Introduction
To prepare undergraduate students majoring in Human Services to provide crisis intervention in community agencies, the Human Service Department at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) began using undergraduate students to assist the instructor in teaching crisis intervention skills to their peers while reinforcing their own skills. This article presents a model that relies on role-playing and other experiential processes to teach skills that help students manage real-life professional situations. Small lab groups are the forum for such activities. Undergraduate students who have demonstrated proficiency in the desired skills are the assistants who create an intensive learning experience for the students enrolled in the class. This process both raises the lab group coach's skill level and allows for more individualized instruction of students, including the immediate feedback that is essential for the development of crisis intervention skills.
Although it is not unusual to utilize graduate students as teaching assistants, using undergraduates in this capacity may seem inappropriate to some professors. The author proposes that this pedagogical approach benefits the students in the class, the instructor, and the lab coaches themselves. This conclusion is based on sixteen years of favorable feedback from students and lab coaches who have participated in this practice. This teaching method also may be beneficial in teaching skills other than counseling skills.
The Creation of the Coaching Model
When the Crisis Intervention course was initially created, the instructor asked eight students who had shown proficiency in counseling skills to be the first lab group coaches. Three students were assigned to each coaching group. It was believed that the students enrolled in Crisis Intervention would benefit from receiving more individualized attention from the lab coaches than they could receive from a single instructor attempting to observe role-plays and provide feedback for all of the students. In addition, the coaches were expected to gain enhanced leadership and counseling skills. Lab coaches were oriented in coaching techniques by the Crisis Intervention course instructor. After the initial semester, the students who had just completed the Crisis Intervention course provided a pool of potential coaches for the next semester. Eventually, each coach was given one unit of elective credit as well as a certificate of completion. Prospective community agency employers perceive this lab coach experience as indicative of advanced skill level, which increases the coach's marketability in the profession.
The author and her colleagues have come to realize that participating in a group with attention from a lab coach is fundamental to a student learning how to actually conduct crisis intervention when working with clients in agencies. Comments from students such as "I actually did a crisis intervention session with a client at my internship last night and I can't believe that it worked! I followed all the steps and did the suicide assessment just like we practiced in group. I actually knew what to say!" are common. Complaints from students who did not receive coaching in this course were also common. Because of these ongoing complaints, to ensure that students receive equivalent training the department now requires that all instructors of this course use lab coaches to teach crisis intervention skills. Although the initial set-up of the coaching model may seem laborious, as it requires instructors to recruit coaches, schedule breakout rooms, complete independent study plans, and train the coaches, these extra demands on faculty time are worth the increased skill development attained by using coaches.
It is this author's conviction that students best learn specific skills that can be transferred to real-life situations when they participate in structured lab groups led by coaches. The types of skills that may be transferred to real-life situations are evident in many disciplines, especially those involving interpersonal communication of any kind. Business, management, marketing, public relations, counseling, social work, psychology, and teaching are just a few of the fields that might benefit from this teaching model. The individualized training necessary for learning these skills is impossible when a single instructor has to try to coach a classroom full of students alone.
The Formation of the Coaching Lab Groups
While it was originally believed that a one-to-three ratio of coaches to students would maximize student learning, I soon discovered that when one or two students missed class, the lab session could not proceed as it should. Subsequently the number of students assigned to each coaching group was increased to between four and six students, reducing the need for coaches to five or six a semester. It certainly was easier to find five or six rather than eight coaches per semester. At times, I was only able to find two coaches, making the coaching groups rather large. When there are too many students in a group, there is not enough time for everyone to practice sufficiently.
To achieve maximum benefits, coaching groups should consist of four to six students, with one coach per lab group. These groups should remain the same throughout the semester to create cohesiveness, trust, and continuity. One semester an attempt was made to have coaches move from group to group. Students reported this to be confusing and shared their dissatisfaction with having to switch lab coaches. At times, a coach may not be able to attend a session, and the students from that group often join another group for the day. This has also been reported to cause anxiety and does not allow for the open learning that the intimacy of a constant group provides.
Small breakout rooms should be reserved so as to have privacy and enhance concentration. The goal is to create an atmosphere in which students feel motivated and safe to role-play situations realistically.
Role of the Coaches
Coaches should encourage every student to participate in the group by engaging in role-plays of common professional situations. Coaches must establish themselves as leaders, and the instructor should support the coach's leadership position by treating the coach as a colleague. In the past, when coaches have been either too passive or too aggressive, students have complained. The instructor must supervise regularly and ask the students during non-coaching time how the coaching process is going for them. This student feedback allows the instructor to guide the coaches to perform more effectively. Sometimes, coaches lack self-confidence and the instructor can provide the necessary positive reinforcement to strengthen the coaches' feelings of competency. Also, it is helpful to point out to the coaches that the students do not expect them to be experts and that they themselves are students in a learning process.
