Coaching and Mentoring, Graduate Certificate

The NLU Coaching and Mentoring Certificate focuses on experienced teachers’ advanced skill set needed to improve the performance of teachers, students, schools, and the profession. Candidates explore roles such as instructional coach, mentor teacher, department chair, lead teacher, and content specialist. In high demand nationwide, mentors and coaches lead school improvement efforts and collaborate across their schools to improve teaching and learning. Candidates will assess their own preparation, strengths, and areas for growth as they customize their learning to address problems of practice within their own districts and schools.

This four-course offering allows candidates to complete their Coaching and Mentoring Certificate in an online format over the course of four terms. 

Certificate Learning Outcomes (CLOs):

The following are the knowledge and competencies to be developed in this certificate.
Successful certificate completers will:

  • Use new leadership skills and practices to coach and mentor fellow teachers effectively.
  • Apply models of effective professional development including Professional Learning Communities (PLC’s) to best coach fellow teachers within a leader-defined framework for collaborative teamwork.
  • Use their school’s vision and mission to create coaching and mentoring plans tied to comprehensive school goals that empower teacher decision-making.
  • Develop a supportive network of colleagues in which to further their own professional learning as coaches.
  • Use adult-learning theory to inform specific strategies for coaching individual teachers and teaching teams.
  • Distinguish goals and approaches of different coaching models and practice in order to appropriately address coaching challenges.
  • Apply the body of knowledge in research and experiential wisdom from coaching and mentoring leaders in the education field to inform planned approaches to specific coaching and mentoring situations.
  • Demonstrate self-awareness to recognize their existing strengths and areas of growth as coaches and mentors.

Program Details:

  • Requires 8 SH for completion
  • A minimum GPA of 3.0 is required
  • A limit of one course may be transferred with the approval from the Office of the NCE Dean

Note: The Coaching and Mentoring certificate courses may be applied to the M.Ed. and Ed.S. degree programs in Educational Leadership or Teacher Leadership. Courses may also be counted in the specific National College of Education graduate programs. Please speak to your Academic Advisor about the details. 

Required Courses

Coaching and Mentoring Certificate - 8 SH

LDR 511Emerging as a Teacher Leader

2

LDR 523Mentoring and Coaching Fellow Teachers

2

LDR 531Leading Teacher Development and Student Learning

2

EDL 525Decision-Making for Educational Systems and Organizations

2