Helping Professors Thrive with Custom Coaching

Writer

Jeannine Stein

Jeannine Stein is the editor of Babson Magazine. She has been a staff writer for several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, where she covered features, health, and design, as well as three presidential inaugurations. She was also editorial director of Cloth Paper Scissors magazine, and is the author of three books.

July 17, 2019

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Nothing comes close to a fantastic classroom experience led by a first-rate professor. But, not all academics who teach in higher education have been exposed to teacher training. David James MBA’18 saw an opportunity to turn good professors into great ones, and started a customized coaching business, Beacon Instructional Partners.

James talks about how and why he created his Boston-based company in the On Campus feature in the spring 2019 issue of Babson Magazine. He returned to Babson last fall to join forces with the Center for Engaged Learning and Teaching to develop a pilot coaching program geared for assistant professors, all of whom had different classroom goals. Although he worked with a small group, James was still able to produce a case study that included data from the professors’ feedback and student evaluations.

The program has benefits for veteran professors, too, he says: “Coaching can be customized to any experience level. A professor who’s been teaching for 10 or more years may be looking for more ways to innovate and shake up their course, and that can be difficult to do by yourself, especially if it’s a class only you teach.”

Photo by Webb Chappell