Teaching Methods

Teaching Methods To Help Create Positive Motivational Patterns

Failure Is Okay!

It's important to train your students to learn that it is ok to fail sometimes. If you teach your students to take responsibility for failure of their assignments , they can not just focus on the bad and instead learn from it. If a teacher gives students specific feedback and opportunities to grow, they can learn from that to find new ways to improve their work. Over time, this will increase their performance and make success feel more reachable, improving their motivation. As someone ith performance anxiety the amount of times I got a bad grade and just thought poorly of myself and didn't think of how I could grow. And I know there are so many other students who feel the same way so if we can help them grow out of that mindset, the idea of test taking or last minute assignments won't be so anxiety inducing.

Process Praise

Educators tend to forget that praising a student for things is so helpful to their confidence in the class! Say if a kid who did really well on a test but the teacher said nothing then that kid is going to think they're not doing enough. Helping your students become more confident in their learning ability will help them in the future. Not only will this help the students feel more comfortable and confident in the class but this will also teach them how to be confident as they grow up, in a job interview, for college, trade school ect. This is something that teacher should look more into especially early childhood educators!

Praising students for "being smart" can lead to a fixed mindset on their abilities, which can then cause learned helplessness. By praising and supporting the process more than the product, teachers can help students form a growth mindset (Dweck 2007).

Asking "Why?"

As students we are taught to listen, nod, and say yes ma'am and go on about our day even if it was bad news about failing an assignment. But as we start to ask what we did wrong or why we failed it can help us learn and grow from that. It is similar to the process of praise in which it can give motivartion and a better understanding of how to do something. As a teacher it is important to write down what the student did wrong so they can fix it and give tips on how they can grow from this. There are some teacher who tell their students there are "dumb questions" but this gives a sense that their question could be a "dumb" one and they never ask which can affect their learning.

Instead of just accepting failure as something they can't control, asking, "Why did I fail?" can help students see success as something they can achieve, and something within their control. By not just brushing past failures, and instead looking at why they happened, teachers can build a more positive outlook (Graham & Taylor, 2022).

Advice for Ms. Wormwood

Process Praise

Calvin doesn't see himself as someone who can do well in school. This is both because of his own traits (he's a "big picture thinker") and because he sees the school system as something that turns students into "an ordinary, boring molecule of water." Instead of reinforcing those ideas, Ms. Wormwood should focus on praising Calvin's effort and creativity, encouraging him to attribute his successes to his own positive traits (Dweck 2007).

We never see Ms. Wormwood praising Calvin at all, but there are several moments when she could. When he asks meaningful (if unexpected) questions, she responds by shutting him down instead of encouraging him to continue thinking. Because of this, he doesn't believe that he can succeed in school, and develops a fixed mindset. He detaches himself from his work instead of taking responsibility for his successes and failures. However, if Ms. Wormwood tried to build Calvin up and support his effort and creativity, it may help him take accountability for his learning and be invested in the outcome of his schoolwork.

Learned Helplessness and Asking "Why?"

Calvin is quick to attribute his failures in the classroom to some inherent "ability" that he lacks. He goes into tests assuming that he will fail them, and, as a result, often doesn't try (Dweck, 1975). There are multiple ways Ms. Wormwood could address this. Firstly, instead of just assessing memorization of dates and facts, she could use more creative and meaningful assessments, which plays to Calvin's strengths and would give him a more internal attribution of his success or failure. This would increase the value of the assessment in Calvin's eyes, as well as giving him something he knows he could do very well on. It moves the project into Calvin's locus of control, and gives him a more controllable outcome (Graham & Taylor, 2022). For example, if she gave Calvin a writing assignment that he was interested in (like writing a fictional short story about dinosaurs), he would feel that he had more control over and investment in the assignment, and would learn more from it.