What is the relationship between executive functioning skills and academic mentoring? I often receive enquiries from parents asking if we teach executive functioning skills as part of the academic mentoring and revision coaching that we offer. The answer is that we do. Teaching executive functioning skills has long been an integral part of the academic mentoring and revision coaching because these skills are the building blocks of what makes a good student and an effective learner.
What are executive functioning and self regulatory skills?
The best way of understanding them comes from the Centre on the Developing Child at Harvard University which uses the analogy of them being, “like the air traffic control system of the brain, helping us manage information, make decisions and plan ahead.” They are the skills that help us to manage our life and therefore our learning.
Often, we hear them mentioned with students who have conditions like ADHD, Autism and Dyslexia, because their need for support with them might be more acute, but being challenged by them is something that affects everyone and all students have capacity to develop their executive functioning skills. These skills are located in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain and this is still developing throughout the teenage years and into early adulthood.
There are three main areas to executive function:
- Working Memory: a cognitive system that holds and manipulates information over short periods of time.
- Cognitive flexibility: the ability to be able to think about different ideas and concepts at the same time as well as being able to change perspective and adapt to changes.
- Inhibitory Control: this is self-regulation and the ability to resist impulsive behaviour and think about the consequences of actions.
The relationship between executive functioning skills and academic mentoring is that the skills that the executive function covers are the skills that make for effective learning and studying. Our exam system requires us to be able to retain and retrieve large amounts of information, set goals, plan ahead, be flexible, reflect on strengths and areas for development, prioritise and organise as well as juggle (if GCSEs) up to ten very different subjects at a time.
These are all skills that can be taught, developed and strengthened.
Academic mentoring and revision coaching teaches and develops these skills with the aim of realising the academic potential of the student and supporting them to become an independent and effective learner. These are skills that stay with you into adulthood and your future career.
Executive Functioning Skills and academic mentoring:
- Organisation – having a system of organisation that works for you. How do you organise your notes, revision resources, test papers, exercise books. These are questions that academic mentoring and revision coaching asks and helps you to find answers for.
- Working Memory – academic mentoring and revision coaching supports you in exploring techniques for recall, retrieval and testing that are effective for you.
- Planning – how to make a plan and more importantly how to stick to a plan. Sometimes having an effective study plan can make all the difference to your motivation and time management.
- Prioritising – a common feeling when studying for exams is feeling overwhelmed or not knowing where to start. Academic mentoring and revision coaching helps students in knowing what to prioritise and breaking things down in order to begin.
- Time management – an effective learner will be equally good at knowing when to rest as well as when to study. They will be able to keep up their sports and other commitments alongside their study. The academic mentoring and revision coaching will teach them how.
- Goal setting – what are the student’s short term and long term goals? Having goals will help with motivation.
- Initiating tasks – procrastination affects us all, but having a few techniques that can help us with starting tasks and getting them completed can be very useful in minimising it.
- Meeting deadlines – whether these are homework tasks, coursework deadlines or exam revision, a student’s ability to meet deadlines will support them long after their education and into their working lives.
- Problem solving and flexible thinking – the exam system rewards the students who can problem solve and be flexible in their thinking. Academic mentoring and revision coaching helps students to understand how they approach a task.
- Perseverance and resilience in tasks and pursuing goals are skills that can be acquired and developed with the help of academic mentoring.
At www.studentnavigator.co.uk we specialise in academic mentoring and revision coaching for students both privately and in schools. If you are interested in finding out more, we would love to hear from you.