How Might We HELP students Self Assess and Reconceptualize Failure in Our Classrooms?
“Mr. Pepper? Is this good?”
What students mean by this questions is, “Will I be getting a good grade for my efforts and work here?”
As a teacher of MYP Design this question isn’t always obvious. It is dependent on the success criterion students set at the beginning of the project. Their success and failure depend on the problem they are trying to solve. They do not need me to tell them if it is good, rather, they can test it for themselves and then make improvements. In this way, there is a feedback loop built into their learning process that allows them to calibrate towards meeting their individualized learning goals and what success means for them.
Through teaching this course, I often ponder what would have happened in other classes had I followed a similar discourse of choosing my success criterion from a range of options. In Design, this is simple and built in but let’s look at other subjects.
If they skill has been identified to teach using a Not Yet, Getting There, Got It, and WOW! Thanks to @joeyfeith can allow students to self assess their competencies with guidance from a teacher. In this way students are trying to obtain a skill and the goal is not a grade but to improve on their ability to meet the rubric. If this rubric is created with the students students now have buy in and they are able to understand how they can move from Not Yet to Wow and the learning journey they will need to follow. Students will still recieve standardized marks (unfortunately) however this strategy should move your conversations with students from one of failure, toward one of self-managed progress.
It is also important that this is shared by the teacher. When I am teaching PHE and we start a dance unit. I put skills on the board in these different categories. “Not Yet” list if full of skills I have yet to obtain. I see if students can help me get closer to moving to a “Getting There”
Failure is inevitable. Active learners must fail constantly, ask why or how to improve and then repeat. This feedback loop is essential for the inquiry based classes we are trying to create. If students can’t learn to be resilient and bounce back from failure in early life with highly perceived risk and relatively low actual risk. We are not preparing them for the world they are entering. We will all fail multiple times in life. How one responds to this failure is the skill we need to build.
As to the answer to the question, “Mr. Pepper? Is this good?” My response is always, “what do you think? and how are you measuring success and failure in this task?" That’s really what matters when you leave school?
Do you design safe environments for students fail in your classroom? If so, how do you help them handle failure? Let me know in the comments...
