Space to fail. And learn
The Educationalist. By Alexandra Mihai
Welcome to a new edition of “The Educationalist”! I have a small challenge for you: think of the last time you openly talked to someone about a moment of failure or a mistake you made. Bonus points if you can put this in a professional context. Chances are this does not happen very often. We are editing our CVs (and even our lives, if you come to think of it) to showcase only success and achievements. We even use strengths to make them sound like “weaknesses” in an interview. Admittedly, it’s not easy to be vulnerable in a world that uses success as its currency. But the reality is that we all make mistakes. All the time. We all go through many rejections and failures before we achieve success. This is how we grow. Not being honest about it doesn’t make it less real. But how do we get out of this vicious circle? I want to use today’s newsletter to talk about how we can help students to own their mistakes and really learn from them, so I’m sharing some thoughts, some learning design ideas and some resources, as usual, and look forward to your comments. Hope you enjoy reading and have a nice week!
One of the things I hear very often is how we want students to understand it’s ok to make mistakes, how we want them explore and express their ideas out loud without inhibitions. And then we grade them. We demand they fit our well-designed rubric boxes (in the best case scenario, where these exist). There is an intrinsic tension within this dynamic, doubled by the general expectations that in order to succeed you need to “give the right answers”, or “find the right solution”.
And even though as humans and as educators we are well aware that learning from mistakes can work really well (under some conditions I will talk about here), it’s not the easiest message to convey in the classroom. And it is not easy because it’s not only about how we communicate it but also about how we design the learning and assessment process. Even more than that, it is about creating a certain kind of learning environment and about changing mindsets (students’ as well as teachers’). These are things that take time. But as usual, all things worth doing take time. So I’ll start with some general thoughts about creating space to learn from failure, followed by some examples of activities (some of them really low threshold) that will hopefully inspire you to take the first steps in this direction.
Learning from failure is all about…
Awareness: openly talking about mistakes and failure and their role in our lives and especially for learning is a very important first step. The goal is to slowly but surely work towards changing our attitude towards failure- our own and our students’.
Process: seeing learning as a process, where to various steps are at least as important as the final outcome, can help frame mistakes as a natural part of the process. It also provides us with opportunities to design our learning experiences in a way that provides students with a space to try and fail without immediate consequences on their grades.
Reflection: learning from failure happens through reflection. Providing space and sometimes also structure for reflection is critical in this process. What went wrong? Why? What can be done differently next time? Simple questions, yet often overlooked.
Assessment… done right: intentionally (re)thinking what is graded and what is not, as well as developing constructive feedback practices are key to creating the premises for learning from failure. After all we can’t realistically expect students to freely experiment in a very clearly structured graded assignment, with the risk of getting a lower grade. But perhaps we can then offer them a different space to experiment…
10 ideas to make failure a learning opportunity
Start with yourself: share your own learning journey and mistakes that led to your growth. Talk openly about what you learned from those mistakes. You can talk about multiple journal rejections, failed grant applications, postponed promotions. And yes, it won’t be easy. It will be quite hard. It may be therapeutical. This is all about modelling the behaviour we want to see in our students.
Admit when you don’t know something: show vulnerability and be ok with it. Another hard one, I know. One that comes with experience. No matter how good you are in your field, you are bound to have moment when you receive questions you just don’t know the answer to, off the top of your head. And that’s ok. You can either admit it and promise to look up the answer (and then do it!) or be brave and start exploring together with them what the answer could be. You may make mistakes in the process, so that’s an opportunity to be explicit about it (see point 7).
Try to come up with “goal free problems”- problems that don’t have one good answer and where the important thing is the reasoning behind the answer. This releases students from the cognitive load of having to achieve a specific goal (i.e. the right answer) and encourages them to enter a more experimental state of mind, where they can bring various solutions to the table.
Always dig deeper: ask students to explain their thinking process, even when the answer is wrong, or especially when the answer is wrong. It is all to easy to dismiss a wrong answer, but then we miss a very important learning opportunity. Students can then try to trace back through the process where exactly the mistake happened and this can increase their chances of avoiding it next time. It also helps demystify a mistake, by “unpacking it” and having students realise it may a have been just a small detail or logic flaw and not a total lack up understanding of the topic.
Encourage practice: this works well especially when developing a skill. Have students try it once, record imperfections, try it again, make note of improvements, and so on until they realise they mastered the skill. This helps them understand that in most cases it’s nearly impossible to get it perfectly right the first time, but that we need practice to get better at it. For example, they can work on their presentation skills by recording themselves, watching it and then repeating until they are satisfied with the result.
Design “fail forward” activities: for instance ask students to analyse a mistake they made in a recent assignment and discuss ways to improve it. This intentional reflective exercise helps them turn their mistakes into learning opportunities. Reflection can help students understand why the mistake occurred, put it into context and come up with alternative solutions. More importantly, as an educator you only facilitate the process, and not give them the correct answers yourself.
Make a mistake. Intentionally. And then talk about it. For example do a search that you know will not yield the results you want. Or point students towards tools or resources that you know are not optimal for the task. It sounds a bit risky, but if you know what you are doing, you can use this controlled learning environment to show students that mistakes happen in real life but there are ways to get back on the right path. The idea here is to have them generate solutions that will allow them, under your guidance, to overcome the error and eventually solve the task. It helps them be spontaneous and resilient and not take a step back any time a mistake happens.
Really think about what you grade and how. Think about what is important for you in your course. Is creativity important? Then make it explicit. And follow through in your assessment approach: you want to be clear what exactly you are grading, or perhaps you can give them a few non-graded attempts first? If creativity is the goal then you could make a point in cherishing imperfections. It’s all up to you, but make sure you are sending the right message and that it is consistent with the grading policy.
Focus on the feedback: two important (connected) things here: providing constructive feedback and designing moments where they can implement the feedback (e.g. submitting a draft and then the final paper, or any multi-stage assignment, offering a mock presentation opportunity). Beside self-reflection, specific formative feedback is a great way in which we as educators can support students in learning from their mistakes.
Create a sandbox. Intentionally create space and time for students to explore different ideas, tools, approaches (whatever fits your course). Yes, it’s hard to fit this is a tightly packed curriculum, but doing this regularly, risk-free (i.e. with no implications on assessment) is one safe way to build the trial & error mindset. For instance, give them a week to test a few methods before coming up with “the right” one for their thesis or paper. Ask them how the process went. Help them learn from playful exploration.
Resources
“Failure: Learning in Progress (FLIP)”- a project including curated examples of specific activities and more general approaches for learning from failure;
Strategies for Learning from Failure- article by Amy C. Edmondson exploring different types of failure and how to develop a learning culture that encourages experimentation;
Annotated failure as a design course deliverable, article by Renee Wever on how to learn from failure in a design course;
Museum of Failure- a collection of failed products and services from around the world.
Great post! I also appreciated the many suggestions on how to carry it forward into actual practice. Although it’s not directly related to teaching when I’ve talked about this with students I’ll share the Museum of Failure as a real-world example https://museumoffailure.com/
Excellent post. Shared with Faculty