Learned Helplessness

Lesson Created by: Peter Castro

Lets Start With a Puzzle!

Pretty Simple Right?

Lets try this one next!

A little less straight forward, but still pretty easy!

Now try this one:

Three students—Ava, Ben, and Chloe—each brought a different snack to school: apples, bananas, or carrots. Use the clues to figure out who brought which snack:

Ava didn’t bring apples.
Ben brought bananas.
Chloe didn’t bring carrots.
The person who brought apples is either Ben or Chloe.
Ava brought carrots.

Did you get it?

If you struggled getting the answers, it's because this was intentionally unsolvable!

Now, after doing some reflecting, how did it feel to keep trying and not succeed on the third question? Did you ever give up or want to?

Failure can feel bad repeated failure can feel worse. It can even begin to reshape beliefs about control and effort in some people, leading to Learned Helplessness

What is Learned Helplessness?

Learned Helplessness is a psychological condition developed by repeated exposure to negative uncontrollable events, that begin to make students believe their efforts have no effect on their situation (Nickerson, 2022). The video on the right is a short introduction to the concept, watch it to get an even better understanding of learned helplessness

Learned helplessness in the classroom can look like...

Imagine a student who repeatedly fails on their math exams, despite studying hard. Over time, this student may begin to believe any effort they give will not change their situation, even when offered direct opportunities to do so. This can ultimately hinder academic growth in the future as well as negatively impact motivation. It can also impact students emotionally, being a cause for depression as well

Of course, learned helplessness shows up in many ways in the classroom. Some other signs of leaned helplessness in your students could be:

Low self esteem
Decreased motivation / or feeling of control
Passive behavior
Avoidance of help and giving up
Inability to tolerate frustration

Now, what strategies can help someone break free from learned helplessness?

To wrap up the lesson, here are some things that educators should focus on to reduce learned helplessness:

Emphasizing a growth mindset, Intelligence is earned through effort and perseverance
Encouraging Problem solving
Allowing room for mistakes to happen
Celebrating big efforts and noticeable progress
Breaking tasks down when they seem difficult
Maintaining open communication with students so they feel comfortable in opening up to us

These are all essential in fostering a supportive and empowering environment where kids will not only learn but become more resilient and confident as well.

Test your knowledge with the post lesson quiz!

References

Cherry, K. (2023, April 11). What is learned helplessness and why does it happen? Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-learned-helplessness-2795326

Guiang-Myers, G. (2021, November 17). How to counter learned helplessness. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-counter-learned-helplessness

Learned Helplessness. (n.d.). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q35FtODk64g

Nickerson, C. (2022). Learned helplessness. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/learned-helplessness.html

TeachThought Staff. (2025, March 9). What is learned helplessness? TeachThought. https://www.teachthought.com/learning-posts/what-is-learned-helplessness/

How I used AI: For this lesson plan, I used AI a fair bit. I asked AI to give me examples of anticipatory sets and then chose one to use for the lesson plan. I did the same thing for the post lesson quiz, just asking it to give me examples of questions I could use (both knowledge and application) for the quiz and picking the ones I wanted to use. I also asked it to come up with the unsolvable puzzle for the anticipatory set. Other than that, the only other thing AI did was organize my sources alphabetically as well as give me feedback on if I was doing the concept section right.

Updated How I used AI:

Everything that was done through AI in my first lesson draft was unchanged. However, I used AI again, specifically to give me some symptoms of learned helplessness to give a deeper understanding of the content, but also to give me feedback on what my draft could benefit from.
Like I said all I used AI for specifically on this assignment was extra feedback and a list of notable symptoms of learned helplessness, that I could look through and choose what I want to put in my lesson. AI made this final draft feel fleshed out and gave me clarity and confidence in prior ideas. I believe it definitely enhanced the quality of this lesson, as it not only helped me with a lot of the sections but helped me also better understand how I would want to teach this concept in the future.
I really support the use of AI as a tool. Knowing how to use AI to grow your skills and confidence in school, while also making sure it isn't doing everything for you, can be very rewarding as well as a quick way to get a start on any assignment. I will be continuing to use AI to help me throughout school and teaching in the future, and plan on letting my kids know its benefits and how they can use AI to help them.

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