The Role of the Instructor
After the instructor lectures and demonstrates the skills to be practiced in lab groups, coaching begins. The coach is an assistant to the instructor, and the instructor should circulate among the different coaching groups for up to 20 minutes in each group as a way to both monitor the coach's performance and offer professional training to the students in the lab group. As the instructor joins the process, she or he can offer feedback and provide advanced skill training. Moreover, the instructor can answer technical questions when she or he joins the group so that the coach does not get bogged down with a myriad of questions during practice time. The instructor has both an indirect and direct influence on the students enrolled in the course. After every class session, the instructor meets with the coaches to debrief and offer feedback regarding their coaching process and how to coach more effectively.
Guiding the students to learn certain skills
It is best for coaches to have an outline of specific skills to be learned. The author uses a rating sheet from a textbook to guide the process (See Appendix A). The instructor prepares the students in the class about what to expect in the coaching groups, informing them that they will be evaluated by the coaches (under supervision of the instructor) or by the instructor on their proficiency after practicing certain skills for a specific time period. Knowing they will be evaluated tends to make students take the coaching process seriously; they are therefore more apt to learn the skills. This model works best when the objective of the course is to learn specific skills and when the instructor is clear about the actual skills students should learn.
Coaching Strategies
As the lab sessions begin, coaches should invite students to role-play situations based on case vignettes given by the instructor or on actual situations that have been encountered by students at places of employment or internship sites.
An essential part of coaching is the consistent involvement of all students. The coach must ensure that students feel they may be called upon to perform individually in the situation or to give feedback to the students involved in the role-play. By directly and randomly calling upon students to demonstrate specific skills or provide feedback to other students who are demonstrating skills, coaches ensure student concentration and participation.
Certain types of behaviors, if they occur regularly, can inhibit the creation of an efficient learning environment. Often students engage in such behaviors out of their own nervousness. Coaches must prevent this from happening too often. Listed below are two frequently observed behaviors that coaches should redirect as quickly as possible as well as strategies for turning these into useful behaviors.
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Students asking questions rather than focusing on role-plays: Instead of answering the questions, coaches should have students write them down in order to ask the instructor when s/he comes into the lab group. If the issue is really pressing, the coach might answer briefly and suggest that further clarification can be requested when the instructor comes in to observe. It is important to remember that the instructor circulates among all the lab groups and should continue to be an integral part of each student's learning in the groups.
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Students chitchatting about school: Often, if the coaching group does not begin with a structured exercise, students begin talking about their daily lives, teachers, and homework issues as they would on breaks, during lunch, or while walking across campus. The coach can often use some of this chitchat as material for role-play in a structured interview-- with the students' permission of course. For example, if a coach hears a student saying to another student, "I can't believe that Dr. Jones gave us another assignment that wasn't on the syllabus," the coach could say to that student, "Why don't you play the client and the group will address this issue as counselors using basic attending skills?" Instead of wasting time with idle chitchat, this material becomes an opportunity for all students to practice and learn.
General Tips for Coaching
- Intentionally practicing inappropriate skills
Students have fun and learn what not to do when the coach asks each student to say or do something wrong on purpose. For example, in crisis interviewing certain questions are considered ineffective. Beginning counselors often ask a series of close-ended questions such as "Do you feel angry?" "Did you tell your wife?" and "Do you have a support system?" Client responses to these questions might be "yes," "no," and "yes," making the interview appear like a police interrogation rather than a counseling conversation. When this happens, very little new information is gathered. Coaches can invite students to ask these types of questions on purpose. By doing this, they will easily see how that line of questioning will lead to a dead end.
This exercise also helps get mistakes out of the students' system, so they may be less prone to make such mistakes in real-life settings. For example, if the goal of the coaching group is to teach assertive management skills, the coach might have the students practice ineffective skills such as ordering an employee demandingly or, the opposite, pleading with an employee to do his work. The other group members could then share their feedback about why that method is ineffective.
- Round Robin
One strategy I have found quite useful in coaching students involves inviting one student to present a problem, acting as the client, while each of the students takes a turn practicing specific skills while in the counselor role. The coach directs each student, one at a time, to demonstrate a certain skill. This requires students to pay attention and stay "on top of things." Even inappropriate performances are useful for the students. Learning to identify ineffective skill demonstration is often as helpful as learning to identify more appropriate skill utilization.
