Failure is Always an Option
Tip of the Week: Failure is Always an Option
No one likes to fail. Unless you're a basketball team looking for a good first-round draft pick, no one tries to fail. Yet if we take teaching and learning seriously, failure is (or should be) a regular part of our experience. Learners don't know all of the right answers at the outset, and it takes time to understand complex ideas, which usually results in errors. This week, we look at strategies to incorporate failure in a healthy way that encourages further learning.
A common myth that persists is that learning can be errorless; in other words, it's possible to learn without making any mistakes. This was an idea in instructional design introduced by Charles Ferster but perhaps better associated with B. F. Skinner. In this approach, making mistakes in the learning process is detrimental to learners since they will remember the mistakes rather than the correct information or action. However, research doesn't bear out that claim. In fact, the opposite is true: learning how to cope with failure in learning has a greater chance of setting learners up for success and remember correct actions or information. The key is knowing where learners are likely to make mistakes and guiding them through how to overcome those mistakes.
There are two ways to think about mistakes in learning. One is knowing how to mitigate against mistakes when learners will likely encounter tricky spots in instruction. This involves identifying common mistakes that learners make when learning a particular subject and providing supplemental resources when those mistakes occur. The other way of think of mistakes is intentionally having your students make mistakes. This strategy can help learners discover common pitfalls or hidden implications of certain ideas or actions. The goal is not to humiliate learners, but to help identify common mistakes and fallacies that may not be readily apparent to learners.
One other thing to think about as you consider creating “safe spaces” to fail: we often learn more from our failures than our successes. In many fields, including software testing and engineering, there is a step where a product is purposefully set up to fail. This can help identify weak spots, but these tests also help reveal unknown areas of improvement. If something works correctly, it’s possible that everything went correct but it’s also possible that something succeeded by luck. When something goes wrong, it can be more instructive because the failure can be pinpointed to a particular issue that needs to be corrected. For an education example, think of a math student solving problems. If they get a problem correct without showing their work, it’s not entirely clear that they understand the concept being taught. When they make a mistake in their work, a teacher can identify when the mistake was made and help the student understand why they made that mistake. If they get the answer correct when they try a similar problem, you can have more faith that they solved the problem correctly and with the correct understanding behind it.
Here are some things to think about when preparing for failure in your courses.
1. Normalize or de-stigmatize failure in your course. We've existed in educational environments where failure is an activity’s worst possible outcome, but failure is a normal part of learning if the learner is putting forth effort. Reward the effort put into an activity rather than the result to start de-stigmatizing failure and normalizing it as part of the learning process.
2. Guide learners to understand why they failed rather than focusing on the mistake. You may have heard of the term “formative assessment”: it’s a type of activity where the goal is to help students move forward in a low-stakes, low-risk environment. Use these types of activities and include time for reflection, debrief, or discussion on assignments where mistakes are likely. Be sure to explore the reasons why your students made mistakes rather than focusing on the failure.
3. In activities designed to point out mistakes, make the failure enjoyable. In game design, there is a concept of "fun failure" where even when a player fails, the experience is designed to not be painful. Utilize this idea when you know students are likely to make a mistake, whether the outcome is comedic, ridiculous, or simply unexpected. This can encourage your students to be less fearful of making mistakes and finding creative solutions to problems.
4. Don't be afraid to make mistakes in your own teaching. Charles Goodyear discovered the recipe for vulcanized rubber when he accidentally left his rubber mix on a hot stove. Effective teaching strategy can be born out of our own mistakes. Teaching is an iterative process, so don't be afraid to make mistakes and adjust as needed. Not only will it make you a better teacher, it will also provide an example for your students that learning often involves correcting mistakes.