Academic Coach vs. Tutor

Study Spot Vancouver’s Executive Function and Academic Success Coaching is a personalized educational approach that differs from traditional content tutoring in its focus on developing essential executive function skills and building a growth mindset. 

While content tutoring aims to provide instruction and support for specific academic subjects, our unique coaching approach is more comprehensive, addressing the underlying cognitive and emotional skills necessary for academic success and personal growth.

At StudySpot Vancouver, we emphasize the importance of developing a growth mindset, which is the belief that abilities and skills can be developed through hard work, practice, and determination. This mindset is essential for academic success because it enables students to approach challenges with a positive attitude, embrace mistakes as opportunities for growth, and persevere through setbacks and failures.

In addition to building executive function skills and a growth mindset, the StudySpot coaching approach also includes strategies for managing test and exam anxiety. We recognize that test anxiety can undermine students’ academic performance and confidence, and we work with students to develop effective coping strategies, such as mindfulness and relaxation techniques, to help manage these feelings.

By focusing on executive function skills, a growth mindset, and test anxiety management, our StudySpot  coaching approach offers a holistic approach to educational support that helps our students not only achieve academic success but also develop essential life skills that will serve them well beyond their academic careers. 

The StudySpot Vancouver Coaching approach is uniquely designed to empower students to take control of their academic journey, build resilience, and develop a lifelong love of learning no matter what direction they may take.

Here is a quick reference as to the differences between the two and when each might be most appropriate.

Academic Coach

• Teaches and practices skills that can be applied across all subject areas and used throughout their academic career.
• Weekly sessions reinforce theses skills by incorporating them into their regular school-work and receive feedback and support from the coach.
• Weekly monitoring creates routine and structure.
• Mastery of skills gives the student a sense of control over their academic success.

An Academic Coach is most appropriate when:

• Student wishes to improve overall performance across subject areas.
• Student is disorganized and has difficulty managing his or her school life.
• A student has been dependent on their natural abilities to succeed.
• A student’s success is coming at the expense of stress or anxiety.
• Declining results are affecting the student’s confidence and effort.

Tutor

• Re-teaches subject specific content that a student is struggling to understand.
• Does not address the reasons why a student is struggling with content.
• Places responsibility for learning on the teacher and the tutor, instead of the student.
• On-going tutoring can create a dependency if the student prefers to be taught one-on-one instead of in a classroom setting. Tutoring can become a substitute for learning in the classroom.

 A Tutor is most appropriate when:

• Goals are short term and specific (eg. one coarse, a specific exam)
• Catching up on missed content or gaps in knowledge base.
• Going back to improve basic math skills