By Karen Boyes 5 January
2009
Humans have an inborn disposition to
explore and experiment and therefore learn. We are designed to derive meaning
from experience and to learn by trial and error. It is important to let
children learn from experience rather than stop them because of our adult
fears.
On Monday 6th Feb 2006 the DominionPost newspaper headline read "Parents at fault' for teen suicides". Wellington coroner, Garry Evans suggests that teenagers are resorting to suicide because of an over protective society and parents that have shielded then from life's problems. Evans states, "If children are never allowed to fail, how will they learn to pick themselves up and walk on when they do fall?". Evans asks the question, "Are our attempts to protect our children and young people against life's failures and traumatic events having a counter-productive effect in that they are not being inoculated against failure by exposure?" Celia Lashlie, leader of the "Good Man" project, agrees that children are being raised with a 'lack of resilience'. She continues to say, "Everything is being done for them. They are delivered to school and picked up from school. The greater the income of the parents, the greater the level of doing it for the kids." Embracing experiences, errors and mistakes is essential in your classroom for maximising learning opportunities. Glenn Capelli suggests that good learners look back in order to look forward with new and deeper wisdom. Many organizations, classrooms, families and individuals view making mistakes as 'bad' and create an environment of shame regarding errors. This tends to suffocate thinking and learning, and sometimes leads to attitudes of perfectionism. Instead, celebrate the errors and mistakes you and your students make, don't hide them. This provides students with opportunities to learn. Capelli recommends teaching students to "fail forward fast". This means make mistakes, learn from them and move forward quickly. Have discussions with your students about people such as Edison inventing the light bulb, or sports teams and heroes that have reflected and improved. Hamish Carter, NZ's tri-athlete, is a great example of someone who has done this. With great hopes he performed well below average at the year 2000 Olympics, coming back to win a gold medal four years later! Teachers are often too busy trying to get through content and miss out the reflection that truly allows learning to occur. Focusing on learning from experience leads to better retention and faster, more effective learning. Providing reflection time, enables learners to consolidate understanding skills and attitudes, and allows application of new knowledge. Another way to encourage students to learn from experience is to provide constant feedback. The brain thrives on feedback and in fact needs it needs for survival. Eric Jensen advises, for optimal learning, receiving feedback every thirty minutes or less is paramount. He suggests there are many forms of feedback, however feedback coming from the teacher is the most inefficient. Jensen advocates using pre-established criteria such as checklists and rubrics so students can self assess. Other ideas include using partners and classmates, or whole group feedback. A concept I have found very useful is ŒDipsticking'. It is immediate feedback to teachers and students with hand signals or flash cards. Simply ask students to put thumbs up or down to indicate their level of understanding. However you do it, the more often the feedback, the better; the more immediate the feedback, the better; and the greater the specificity of the feedback, the better. Art Costa is an advocate of using mindful language in the classroom. It is another way to encourage students to learn and think for themselves. For example, instead of saying, "You need to start each sentence with a capital and end with a full stop." You might say, "This sentence would be complete with two additions. Can you figure out what they are?" The second suggestion provides students with an opportunity to reflect and learn, rather than being told. When disciplining Costa suggests instead of saying "Stop Running!", rephrase it as a thinking and learning opportunity. "Why do you think we have rules about always walking in the corridors?" Make your contact with every student meaningful and let them do the thinking and learning - not you. Here are a few ways to help students learn from their mistakes & experiences...
References: The Thinking Learning Classroom - Glenn Capelli & Sean Brealey 2000 Western Australia How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School. National Research Council 2000 USA Brain Based Learning Eric Jensen 1996 USA Creating An Effective Learning Environment Karen Boyes 2001 NZ Habits Of Mind - Activating & Engaging Art Costa and Bena Kallick 2000 USA Check out our website at www.spectrumeducation.com and shop online for books and educational resources.
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Failing Forward Fastposted 13 Aug 2010 21:50 by website admin |