Mentoring and Coaching in Professional Learning

Entry requirements

Are you eligible for this microcredential?

To study this postgraduate microcredential you will ideally have:

• A Bachelors degree, or an equivalent level qualification
• Experience either as a coach/mentor or as a coachee/mentee to enable you to reflect and build on past experience would be beneficial. However, case studies will be presented and can be used as a basis for reflections

If you do not have a degree or equivalent level qualification you may find the postgraduate level assessment challenging.

The course material does not assume that you are currently working. Past experiences will be just as relevant.

Is this microcredential right for you?

This microcredential will increase your ability to become an effective leader of professional learning, whether you work in the public, private or third sector, with a particular focus on:

• Education in a range of settings from early years to postgraduate
• Emergency services, and health and social care
• Small and medium sized business environments

The course content and case studies will be relevant to learners within different professional contexts across the globe.

Months of entry

October

Course content

Gain critical mentoring and coaching skills to help others achieve their goals in this fully-online 12 week course

A successful mentor or coach can play a critical role in helping someone to achieve their professional goals.

The benefits of mentoring and coaching are well documented and are known to include developing leadership skills, increased knowledge transfer and stronger internal networks, as well as job satisfaction and motivation.

If you work in a learning, training, or professional development role, this microcredential will equip you with the practical skills and knowledge you need to provide crucial support to colleagues and peers.

Created by The Open University, you’ll benefit from the expertise of world-class academics who are known for their inspiring and engaging teaching, as well as their research that looks to influence practices, policies and debates – both nationally and internationally.

Discover how mentoring and coaching supports professional learning

This course explores the role of a leader in professional learning and development, encouraging you to think about leadership as a practice rather than a position of hierarchy.

You’ll reflect on the theory, research, and application of mentoring and coaching, including the differences between them, and relate this to your own work in supporting the learning of others.

You’ll also analyse and reflect on how you can become an ethical mentor or coach to others and consider your own professional development too.

Develop skills you can use straight away

Throughout the 12-week course, you’ll be supported to build your practical skills and approaches to coaching and mentoring in a structured and reflective way, including the opportunity to apply your learning to a case study in your own workplace or setting.

You’ll be encouraged to engage in discussions and provide critical friendship through constructive feedback to other learners, working together to find creative solutions to problems and challenges posed in the course materials or that you face in your working life.

From the very start, you’ll be able to apply your newly gained knowledge to make positive changes in your personal conduct and professional practice. Your learning will be relevant to a variety of contexts and settings which will help you in your current role and throughout your career.

Learn from experts at The Open University

The Open University is a leader in distance learning, with over 50 years of experience in delivering education remotely. You’ll learn from academic experts who have carefully designed a variety of engaging content and learning materials that will enable you to critically explore and develop your skills to become a more confident and effective coach or mentor who can support others to meet their professional goals.

What skills will you learn?

• Understand and develop mentoring and coaching skills
• Support and lead professional learning
• Critically evaluate coaching and mentoring practices and theory
• Apply and evaluate inclusive and ethical coaching and mentoring practices
• Work within a community of practice
• Evaluate your personal strengths and areas for development
• Construct and present a reasoned argument for your ideas

What you will achieve

By the end of the microcredential, you’ll be able to...

• Reflect on the key concepts and skills in leading professional learning and relate to the practice within your context
• Evaluate and critique your role and practice in leading and supporting professional learning through mentoring or coaching
• Reflect critically on the main theories, models and approaches to mentoring and coaching as they apply within your own practice
• Apply, reflect, and refine ethical approaches to mentoring or coaching sessions, in planning and practice, considering equality, diversity and inclusion
• Engage with professional communities of practice, including online, to develop working relationships that critically analyse and evaluate research and practice
• Evaluate and critique your own strengths and weaknesses to pro-actively engage in positive self-development

Information for international students

This course is taught fully online so is suitable to be studied anywhere in the world.

Fees and funding

NA

Assessment