11. Supporting students’ learning

The pace of learning rapidly increases during infancy as young children take in stimuli, process experiences and adapt their behaviours as a consequence. As they do, they continue to develop, grow and meet life’s demands.

And it never stops. The rate of learning may slow down, but that’s because children need to learn fast to make sense of the environment and develop their brains at the same time. As they grow up, people get better at integrating new knowledge because they already have the neurological and cognitive structures on which to anchor it. They don’t need to learn as fast, and in fact they shouldn’t always try: slow learning (like slow cooking) is better for tough problems (or tough meat).

College-age students (roughly between 14 and 19 years) are in a special category. They experience specific changes in their brains which affect learning as well as behaviour. Body clocks shift and time itself appears a bit unstable – a phenomenon known as ‘shifting time-zones’. They take more risks because the brain’s reward system is higher during risk-taking than it is later on. They also place greater emphasis on social rewards.

Things like nutrition, exercise, self-care and group identity are just as important for students at this stage as formal learning. Keeping them and their brains active is a vital part of developing and strengthening the neural pathways vital for long-term learning.

For example, you can:

• Help students to understand what’s happening to them as they carry out their placement tasks – reflect  
• Offer an alternative view of the experience – reframe
• Show them how work tasks connect to each other and make up the job role – generalise

• Show them the bigger picture, both in relation to the role and the personal development of the individual – conceptualise
• Introduce them to tools and techniques which make the work go better, faster, etc. – practice  
• Help to plan and rehearse how to do things differently next time – experiment

You’ll almost certainly be involved in giving feedback to students based on your observations of their work, behaviour, attitude and progress. It’s an important part of the mentor’s role.

It’s relatively easy to give positive feedback. After all, it’s not usually hard to find the right words to tell a student when they’ve done something well or congratulate them on their progress. Positive feedback, which can include an element of correction, helps students to perform better and become more confident. But it has to be earned – telling someone they’ve done well when they haven’t is counter-productive.

Giving negative feedback may be trickier. It’s human nature to put off difficult conversations or to try and soften the blow. But if problems aren’t tackled quickly you could find yourself dealing with a much bigger problem later on. 

Here’s a way of giving feedback which empowers student to learn for themselves, rather than telling them what they should do. It’s called the SAID approach. It’s a good technique for mentors to use because it helps the student to focus on learning what the situation can tell them.