INTEGRATION OF COACHING TECHNIQUES INTO THE TRAINING IN TECHNOLOGIES AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

The challenge facing present-day school is to prepare individualities having actual skills and competences as well as to create a flexible model of organization of the educational process that stimulates training and enables a life-long learning and education. This necessitates the adaptation of new approaches in training. Coaching is a new technique, a process aiming at achieving targets in various fields of life. It is dialogical in nature which contributes to unfolding student’s potential and to increasing his/her efficiency. The object of study in this article is the coaching techniques and the subject matter is their application into the training in technologies and entrepreneurship at the eighth grade. It is accepted that the basics of the coaching techniques are the fundamental principles of coaching developed by the US psychologist Milton Erickson: everything is fine with everyone, one has all necessary resources to cope, one makes the best choice at any time, every behavior has a positive intention, change is inevitable. The objective of the application of coaching techniques into the training in technologies and entrepreneurship at the eighth grade is to form attitudes for career exploration and planning as such objective resonates with the underlying targets of the curriculum of the subject of technologies and entrepreneurship: acquiring knowledge of the professions, activating the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, motivating them to make a reasonable choice of career. In order to attain the objectives a model of integration of coaching techniques covering the entire educational content laid down in the summarized topic of “Profession and Career.” One of the key roles for applying the coaching techniques is the role of the teacher. He/She is a partner in this process, talks actively, asks questions, shows patience and interest in each student, does not provide ready answers. The teacher creates an educational environment based on confidentiality, honesty, trust, openness, transparency, sincerity and equality. Twenty-five eighth-grade students studying the subject of technologies and entrepreneurship participated in the study. The results of the coaching techniques applied were studied by using a self-assessment scale that includes statements related to the future profession. The comparative study showed that the coaching techniques influence the students’ career exploration and planning attitudes. Career development is a life-long process and thus the application of the coaching techniques must continue in the ninth grade when the students complete the first secondary educational stage and are to make an informed choice of career. The coaching techniques provide students with the opportunity to make an informed choice of profession and take responsibility for their decision. Choosing a profession is one of the most important decisions in one’s life because the consequences are not only for oneself but, to a certain extent, also for the society as a whole. The coaching techniques help develop a community that is independent, sociable, capable of team-working, constantly ready to learn novelties, and to independently obtain and apply the necessary information