Academic Coaches offer institutions of higher education an opportunity to support both faculty members and students through distance learning programs, support that can prove imperative for improving student outcomes and decreasing faculty burnout.
Increasingly, institutions are finding this model helpful when seeking to expand and enhance their distance learning programs. However, the question of the most effective practices for incorporating Academic Coaches still remains.
What practices are effective for the use of Academic Coaches? Instructional Connections draws on recent research from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley for a compelling case study on how Academic Coaches can enhance student and faculty outcomes.
What Is an Academic Coach?
An Academic Coach is the Instructional Connections answer to the challenge of scaling distance learning programs while supporting faculty members. Academic Coaches are subject matter experts in their field of study, with an average of 14 years of experience. They come alongside their faculty members to help support them through the mundane, yet critical tasks that consume time within a distance learning program.
By having access to a trained Academic Coach, faculty members can offload routine tasks, such as grading, office hours, and email correspondence with students, which in turn frees up time for more strategic initiatives.
How Was UTRGV Utilizing Academic Coaches?
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley is a unique institution. With nearly 32,000 students, the university is certainly not a small one. However, the element of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley that is incredibly unique is the number of first-generation students and students of Hispanic origin. The university also offered a wide array of online courses, and UTRGV students took full advantage of these offerings. Some 51% of the student body was enrolled in at least one online education course.
However, like many other institutions, UTRGV struggled with fully supporting both students and faculty through online education. The sheer number of students enrolled was a challenge for the institution. Approximately 16,000 students attended at least one online course, resulting in extremely limited instructor bandwidth. Moreover, the high number of first-generation students at UTRGV made online education a particularly challenging enrollment option. Numerous studies have shown that first-generation students are significantly more likely to drop out of college or experience poorer outcomes overall. These problems can be exacerbated by online education courses if proper support is not provided. First-generation students enrolled in UTRGV online courses could expect to be within a course of 60. Failure to properly support at-risk students in this environment could massively impact course outcomes and enrollment.
The consequences of inadequate student support in this context are clear, but precious little research has been conducted into how faculty members deploy Academic Coaches in online courses for the best results. This research aims to gain a deeper understanding of the opinions and preferences of faculty members who utilize Academic Coaches, identifying any best practices that could inform the deployment of Academic Coaches in future contexts.
Methodology
Digital interviews were conducted with faculty members leading online courses, utilizing Zoom transcripts for the verbatim capture of answers. Faculty members were then asked questions like the following. (The following is not an exhaustive list.)
- How do you determine how many academic coaches are used in a course? Do you have a preferred ratio of academic coaches to students?
- How do you choose academic coaches?
- How often do you communicate with your academic coaches?
- How often do you meet with your academic coaches via conference call or Zoom? What is discussed in these meetings?
- Please describe the typical responsibilities of an academic coach offering instructional support in your course.
- How do you handle student questions?
- Do the academic coaches answer student questions, or do you, as the instructor of record, address all student questions?
Results
When the results of this interview were gathered, several surprising trends emerged, demonstrating how other institutions can utilize Academic Coaches.
One of the most common strategies that instructors utilized was frequent communication with their Academic Coach. Clear and consistent meeting schedules, accompanied by detailed agendas, accessible grading rubrics or instructions, and regular check-ins, were all described by participants as incredibly helpful in the process. Grading and addressing student questions were the two most common responsibilities of Academic Coaches, although the context and division of these tasks varied from course to course.
Student feedback on the use of Academic Coaches also tended to be minimal, with grading being the most common area of complaint, unsurprisingly. However, clear communication, review, and delegation mitigated many of these issues.
All in all, instructors at UTRGV were incredibly pleased with the quality of their Academic Coaches and found that clear communication, the use of consistent grading standards, and established review cadences helped them effectively incorporate their Academic Coaches into the course.
This research provides a clear line of sight into how UTRGV operated, but additional research with other Instructional Connection partner institutions would be a welcome next step.
Additionally, research into the opinions of both students and Academic Coaches would also be helpful in understanding these perspectives on effective Academic Coach utilization.
