying that coaching is an important tool for building one’s leadership in the fields of education, etc. Also, coaching enhances the instructional leadership of principal’s roles. This follows Stamford University’s investigation, which claimed that coaching style interactions with teachers during classroom activities are of great importance compared to when they are not applied. To conclude, coaching offers not only students with greater skills but also the leaders in coaching to become good and excellent in their fields. Students also reported positive experiences and impacts gained from coaching at the personal level.

Training, Coaching and mentoring provide clients with techniques to develop their skills that can later be applied to work. It helps clients learn better and applies to adult research and career development. They gain new information and details, expanding their knowledge in a given field of study through coaching. However, there are many more similarities to what’s comprised of coaching and mentorship service delivery.

• Facilitates the exploration of skills and motivations in thoughts to transform a client into great change that may last.

• They both employ questions to test clients’ understanding and skills while teaching, it is by this coacher or trainer can find solutions of which will be acted upon later on.

• Maintaining positive rapport towards the client is basic in both. Anxiety is termed to be negatively affecting learning process, when one is emotionally disturbed, learning becomes hard.

• They both tend to encourage clients to continually improve and remain focused on their learning process.

• Both maintain their good relations with clients by ensuring lessons are not boring not too brief, this is done after the two participants engage in agreement.

• Both possess experiences in the interested skill areas and evaluate outcomes of the process to ensure the client’s goals are achieved at the end of it all.

• Both encourage commitment to action and are readily available to support the client and remain nonjudgmental of their views, perceptions and lifestyles.

• Moreover, there also exist non-services similarities which include: Coach can also be a mentor, and vice versa is true. They both use the same skills to assist others in developing the required skills. Their success depends on a relationship built on trust and openness between them and the client. Both are there to help clients identify issues, not to solve problems. Hence, it’s two-way traffic.

However, there are also differences between the two. By definition, Coaching is a short-term learning process that can be done at any time. Mentoring is a long-term learning process done after planning is completed because it follows a given strategy to be fully employed. Mentoring is an ongoing relationship that lasts for a long while coaching has a set period and focuses on specific development issues (Gray, Garvey & Lane, 2016). Mentorship can be informal in that the mentor is ready to meet the mentee when in need of guidance and support. Also, it is more structured, and meetings are held on a calendar basis. In Mentorship, a mentor is usually more experienced and qualified than the mentee. That is, it follows the path of a wiser colleague. However, coaching is not done by the coach having direct experience unless it’s a specified skill. Mentoring focuses on a career or developing a professional’s career, while coaching is a general development-based issue. Mentorship is development-driven as it aims to develop one not only for a current job but also for a future job. Coaching is performance-driven as it involves improving an individual’s performance on a current job.

Coaching and mentoring are based on different topics of concern. These include:

• Performance coaching and mentoring, which is coaching aimed at enhancing one’s performance in a given role at work.

• Skills include coaching and mentoring, which are based on helping one develop his or her skills as per roles guaranteed. The skills tailored are linked to the organizational goals and objectives.

• Career coaching is done to improve an individual’s career requirements. The process is expected to increase his clarity, change and forward actions.

• Life coaching and mentoring is coaching involving providing support to individuals hoping to transform or change their lives as well. Coaches help individuals to explore what they need in life and how to achieve such dreams or goals.

• Business coaching and mentoring is that which is majorly in an organizational context as per coaching a group or individual expected to aim high as required

• Executive coaching and mentoring: this follows the belief of improving the most influential person in the given organization to improve people within that given organization. This criterion is applicable in learning and educating other members who may not know some work.

Cognition

In language coaching, many language institutes offer the best IELTS classes in which performance can be thought of as an interaction between cognitive ability and motivation. This includes personal traits and conscientiousness, which are perceived as predictors of job performance and are dependent on one’s reliability, purpose, and determination. These traits of openness refer to an individual’s willingness to share knowledge gained from his or her previous experience. Emotional stability is one tendency towards being calm and relaxed as trainees’ level of acquiring knowledge is dependent on their anxiety. Anxiety is negatively related to learning, training and skill acquisition. In addition to this, self-efficiency, which is in three levels comprising task-specific, domain, and general self-efficiency, is accumulated as per one’s earlier experiences. According to various scholars including Passmore, Peterson and Freire (2016) suggested that one success or failure determines his or her mastery which will, in turn, affect his or her mode of coaching others. To conclude, personality influences coaching transfer in that the four mentioned, conscientiousness, openness, emotional stability, and general self-efficiency, directly depend on positive coaching transfer, experiences, and emotional stability. Coaching competence requires the coach to remain non-judgmental throughout the coaching process, paraphrasing used giving room for silence so that reflective thinking can be applied.

However, In Mentoring, cognitive behavioural to group mentoring provides mentors with the opportunity to shape mentees’ positive interactions with other mentees. The mentor’s experiences, thoughts, and knowledge are where the mentee gets skills or learned information. It uses cognitive skills that the mentor uses to think and read. Remember to reason and pay attention before delivering a given lesson or answering questions. If the mentor has weak cognitive skills, the mentorship program is good.

However, coaching is not therapy. This is because coaching and mentoring is following the client’s choice and preference (Parsloe & Leedham, 2016). They do not require therapeutic intervention. It is possible to learn under issues unless the client is stuck at achieving the desired goals; therapy is a way forward.

Mentoring and Collaboration play a major role in long-distance learning. Through E-Learning, learners can collaborate and learn despite their contexts. Members are put in groups through internet classroom, after that, every group is required to produce an online newsletter. These newsletters were analyzed, and then every mentor was assigned a given task. Mentors, apart from acting as teachers and role models, played various roles, including editions, supporters and collaborators.

References

Garvey, B., Garvey, R., Stokes, P., & Megginson, D. (2017). Coaching and mentoring: Theory and practice. Sage.

Gray, D. E., Garvey, B., & Lane, D. A. (2016). A Critical Introduction to Coaching and Mentoring: Debates, Dialogues and Discourses. Sage.

Parsloe, E., & Leedham, M. (2016). Coaching and Mentoring: Practical Techniques for Developing Learning and Performance. Kogan Page Publishers.

Passmore, J., Peterson, D., & Freire, T. (2016). The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of the psychology of coaching and mentoring. John Wiley & Sons.