The Coaching Classroom: Redesigning Teaching Through Questions

In traditional classrooms, teaching often begins with answers delivered through talk, PowerPoints, and prescribed tasks. Students are positioned as receivers of knowledge, expected to absorb and reproduce. But what if we flipped this dynamic? What if the classroom became a space where learning began with questions - authentic, open-ended, and co-created? Welcome to The Coaching Classroom: a model of education that draws from coaching psychology to reimagine teaching as a relational, dialogic process. Here, the teacher is not just a deliverer of content, but a facilitator of growth, a thinking partner, a provoker of reflection, and a holder of space.

Why Questions Matter

In a coaching conversation, the power lies not in having the answers, but in asking the right questions. These questions are intentional. They invite ownership. They spark insight. In the classroom, adopting this approach encourages students to:

• Reflect on their learning strategies

• Articulate their goals and values

• Navigate uncertainty and challenge

• Develop metacognitive awareness

• Build intrinsic motivation

When we teach through questions, we create room for students to think about their thinking, to feel their way through complexity, and to claim agency over their learning journey.

Shifting the Dynamic: From Instructor to Coach

In a coaching classroom, authority is redefined. The teacher no longer holds all the power, but they don’t abdicate it either. Instead, they use it wisely, to create the conditions where students can grow.

This shift might look like:

• Swapping "Here’s what you need to know" for "What do you notice?"

• Moving from "Let me show you how" to "How might you approach this?"

• Replacing "Any questions?" with "What questions are worth exploring together?"

These subtle but powerful shifts change the energy in the room. Students become more than learners, they become thinkers, problem-solvers, even teachers in their own right.

Mutual Growth and Discovery

A coaching relationship is never one-sided. In the best coaching classrooms, teachers grow too. They learn about their students as individuals—what motivates them, where they get stuck, how they see the world. They also learn about themselves: their triggers, assumptions, blind spots, and strengths. This mutuality is the hallmark of coaching. It’s grounded in trust, curiosity, and shared commitment to growth. And it's this ethos that transforms classrooms into communities of inquiry and care.

Practical Strategies for a Coaching Classroom

1. Use Coaching Stems: Try prompts like “What’s your goal here?”, “What’s getting in the way?”, “What would success look like to you?”

2. Create Reflective Space: Build time into lessons for students to pause, journal, or pair-share their thinking.

3. Model Vulnerability: Share your own learning process - where you’ve struggled, how you’ve overcome it, what you’re still working on.

4. Feedback as Dialogue: Shift marking into conversation. Instead of grades alone, offer questions that prompt self-assessment and action.

5. Peer Coaching: Teach students to support each other using active listening, non-judgment, and goal-focused questions.

   
   

Final Thought

Designing a coaching classroom is a deliberate act. It takes intention. It takes trust. And it takes courage to let go of control in favour of connection. But when we do, something extraordinary happens: students rise to meet the responsibility. They grow not just in knowledge, but in self-awareness, confidence, and purpose. Teaching through questions doesn’t mean we stop giving answers, but it means we stop giving them too soon. We trust in the thinking of our students. And in doing so, we become educators who don’t just shape minds, but awaken them.