Scott, well stated. The brain takes in more information when it is trying to recover from a mistake. The lessons learned from recovering from a mistake tend to be more completely encoded into memory than lessons that did not require any effort to master.
James Jackson
Justin, learning from failure is a critical part of learning. Learning how to manage failure is equally as critical. Failure will take place for the majority of students when they leave college so the ability to understand how to manage failure and how to recover from it is a very important part of the overall learning process.
James Jackson
I also believe that as students encounter challenges, they actually learn better. When they fail at a project, as long as they engage the reason why, then learning takes places. Often times, the lesson is more firmly seated than if they completed a recipe successfully the first time they made it.
The classroom is a safe place for the students to learn about failure. They can fail and learn from the experience usually without the same kind of consequesnces they will face afetr graduation. Failing is ok as long as they learn from it. If they are too afraid to fail, they will never try anything new and miss potential opportunities.
Pauline, very well stated. The trick then is to make sure you have these discussions with your students. They may miss some points but the entire class is not dependent upon one or even a few tests. As we have discussed in previous threads, it really is about your focus as an institution. If you are trying to weed out those that cannot move on to the next level then do your students understand going in that this was the focus of the curriculum? If your focus is to teach them what they do not know and train them to be lifelong learners then there is a more difficult road we have to take as educators. It is not as simple as saying the students d not take their education seriously - we need to dig deeper and get a better understanding why they are not retaining the information we are providing. It is not always THEM, it can also be US. : - )
James Jackson
I agree sometimes it really hurts to fail at something, but you may fail a quiz or a test, but if you actually learn things from it do you really fail? I think that true failing is when you fail a test and never retain any of the information from the subject or class.
Mary Jo, great practice. We all learn by trying new things and working towards increasing our skills and knowledge. We will make mistakes but by taking some risks and learning from our mistakes we grow and become more competent in our area of skills.
James Jackson
