Encourage Little Improvements Every Day

Suggestion

With students who lack motivation, the effective teacher selectively picks his or her battles. For example, disorganized students might have completed an assignment, stuffed it in their locker, and can’t find it or forget that they even did it. These students usually do better with specific routines that are defined and practiced. It is best to avoid hassles over whether a student has necessary supplies until after the student experiences success. If appropriate, teachers can invite students to contribute school supplies to help each other out, and teachers should have a few extra supplies like textbooks available.

Focus on Success

I remember observing a middle school teacher who became excited when students made mistakes. It was common for him to say things like, “That is an awesome mistake, and this is why.” When he gave back a paper with a poor grade, his message was, “You got numbers 4, 5, and 7 correct, but you missed numbers 2, 3, and 9. If you want to get your grade up, you can redo those. Awesome job on the ones you did well.”

Hope is created and sustained in classrooms that emphasize success. A study by Richard Boyatzis, Melvin Smith, and Ellen Van Oosten (2019) finds that focusing people on their shortcomings or gaps impairs rather than facilitates learning. Using magnetic resonance imaging, they find that criticism triggers the fight or flight response and shuts down learning. Further, learning depends on our understanding of what we’re doing well, not on what we’re doing poorly. Perhaps even more important is the finding that we learn most when someone gets us to focus on what’s working within us and helps us explore how to use it to improve skills or develop something new (Boyatzis, Smith, & Van Oosten, 2019).

Although we cannot make it impossible for students to fail, good practice requires that we make it very difficult for students to fail.