This technique may be useful for other disciplines as well. For example, suppose the goal is to learn the skill of articulate presentation of an advertising campaign. One student might be asked to begin the presentation and the next student might be asked to continue the presentation while focusing more on the client's needs. Perhaps the next student would be asked to emphasize cost effectiveness, and another would then be asked to provide an emotional conclusion to the presentation. At times, students are encouraged to brainstorm the best ways to present an idea. This takes the heat off of any one student and creates a cooperative atmosphere.
- Dyads
Coaches have two students pair up, one playing the client, the other playing the counselor while the others in the group observe. It is essential to provide honest, direct feedback, both critical and positive after these role-plays.
A similar technique may be useful for fields other than counseling. For example, perhaps one student could role-play teaching kindergarteners the vowel sounds. One student would role-play the teacher and the other students could provide feedback to this student about the role-play. Others could then role-play the same situation, using the feedback to improve their performances.
- Demonstrating
Since students learn skills by watching others the coach or instructor may need at times to demonstrate how to perform a certain skill. The coach should do this regularly, but not so often that it prevents the students themselves from practicing. After any demonstration, students should give feedback and discuss their reactions to what they've observed.
- Processing personal feelings regarding the role-play situation
When students who are role-playing get "stuck" and do not know what to say, asking what they are feeling at the moment helps them think of appropriate comments or questions, enabling them to continue the role-play. Sometimes students need to talk about their feelings of inadequacy in handling a situation. The coach can encourage the student to continue despite these feelings, pointing out that the lab group is the perfect opportunity to make mistakes without serious consequences. This may relieve the student of these insecure feelings.
- Breaking skills down and practicing them one at a time
When students are presented with many skills to learn, it is helpful to break them down one by one. Depending on the difficulty level, a skill may be practiced for fifteen minutes, an entire class period, or several weeks. Certain skills are more difficult than others, and these should be emphasized in coaching groups. For example, when learning about crisis interviewing, most students have trouble identifying the cognitive element of a person's crisis situation. More time is spent in learning to do this than in learning how to ask a client if they are having trouble functioning at work, a relatively simple skill to learn.
Once the coaches observe mastery of one skill, they should have students practice another skill, until all the skills are covered. By the end of the semester, students should be evaluated on their ability to perform all the skills, which validates their skill proficiency and provides feedback on areas that need improvement. A rating sheet with objective criteria is vital in conducting this type of evaluation. Coaches simply put a check mark next to the skill that the student being evaluated demonstrated with a few comments about proficiency level. The weight of these evaluations toward the overall class grade is not heavy in comparison to exams and other projects, but enough so that students take this coaching process seriously.
Conclusion
Because there is a trend toward service learning and fieldwork placement for all disciplines, teaching methods such as the one presented may prove to be beneficial for many students. The model presented here provides enhanced one-to-one instruction for student skill acquisition, gives student coaches an advanced opportunity to apply their skills, and makes it possible for an instructor to teach larger numbers of students. While theoretical learning provides a foundation for understanding why certain skills are used in the marketplace, active learning techniques may be the key to learning specific skills necessary in being a competent worker.
Appendix A:
The ABC Model of Crisis Intervention
A: Developing and Maintaining Contact
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1. Attending behavior |
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2. Questions |
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3. Paraphrasing |
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4. Reflection |
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5. Summarization |
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B: Identifying the Problem and Therapeutic Interaction |
Assessed |
Not Assessed |
Not Applicable |
Identify the precipitating events |
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Explore cognitions |
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Identify emotional distress |
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Identify impairments in functioning: |
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1. behavioral
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2. social |
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3. academic |
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4. occupational |
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Identify pre-crisis level of functioning |
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Identify ethical issues: |
Done |
Not done |
Not applicable |
1. suicide assessment |
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2. child abuse, elder abuse, danger to others |
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3. organic or other medical concerns |
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Identify substance abuse issues |
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Use therapeutic interactions: |
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1. educational comments |
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2. empowerment comments |
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3. supportive comments |
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4. reframe |
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C: Coping |
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Identify current coping attempts |
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Encourage client to think of other coping strategies |
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Present alternative coping ideas: |
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1. Refer to support groups, 12-step groups |
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2. Refer to long-term therapy, family therapy |
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3. Refer to medical doctor |
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5. Refer to agency |
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6. Bibliotherapy, journaling, "reel therapy" |
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FOLLOW-UP |
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From A Guide to Crisis Intervention, 2 edition, by ©2003. Reprinted with permission of Brooks/Cole, an imprint of the Wadsworth Group, a division of Thomson Learning. Fax (800) 730-2215.
Posted February 8, 2002
Modified April 25, 2002
All material appearing in this journal is subject to applicable copyright laws. Publication in this journal in no way indicates the endorsement of the content by the California State University, the Institute for Teaching and Learning, or the Exchanges Editorial Board. ©2002 by Kristi Kanel.
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