OK... here goes.
I agree (and have long believed that trying is more important than
success. Success without effort seems hollow to me. Certainly, in
school, it means the student didn't learn anything new. I'm thinking
that everyone eventually (maybe often) has to work at something that's
challenging. Unless you know how to work hard and long, you don't know
how to succeed.
I think that saying "I am proud of you" can cause students to always
wait for that pride in someone else. It would be great if my students
felt that pride for themselves, by themselves.
I tried something new this year. My students wrote many drafts of a
research paper. I had them share their all their drafts with their
parents instead of the final version with my assessment. I told them
to share how hard they worked and how much they improved in each of
their drafts. If their parents asked what grade they got, I told them
to say that the grade isn't important, the effort is. One of my
students, who doesn't always earn the best grades, said, "That's right!
I'm proud of my work." I know my face told him that I was proud too.
Instead of saying that, I said, "That's such a good feeling."
Jan
Quoting "Palmer, Jennifer" <[email protected]>:
Are you all still interested in Opening Minds???
I know I am behind in posting prompts but each prompt has had only a
little bit
of interest. Maybe I need to work on my prompts a bit??? :-)
I am going to try again with a prompt...please feel free to post your own
thoughts or prompts if mine don't work for you.
Johnston talks about the problems with person-oriented praise: "Saying I am
proud of you has the same effect as saying I'm disappointed in you. It's just
the other end of the same conversation." ...and then later adds on
page 40 when
talking about process rather than product oriented feedback "Trying is more
important than success." He states that process feedback is therefore more
important than praise because it gets students into the habit of explaining
successes and failures in the terms of strategy use--that it is less
risky than
praising effort because sometimes even 100% effort is not enough.
These are some pretty powerful ideas... what are your reactions to
these ideas?
What have you been trying in your classroom in terms of changing your
language
and how has it affected your students???
Jennifer
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