Coaching system
Coaching is how training survives contact with real sessions. This section gives the fictional program’s site coordinators four connected tools:
- Observation rubric — five domains × four levels with behavioral anchors; one page; usable inside a 30-minute observation. Its domains are the competency model’s domains, word for word — what is trained is what is observed.
- Coaching cycle — observe → 15-minute debrief within 48 hours → one strength + one focus move → micro-practice → re-observe, every 2–3 weeks. Rendered as a diagram and as text.
- Coaching conversation guide — openings, naming strengths with evidence, choosing the single highest-leverage focus, and scripts for defensiveness. Aligned with the feedback model in the companion project Should this be a course? (a performance-consulting case study whose conversation approach this guide deliberately mirrors).
- Calibration activity — coordinators score the same transcript and compare, before their scores are ever trusted to track tutor growth (measurement plan requires calibration evidence).
Why rubric + cycle + conversation and not a “quality checklist”: a checklist tells a tutor whether they passed. A rubric with behavioral anchors tells them what to do differently, the cycle makes that happen on a schedule, and the calibration makes the scores mean something. All three are observable-design choices, not best-practice gestures — each traces to the competency model and to a metric in the measurement plan.