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Academic coaching

The Learning Commons offers free academic coaching and workshops to Augustana students to help them meet their learning goals. Academic coaches are peers and professionals prepared to discuss a variety of academic skills.

What is academic coaching?

The transition to college life is challenging, and often, we carry with us skills and strategies that worked for us in previous contexts, like high school. As we’re asked to engage in college-level assignments, the strategies we’ve relied on and used may not work as they used to do.

Peer academic coaches are Augustana students who have successfully navigated the transition to college and come from a variety of backgrounds and specialties. They provide one-on-one support for students who would like to improve in one of the following areas:

  • Time management
  • Motivation, procrastination, productivity and focus
  • Test preparation, test anxiety and test-taking strategies
  • Strategies for taking notes, reading, writing and studying
  • School-life balance and navigating college life
  • Goal-setting and growth mindset
  • Communicating with instructors/advisors
  • Resilience and mindfulness

Academic coaches will meet you wherever you are in your learning, get to know how you best learn, and suggest strategies tailored to you. Everyone has the ability to improve and grow with the right strategies; so if one strategy isn't successful, it just means there’s another approach that may be better.

Sessions typically last 40 minutes, and we work with all students from first-years learning to navigate their first semester to seniors managing research and a heavy workload.

After the first session, you are welcome to make follow-up appointments to check in on your progress, reflect on what strategies were effective, and what can be improved.

Making an appointment

  1. Sign into Starfish.
  2. Click the blue "Schedule Appointment" button.
  3. Select "Academic Coaching" when prompted and click "Continue."
  4. Using the calendar at the top left, select a date.
  5. On the right-hand side, choose your appointment time and the coach with whom you’d like to work. Click "Continue."
  6. Type a brief note to let us know what you hope to accomplish in the session.
  7. Click the "Confirm" button.
  8. You will receive a confirmation email with your appointment details and a link to a pre-meeting survey.

If you need to cancel your appointment:

  1. Sign into Starfish.
  2. Click the menu icon in the top left corner.
  3. Select "Upcoming."
  4. Click the "more" icon in the lower right-hand corner of the appointment details.    
  5. Click "Cancel appointment."

If you have trouble setting up or canceling your appointment, email learningcommons@augustana.edu.

Academic skills workshops

Students who would like to improve their study skills are invited to any of the free workshops on our schedule. 

For more information, contact Alex Crawford.