When students don’t have the right attitude about failure, they tend to avoid it as much as possible. As a result, their effort may not be the best. Even more challenging is the fact that your data can’t fully account for attitude. That is your job. Feedback gained through failure is so valuable. Helping students to realize this can be an uphill battle. You have to constantly deliver the message that the Journey is what is most important. When students are overly focused on getting grades, some of the small details are overlooked. It’s the small details that make a huge difference. Consistency in the small details and learning from failure enables long lasting success in and out of the classroom. Here are some things you can do to help students develop the right attitude about failure:
1. Assess what was learned in failure – successful people learn from failure more than success. Build time in your lesson to allow students to reflect in preparation for their next attempt.
2. Highlight your failures – You can help students become more comfortable with failure by highlighting your own experience with failure. Students can learn from your example and change the way they think about the failure.
3. Tell stories of failure that resulted in success – there are numerous stories throughout history in which success was the outcome, but there was failure along the way. Use these stories as motivation
You can also use the video below to help spark a conversation with students:
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