Representing our Core Beliefs

​One of the culminating activities of our Coaching Practicum course is the creation of a one-page document to articulate central Coaching Belief Statements. In the past, this assignment has taken a traditional, text-based format. As we hoped for this document to serve an authentic purpose at participant sites, we wondered if a visual representation might better support these aims. Using a variety of different technology tools, our students created visually-appealing belief statement representations that pushed them to clearly and succinctly communicate their vision for coaching. But for every gain this format offered, we had to weigh corresponding losses.

As with all writing activities, transitioning to more of a multimodal representation offered affordances and limitations to the traditional print version of this assignment. Overall, participants were split down the middle in regards to the approach they took. To sum up our observations of the two forms:

• Traditional Print Format...offered deeper insights. In general, writers had more space and they used it to better integrate citations and applications in support of their beliefs. This is not surprising, and in fact, is an observation that persists across genre and purpose of multimodal texts I've assigned in the past. 
• Multimodal Format...was more engaging to review. If the purpose is merely to communicate information, the print format told a much more detailed story. However, if the purpose is to engage a broader audience to understand the underlying vision and guiding principles of a coaching model, the added design elements make this option a clear winner. Of course the distinction does lie in purpose and therefore audience, and this was something that writers determined on their own. 
• Traditional Print Format...grounded beliefs in research. These submissions not only made more connections to research but used them to justify the purposes of coaching. Oftentimes, this led to more explicit statements about overarching coaching goals related to equity.
• Multimodal Format...highlighted beliefs that were more akin to qualities and characteristics rather than actionable practices. Perhaps as a result of the departure from research, these beliefs were more likely to read as one-word values (honesty) rather than complex sentences. This happened in multiple instances, which really surprised us! Perhaps the less formalized nature of the multimodal text elicited a less formalized notion of belief statement, but these examples clearly contradicted the expressed requirements for the assignment. In the end, we adapted the assignment rubric in light of the expressive qualities we were noticing in this form of writing. But this is something we will want to return to in the future!