Help me help my student

[toothpaste]

I'm not sure how to help my student, who seems to have psychological blocks rather than intellectual ones.

She's a returning student who has crashed and burned a couple of times in the past. She is plenty smart, probably the smartest student in the room. She is the one who is willing to admit in public when she doesn't understand something, so she asks productive questions. She makes great use of instructor office hours and other university services. She is cautious about not taking on too much work, so she doesn't get overloaded. She is professional and pleasant to work with, and really responsible about organizing and trying everything.

But she also readily admits sometimes that she gets stuck; she can't formulate a question that expresses her stuckness; she overthinks and puts too much work into an assignment that doesn't need as much time as she is giving it; she said that sometimes her brain just gets fuzzy or cloudy.

She's clearly capable of doing good work--what I've seen from her has been excellent, but incomplete. I'm not sure if she's a perfectionist or if there are things she's just genuinely confused about.

How can I help her overcome whatever it is inside of her that is blocking her from being successful at school? I'm not sure where even to start. Do I just let her muddle through on her own?

[Hegemony]

I'm hearing two related problems here: that she is a perfectionist, and that she sometimes stalls out and can't get unstuck when under pressure.

I think these are probably things for your learning center to handle, or whatever similar thing you have on campus.  They may well be things that she could address in therapy.  Or they could be amenable to some cognitive reframing that the learning center could handle.  But I don't think you yourself can have much effect on her overall learning style — you are not a trained interventionist.  You can design your assessments so that your students don't have much pressure — for instance, on my quizzes, I let them take as long as they need — the quiz generally lasts 15 minutes or so, but if they need the whole hour, they can have the whole hour.  That helps the students who tend to panic under pressure. So you can design things so as not to put too much pressure on students who freeze up.  But I don't think you're really the one to launch any larger-scale interventions.  You can point her to the learning center, though, with matter-of-fact assurances that most students consult it at one point or another, or whatever is appropriate.

[Aster]

+1 Hegemony. There should be trained counselors at your university's Student Learning Center for this. And possibly also specialized tutors.

There may even be a possibility that your student has a learning disability. Again, the counselors at your SLC are well suited to advise students.

That she's coming to your office hours is a very proactive and responsible sign.