Cyber Coaching

During my years as an online educator, I have had various experiences with cyber coaching. Some of the experiences have been successful, while others have been complete failures. Despite all of the opportunities for success, there are just some students who aren't successful, regardless of my attempts at coaching.

During my second year of teaching online, I created something called "The Buddy System". The system was designed to pair new online students with a peer who had been with iQ for at least one year. The idea behind the buddy system was to offer new students one more person to contact. Sometimes students are more comfortable asking a peer for help, rather than approaching a teacher.

When I introduced the concept, a lot of students were willing to be the support person. I had about 20 students who wanted the support. I invited all of these students to a live Elluminate, and was able to put each pair into a private breakout room. It served as a great way for the buddies to get to know one another. Students exchanged phone numbers, email address and any other means for keeping in touch.

The program had a strong start. About a month into it, I emailed all of the buddies to see how things were going. Most of the buddies in the support role mentioned that they had not heard much from the student they were supporting. I decided to hold a second Elluminate session. This time no one came!
At this point, I felt my role had ceased to exist. What started as a strong program had fizzled to nothing. I am not sure what went wrong and I am not sure how to assess what went wrong. I suppose I could have created a survey. That would have been a great tool to assess the value of the buddy system.