Using Counseling Skills and Strategies to Foster a Supportive

Learning Environment

Oscar J. SalinasUniversity of North Carolina School of Law

4090 Van Hecke-Wettach HallChapel Hill, NC 27599-3380

Osalinas@email.unc.edu

Using Counseling Skills to Foster a Supportive Learning Environment

Counseling skills can help us assist students with their academic and non-academic issues.

Help students feel more comfortable in disclosing their nonacademic issues that may be impacting their academic performance.

Counseling strategies and techniques: Establish a good rapport with students. Monitor our own feelings, thoughts, and

behaviors as we teach or provide assistance. Ask open-ended questions and focus on

listening.

Establish a Good Rapport

Great asset for any long-term relationship.

Particularly important for students seeking academic assistance.

Can help create a safe and welcoming environment where students are free to disclose and work on some of their academic and non-academic difficulties.

Rapport and Basic Counseling Skills

Good rapport can be established by utilizing some basic counseling skills: Empathy Genuineness Unconditional Positive Regard

Building Rapport: Empathy

Try to put yourself in the student’s shoes.

Try to feel or think as the student describes. Why is the student feeling this way? How would it feel to be going through what

the student is going through?

Building Rapport: Genuineness

Show genuine interest in the student and in his/her well-being.

Show that you are not fake or putting on a show.

You are honest and genuinely want to help the student. If the students don’t feel like you genuinely

want to help them, then they won’t come back. If you act one way in the classroom and a

different way in the helping session, the students may feel like you are putting on a show in the session.

Building Rapport: Unconditional Positive Regard

Show support and acceptance regardless of who the student is and what his/her situation may be.

Try not to judge the student for the mistakes that he/she may have made. Try to help the student not make the same

mistake again.

Monitor Yourself

Monitor your thoughts, feelings, and behavior as you teach and help students.

Our students can tell when we would rather be doing something else.

When we find ourselves disengaging, ask: “Am I present in this situation?” “Would I like being on the opposite end of this

conversation?”

Take mental breaks and be honest when you are busy or preoccupied.

Ask Open-Ended Questions

Open-ended questions help provide the atmosphere where students can express what they want to express. Try to limit your “Yes” or “No” questions. Focus on questions that start with “How” and

“What”, rather than “Did” or “Is”. Try to avoid “Why” questions.

May put students on the defensive and shut them down.

Don’t Be Afraid to Listen

Silence can be very important when working with a student in an academic support setting.

Being comfortable with silence is a critical skill for counselors and therapists. Allows the student to think. Allows the students to just get things off their

chests. Allows the student to fill in some of the gaps.

Summary

Try to build rapport with students, so they feel more comfortable disclosing some of their nonacademic issues that may impact their academic performance.

Empathy, Genuineness, Unconditional Positive Regard

Monitor Yourself

Ask open-ended questions

Listen

Thank You

Now . . .

Case Studies!