Dr. Katie Caprino, Assistant Professor of Education and Teaching & Learning Design Fellow
You can contact Dr. Caprino at caprinok@etown.edu. 

In my earlier blog posts “What is Coaching?” and “Connections between Design Thinking and Coaching,” I provided an introduction to coaching and some ideas about the links between design thinking and coaching.

In this blog post, I will share some questions, prompts, or moves that may help coaches and coachees as they engage in a coaching cycle informed by design thinking. I offer a few questions that align with each element of design thinking. (And even if you do not take a coaching cycle from start to finish, you may find these questions helpful when engaging in meaningful conversations around campus.)

Empathy. During the empathy stage, your goal is to learn about your partner. Your goals here are to build trust and get to know more about your partner as a human. This stage may take more than one session, as the relationship you build here will set the foundation for the work you and your partner do together.

Here are some questions, prompts, moves that may help you engage in empathy building:

• Meet for coffee, a walk, or a meal.
• Share your roles at the College.
• Ask about their hobbies, learn about their favorite books / shows / movies, and their dream vacation.
• Ask open-ended questions.
• Listen carefully.
• Inquiry about best communication methods (e.g., face-to-face, Zoom, text, email)
• Schedule a teaching observation (if it makes sense) or share artifacts that may be helpful during coaching cycle.

If you would like additional resources, this piece from EdTech Team has some great ideas about this trust-building stage. Researcher Brené Brown has a great digital short on the idea of empathy.

Define. In this stage, you want to set a coaching focus. Here are some questions, prompts, moves that may help you do this:

• Share why coaching cycle was attractive.
• Reflect on noticings and/or wonderings of teaching observation or other artifacts.
• Discuss the area of focus and goals or the coaching cycle. Avoid a deficit or correction-based perspective. Colleagues may want to further develop an effective practice, too.
• Frame focus in the form of a clear question.
• Consider timeframe of coaching cycle.

Iterate. You want to review resources during the iterate phase. Here are some questions, prompts, moves that may help you do this:

• Share resources (e.g., articles, websites, mentor texts) with one another.
• Discuss what stands out in these resources.

Prototype. This is the part of the coaching cycle in which you decide on a plan.  Here are some questions, prompts, moves that may help you do this:

Make a plan of action using the resources shared during the iterate stage. This could be co-designing a lesson with one another, drafting up a conference proposal, or role play an advising session.

Test. The plan is enacted in the test phase. Here are some questions, prompts, moves that may help you do this:

• Try out the teaching strategy.
• Submit a grant or conference proposal.
• Have the advising meeting.

Then …

• Reflect
• Commend what went well
• Set goals for further action
• Decide to continue coaching cycle or end here.

Please stay tuned for additional resources on the Studio’s webpage to help guide you through coaching conversations! A special thank you to Matt Skillen, who has helped my thinking on this project, and Christine Walsh, a fellow literacy teacher educator at Slippery Rock University, who was instrumental in helping me frame some of the shared questions and prompts.