by Nalini Lasiewicz, Crossroads of Learning
Crossroads of Learning recently launched an online course in Academic Coaching. The course is self-paced and accessed directly through the internet, taking an estimated 5-7 weeks. The cost is $209.00, all materials included. The curriculum is also available in workbook format, to be used in face-to-face training and professional development programs for peer and professional academic coaches, tutors or advisers. The Academic Coaching workbooks are available to organizations who organize trainings by approved trainers, either internal staff who have completed the Train-the-Trainer program from Crossroads of Learning or certified Master Tutor Trainers from the National Tutoring Association (NTA).
Sandra Clayton-Emmerson of the Center for Academic Success at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York was one of the first to complete the course. She stated, “I found the training absolutely outstanding! I was introduced to new concepts that were specific to one-on-one coaching.” When asked about her experience with an online learning program, she added, “everything was seamless in terms of how it all went together. The readings with links to outside readings and websites really worked, the assignments following the readings made perfect sense and I was able to reach my mentor anytime I needed to.”
The course helps learning support and academic coaching personnel support the goal-setting, critical thinking, cultural awareness and emotional intelligence development of students, dealing with the entire learning path of being a student. Academic coaching builds on the fundamental skills of tutoring, which is why the Academic Coaching course has a prerequisite of the successful completion of the Crossroads of Learning Tutoring Foundations Basic (or Comprehensive) training level. A skilled tutor can help a student become a better learner. A skilled academic coach can help students identify and verbalize the answers to not just academic questions, but about setting and obtaining goals far into the future.
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reading that the children of the wealthy were educated individually or in small groups by masters or tutors. The Socratic Method, a way of questioning a student to help him arrive at a correct conclusion, and often used during tutoring sessions, is based on the writing of Socrates from that time. During the Middle Ages the children of nobles and the wealthy continued to receive their education from tutors. Similarly, children from less wealthy families often became apprentices to learn a craft or skill from a master, another one-to-one form of teaching. Even to become a knight, a young man had to first serve as a squire so that he might learn his craft from the expert he served.
It would certainly be hard to know how Socrates would have used an iPad for tutoring. But for those who train tutors at learning centers in the 21st century, there’s a chance to find out. Those placing orders in the 
Southern California-based tutor training provider Crossroads of Learning has expanded its program of professional tutor training with the “Tutoring Foundations” Workbook Series and corresponding “Train-the-Trainer” online professional development. “Train-the-Trainer” equips instructors to deliver the “Tutoring Foundations” Basic, Intermediate and Advanced curriculum in the classroom. To celebrate this ground-breaking release free iPads are being awarded based on purchases through 6/1/11. 
“In 2009 after two years of widespread use of the fully online “Tutoring Foundations” program we began to receive requests from school and commercial tutoring providers wanting to deliver the same proven curriculum with their own staff,” said Bob Lasiewicz, Managing Director, Crossroads of Learning. “Given our unique status as the only university affiliated and nationally certified curriculum, we invested heavily in adapting it to a classroom workbook format. In order to insure the academic integrity, we also developed a top-notch “Train-the-Trainer” professional development program.”
