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Starting Your Journey (Orientation)

The following resources will help you start your Circle of Champions journey as a new Coach.

Guidelines for Success

1.

Oversee the Circle of Champions Implementation at Your College Coaches lead the Circle of Champions implementation at their college. In this capacity they at as the face of the program. Coaches lead and inspire their team members to effectively implement the program. All new programs have challenges during initial implementation. The Coach will at time serves as the program ambassador, helping address questions and concerns about the program from College constituent groups. As the program matures and starts demonstrating the intended student success effects, the Coach shares this information with the entire campus.

2.

Coordinate the Circle of Champions Course Assignment Instructional faculty incorporate the Circle of Champions assignment into their courses. Support for the assignment and a downloadable version of the assignment can be found on the Course Assignment Page at myCircleofChampions.com. Coaches use the assignment in their own courses. In addition, they recruit and support faculty who will also offer the assignment in their courses. This is critical to the development of the College cohort.

3.

Support Supplemental Instruction Course and Certificate The Circle of Champions is about teaching students how to navigate the College-to-Career journey and teaching Champions how to support their student in this journey. This learning is structured around an open-entry-open-exit, noncredit, zero tuition, supplemental instruction course. Coaches facilitate the course, allowing the college to capture apportionment funding to cover program costs. The Coach is responsible for ushering the course curriculum and certificate through the approval processes and serves as the instructor of record.

4.

Join the Circle of Champions Network Coaches need to be registered in the Circle of Champions Network to perform all of their duties. Coaches can register under the "Coaches" page at myCircleofChampions.com. The Circle of Champions Network places emphasis on user privacy (especially student privacy), information security, and network reliability. These are the primary reasons we require a log-in to your private pages.

5.

Develop and Maintain "My Profile" You will need to complete a short profile to help us administer your role and keep you cohort information secure/confidential. This will include basic information like, your name, contact information, college, etc. If you need help with the "My Profile" tool, we have a range of resources that can assist you at the Help page of myCircleofChampions.com.

6.

Coordinate Communications with my Cohort One of the most important things a coach needs to do is facilitate/stimulate Circle engagement and conversation between students and Champions. Think of this as analogous to collaborative learning. In a collaborative learning environment, faculty break students into small groups and give the a structured learning activity. This is very similar to your role as a coach. You bring the structure and organization, but the Circle needs to engage with each other. You may be managing a large cohort, so we provide significant communication tools and resources to help make regular communications a manageable process. In addition to the structured communications, Coaches need to be available on a daily basis to answer questions and concerns as they come in from Cohort members.

7.

Develop and Organize My Cohort One of Coach's responsibilities is to grow their College cohort. It will take a while to build, but Coaches need to take active steps to increase the number of students and Champions in their cohort. To help with this process, we provide Coaches with organizational tools to see all their students, all their Champions, and all their Circles in the cohort. Coaches can also find a summary report of their cohort using the My Cohort tool.

8.

Lead My College Team While Coaches are the primary driver of the Circle of Champions on their campus, there are several other individuals who may be involved with the Network, including: classroom faculty, pathway counselors/coaches, deans, institutional research personnel, data personnel, business office personnel, and more. Coaches act as the primary liaison between JourneyGPS and these team members. Coaches also help organize, support, and inspire their College team members. Coaches need to keep the "My Team" page up to date to make sure we are referring Circle of Champions users (especially students) to campus personnel who can help them.

9.

Participate in Circle of Champions Research Ongoing development of the Circle of Champions Network is critical for establishing equity across higher education. With this in mind, we are partnering with UCLA and University of Pennsylvania to conduct an ongoing assessment of the Network, how it impacts student success and what needs to be developed to optimize the impact on marginalized students. As part of the research process, you may be asked to answer survey questions, participate in interviews, or help coordinate some of the research activities on your campus. Also, the research includes assessment of communications and activity across the Circle of Champions Network. Your participation in this effort will help improve your experience and the experience of future students and future Champions.

10.

Receive Help To make your coaching responsibilities as hassle free as possible, we provide a range of help resources. You can contact JourneyGPS, find key individuals at your College involved with the Circle of Champions, read responses to frequently asked questions (FAQs), watch informational videos, and chat with our virtual assistants 24/7. You will find these resources peppered throughout myCircleofChampions.com. The central location for all help resources can be found on the Help page at myCircleofChampions.com.

Circle of Champions Overview

Student Testimonial

Gavilan College and the Circle of Champions

Sign-up

Ready to jump in? Ready to help integrate the Circle of Champions at your College? Go to the coachs' sign-up page now!

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