Should I Go Into Virtual Education Coaching?
If you’re passionate about education and the work of teachers but want to find work outside of the classroom, then virtual education coaching could be right for you. As an online education coach, you can use your experience as a classroom teacher to continue to make an impact in the field.
As a teacher, you are likely a multi-passionate person who has many skills to offer. This is why so many Educator Forever students often feel overwhelmed when they first begin exploring options beyond the classroom.
While in the classroom, teachers design curriculum, coach student teachers, modify their instructional practices to fit the needs of neurodivergent learners, and write newsletters to help caregivers understand what’s going on.
But instead of feeling confident about everything we have to offer, society often tells us that we are “just teachers.” These feelings can lead to a lot of indecisiveness and anxiety around figuring out how to best utilize our skills, and find a clear path forward.
Virtual education coaching is one of the best career options for transitioning teachers - especially those who want to put their diverse expertise to good use outside the classroom. As an online coach, you can support education professionals nationwide (and globally) from the comfort of your home.
What Is Virtual Education Coaching?
Coaching has become a critical part of professional development for teachers, paraprofessionals, education leaders and other school staff members.
Some forms of continuing education and professional development for educators simply provide information or solutions to teachers and other staff that they can apply to their work in a school. Coaching, however, is a more collaborative approach to problem-solving and professional growth.
As a virtual education coach, you can ask reflective questions and get educators talking about the challenges they face in the workplace. You can work together with them to come up with innovative solutions that help improve their instruction, classroom management and other key skills.
How to Know If Virtual Education Coaching Is Right for You
If you’ve been considering going into virtual education coaching, this simple checklist can support you in figuring out if it’s a good fit:
✔️ You are your best self when collaborating.
As a virtual education coach, you’ll have the chance to collaborate with paraprofessionals, support staff, teachers, and educational leaders.
Whether you decide to focus on supporting education professionals in moving toward anti-racist teaching practices or differentiating math instruction, your days will be filled with meetings that usually range from 30 minutes to one hour.
While collaborating, it’s important to have a large toolbox to pull from (e.g., book recommendations, articles, lessons, and more) and think outside the box. You’ll be able to form lasting relationships and be a thought partner that encourages teachers to get curious.
✔️ People come to you to talk through difficult situations.
During your sessions, educators will come to you with problems, questions, and challenges they are facing. It’s important to allow them time and space to vent and be heard, but then move towards possible solutions to move forward and accomplish their goals.
Using active questioning (e.g., I’m curious what you believe the child is communicating when they partake in that behavior?) can support them in tapping into their wisdom, while gently nudging them to try out new practices that will better support their students.
For example, you may watch a short video of a disruption that took place during a social studies class, and recognize that the behavior system the teacher is using is punitive. After allowing the teacher to reflect on what they notice, you can encourage them to rethink their current system and take small, sustainable shifts toward a behavior management system that involves students in active problem-solving. The key is to empower teachers instead of overwhelming them with too many ideas at once.
✔️ You are an empathetic listener.
Although coaching sessions aren’t very long, it’s important that the education professionals who show up feel comfortable and safe. This is especially important because after your initial few meetings you’ll likely introduce some ideas or shifts that may be new and involve learning a new skill set.
Listening to their concerns with empathy and compassion, and acknowledging how difficult it is to try something new, is usually what allows them to try the new strategy or practice. Instead of taking lots of notes as you are listening, learn to truly be with your participants so they feel held.
Over time, you’ll remember more and more from the meeting and be able to quickly jot down takeaways and commitments moving forward. Empathy is one of the most important qualities of a coach for teachers and other educational staff.
✔️ You believe in reimagining education.
It’s not a surprise that the education system needs to be reimagined. And who better to support this shift than former classroom teachers? This is why virtual education coaching is one of the best alternative careers for teachers.
If we are going to move towards a more student-centered, humanizing approach, we have to be comfortable with pushback from some of our participants. If we acknowledge that much of the pushback comes from a place of fear, we can greet our participants with compassion and understanding. Instead of giving up, we can still advocate for what we know is best for kids and teachers.
✔️ You have a strong support system.
When you move into a leadership role like virtual education coaching for teachers, you’ll bear witness to participants' personal and professional challenges, grief, and heartbreak. Since it’s important to form relationships, it’s inevitable that you’ll experience an array of emotions after a difficult coaching call.
Having self-care resources to pull from like a strong meditation or mindfulness practice, weekly creativity sessions like painting or dancing, or going for walks with friends to decompress is very important. Without this support system, we can experience compassion fatigue (AKA vicarious trauma) and find ourselves in an unhealthy space.
Instead of recreating the same stress and burnout we experienced in the classroom, allowing ourselves time to reflect on how to embed moments of self-care into our day, or make a decision to only coach participants on M-Th with Fridays off, is a way to create a life that prioritizes our needs, too!
Ready to Get Started With Virtual Education Coaching?
If you want to start a career in education coaching online, then Educator Forever can help. We have a growing community of former teachers and educators pursuing freelance jobs and other alternative careers online.
Our signature Beyond The Classroom program can help you explore and identify your unique transferable skills and determine the best non-teaching jobs for you. Explore all our programs and learn more about how you can work more flexibly in education.
Have questions? Contact Educator Forever any time!
About April Brown
April Brown (M.Ed) is Educator Forever’s community facilitator and a curriculum coach for the Curriculum Development Foundations program. In 2015, April began designing curriculum and writing articles for an EdTech company as a side gig while she was teaching in Placencia, Belize. After having her daughter in 2016, April was eager to use her unique experience teaching and leading in mainstream and alternative settings in the United States and internationally to work remotely while still making a difference in education.
The Beyond the Classroom course empowered April to leverage her skills as a compassionate disruptor and out-of-the-box thinker to excel as an instructional/well-being coach, adjunct instructor of a Trauma Supportive Schools course, curriculum developer, and writer for publications such as PBS SoCal, Education.com, and Britannica for Parents. April is an advocate for teachers and students – inside and outside of the classroom. You can find April in rural Vermont spending time with her husband, two beautiful daughters, and charming rottweilers.