Abstract:

My communication proposal is inscribed in the following subject area: Teaching Innovations in Education. It is focused in this regard on one of the recent innovation proposals within the field of teaching in our country: coaching. Although coaching is by no means something new, above all within the sphere of sports and business, in Spain it is still a novelty in this regard and is even less known within the field of teaching. It is, nevertheless, presented as an efficient technique and tool for achieving a substantial improvement in students' capabilities, skills and performance, orientated towards personal growth and satisfaction.

The aim of this discourse is to analyse, from the point of view of university teaching, the virtues and difficulties in relation to the implementation of coaching as a teaching innovation, taking into account both the characteristics of university teaching and the professional profile of the teacher. The overall hypotheses are: 1) The problem of the conceptual and practical ambivalence of coaching in itself. 2) The incompatibility between theoretical and practical cases of coaching with the real practice of university teaching, taking into account the current paradigm of quality and excellence. From the methodological point of view, the focus employed is critical and reflexive analysis both of the specific literature on the concept and its developments as a technique and, on the other hand, of the teaching experience in the classroom and its relationship with the concepts of quality and excellence and the system of accreditation for the teaching staff.

I have divided my address into three parts. The first part is a critical and comparative analysis of the concept of coaching and, especially, educational coaching, as well as its theoretical foundations. The second part of the speech analyses the main strengths and weaknesses of educational coaching, above all addressing the personal competencies and skills required from the coach. To do this it mainly addresses following aspects the interpretation and implementation of the demands for educational quality and innovation; the role of the university professor as coach and the competencies demanded from the teacher and students; the real context of the work and teaching experience of university professors; their profile and functions and the current paradigm of assessment of teachers.

The final part of the speech, dedicated to conclusions, establishes a balance over the theoretical foundations of coaching, and outlines future challenges for its use as an educational technique, above all within the field of higher education. But, furthermore, some of the strengths of coaching are highlighted, in the sense that it could be considered a symptom that reveals some of the human deficiencies of our time beyond an educational context.

Keywords:

Educational coaching, teaching innovation, university teaching.