Academic Coaching vs. Tutoring: What's the Difference?

Have you just completed a bachelor's degree in education and cannot decide between a tutor and an academic coach career? Is your mind confused about writing an academic coach resume and a tutor resume? Well, before you start writing any of these, it is important to understand the difference between the two professions. Although both jobs deal with mentoring students and giving appropriate guidance to overcome academic obstacles, there is a basic difference between them.

Academic Coach vs. Tutor

Imagine you have taken an academic coach profession and are participating in All Teacher's Association meet. A person comes up to you to discuss some academic problems faced by his child, and you introduce yourself as an academic coach. What would be the person's spontaneous reaction? He will either understand what you mean, or just say that yes, you are the tutor I have been looking for. People often mix up tutor and coach because of a few similarities in their job. Both, tutor and coach provide a one-on-one support to students but then what's the difference between them.

A tutor focuses on the subject whereas an academic coach emphasizes the student. In simple words, a tutor teaches the child to solve a difficulty that is in hand and get over with it. On the other hand, a coach gives a detailed explanation of the problem, encourage students to have an open mind and think of methods that can help in finding a solution. An academic coach is involved in overall development of the child, right from doing well in class tests or assignments, to securing flying colors in projects. He prepares an action plan for walking the academic path.

Approach

The approach of both professionals varies – while a tutor would only focus on building concrete skills needed to finish school works, an academic coach designs strategies that can assist students to develop an effective learning approach. He acts as a motivating factor and encourages students to overcome the obstacle on their own instead of showing every step needed to reach the answer.

The other main differences can be understood with the help of following points -

• Homework preparation

A tutor's job is to assist students with their homework. He might even advise them to take the help of the internet. A coach helps students to set up a good routine and create a study environment which will help them in the long run.

• Preparing for exams

Tutors are specialists and can give knowledge pertaining to the subject they have mastered. A coach, on the other side, will help in learning the tricks to master difficult subjects and improve academic performance as well as make students ready to face real-life challenges.

• Methods used to develop functional skills

Management skills are necessary to do everything in life. Unfortunately, very few tutors take efforts to teach life skills to their students along with specific subject. An academic coach will focus on overall development on child and impart lessons on time-management, decision-making and problem-solving. These professionals guide on converting big assignments into small actionable tasks.

• Study approach followed

While tutors are required to teach children with special needs, a coach deals with all kinds of pupils. As a result, coaches are more effective when it comes to explaining a historical or fictional character in the lesson as they go in depth rather than just communicating what is mentioned in the textbook.

Apart from these, there are some other distinctions too. Although anyone who has a relative background can become a tutor or academic coach. Their working style and environment will vary. For instance, a math tutor may only pay attention to a specific concept, say long division method for a problem. A coach, on the other side, will guide the preschoolers to follow a color code system to identify the books in the bag or share strategies with high-schoolers on how to score effectively in an exam. Both are ideal careers if you want to be near students and help shape their career. However, if you want to be more than a temporary teacher who provides fixed services, becoming a coach is a good option. All you need to do is, write an academic coach resume and get good experience before becoming a famous individual in this field.