Learning, Teaching and Assessment in Practice

Running head: LEARNING, TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT IN PRACTICE
Learning, Teaching and Assessment in Practice
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1Learning, Teaching and Assessment in Practice
Introduction:
Effective mentorship can be considered as one of the most important tool in shaping the future of
the students. It is the responsibility of the mentor to develop strength and confidence in them so they can
reach their goals and can make any decision any themselves without being dependent on other
(Broughton et al., 2019). This essay includes the qualities of an effective leader such as motivating
others, providing professional feedback and other qualities. This qualities are must in a mentor as it
assist is developing self-esteem and confidence in others (Foster et al., 2015). In this essay, certain traits
and attribute of the underachievers are states, these attributes are, seeing self as inadequate, excepting
failure very easily, do not feel good or free to make their own choices, behave defensively towards the
higher authority, feels isolated an rejected, avoid involving in any competition for the fear of failure,
blame others or luck for their failure, shows ineffective behavior towards the problems and set
unrealistic goals. The behavior of the achievers and underachievers students are contrasting from each
other. Usually a non-achiever students or underachiever students have low self-confidence and self-
esteem as compared to the other students. The underachiever students have the habit of blaming others
for their failure and never take responsibility for their own mistakes. There are multiple reason such as
emotional, genetic or family issue behind such behavior. Hence, it is the responsibility of the mentor to
develop confidence and self-esteem in such learners enabling them to achieve their goal. Mentors
usually applies different strategies such as, different learning theories and other strategies (Burgess, van
Diggele & Mellis, 2018). In the essay, role and responsibilities of the mentor in the clinical training and
its influence on the learning process of the student has been described. The characteristics if the several
types of learners such as auditory, kinesthetic and visual learners has also been mentioned along with the
learning theories which includes, social behavior theory, cognitive learning theory, behavior learning

2Learning, Teaching and Assessment in Practice
theory, andragogy and pedagogy learning theory. In addition, the importance of clinical learning
environment is also mentioned.
Discussion:
A good mentor is the one who help others to achieve the goals and targets of the mentees. It is
the responsibility of the mentor to show path to the mentees so that they can achieve success in their life
(Terrell, 2017). With the help of an effective mentor, even the underachieving students can reach their
goal by developing strength, personal attributes and believes. There are certain qualities which should be
present within a good mentor such as, willingness to share knowledge, expertise and skill with the
mentees, they possess a positive impact on the mentees and should try to be the role model (de Abreu &
Interpeler, 2015). Apart from that they should try to maintain a professional mentoring relationship by
taking personal interest in such and by exhibiting enthusiasm in the respective field. Effective mentor
should value ongoing and learning and growth in the field. They should provide guidance to the
mentees, especially to the underachieving students and also provide constructive feedback so that the
student can rectify their mistakes (Nowell et al., 2017). Mentor are usually there to provide guidance to
the students, but is does not mean that they should force their opinion to the mentees, instead they
should value the opinions of the mentees and initiative taken by them. If required, they should provide
feedback to the mentees. Mentor should set goals in order to develop the mentees personally and
professionally and provide strategies to meet those goals in limited time. One of the most important
quality of an effective mentor is the motivating skill (Fernandez et al., 2018). They should motivate their
mentees continuously in order to achieve success. A mentor should look each and every student equally
without being biased and gives special attention to the underachieving students (Van Ginkel, Verloop &
Denessen, 2016).

3Learning, Teaching and Assessment in Practice
Underachieving students is one of the most commonly observed in the schools and universities.
This students are either not interested in learning or face complication while learning skills. Hence, in
such condition it is the concern of the mentor to develop personal and practised skill in the students who
are underachieving known as underachievers (Freda, González-Monteagudo & Esposito, 2016). Student
who are underachievers possess various characteristics such as, poor self-efficacy, low self-esteem
avoidance behaviours, poor performance in competition and rebellion. Underachievers usually have low
self-esteem. They feel demotivated when compared with the gifted students and in such a way their self-
esteem lowers down (Castejón et al., 2016). If the underperforming students fail at something, the
students usually blame their luck and when succeed at they give credit to their ability which shows their
mind-set. They do not want to take responsibility of the failure. Such mind set of the student is known as
book mind-set. In book-mind-set people do want to take responsibility of their failure and assume that
their ability is permanent and cannot be improved (Mofield, Parker Peters & Chakraborti-Ghosh, 2016).
However to deal with failures students must have growth mind-set, where an individual understands that
the failure is part of the life and it can be avoided by improving the ability of the person. They usually
have avoidance behaviour, they avoid involving in different things by the fear of failure (Wu, 2016). If
such students are forced to do something they shoes rebel behaviour. They shows rebellion against the
higher authority and tries to protect themselves. Underachiever usually blames others for their failure
sometimes their luck and sometime the system. By blaming the system they void their own
responsibility against failure. Perfectionism is unachievable for each and every students, but it does not
mean that they will stop trying. However in case of students who are underachiever, they mention this as
an excuse (Hurd, Tan & Loeb, 2016). They states that, it is no possible for them to achieve perfection
and hence they cannot do that. Not only in the purpose of learning or gathering knowledge, they also