Thoughts on success in the classroom

‘Daddy, I’ve tidied up!’ cried the child. ‘Can I go outside to play now?’

‘Well, I’ll come and have a look. Remember, if you haven’t actually tidied up, you can’t go out to play yet!’

Dad goes to check but finds that most of the toys are stacked in the corner of the room. The floor is clear but the room is not tidy. He shakes his head and tells the child to tidy up properly. The child is upset because they thought they really had acheived what was expected of them.

Obviously, to avoid this situation, Dad could have clearly defined what he was expecting right at the start so the child would know what to do.

Or perhaps he did, but the child tried to test boundaries and see what they could get away with if they put in minimal effort.

In either case, the child was unsuccessful.

We can immediately see parallels in the classroom. There are times when students are not successful. This can be for various reasons leading to students feeling, at least, disheartened and, at most, completely unmotivated. Perceived failure then begets a half-hearted effort resulting in a vicious cycle of apathy. But the opposite is true when students experience success routinely- they are far more motivated to keep putting in effort¹.

There may be a few reasons why success may feel elusive to our students:

• they don’t understand how to do a task/routine
• they don’t understand the basics of concepts to build on
• they are not motivated to focus or work

I have been told several times that it is important for students to know what success looks like. I was told that this could be achieved through the use of success criteria as well as ‘what a good one looks like’ (WAGOLL) and ‘what a bad one looks like’ (WABOLL) models. 

I have even used success criteria that were levelled (*shudder*) so I could decide what grade my students were working at, depending on the level of detail they had in their answers.

Putting aside the fact that grading individual pieces of work is problematic, these methods don’t really show students how to achieve success, just what is expected of the completed task. Imagine if we were only given a list of ingredients and a picture of the completed dish and then expected to make said dish. Even if I add a picture of a poorly made dish, it doesn’t help me know how to achieve success.

This is certainly a challenge for completing procedural tasks, but is even more difficult for working on big concepts and theories. Showing what a good 6-marker looks like in Science or even providing a list of success criteria does not help students achieve success on another 6-marker because the knowledge required is completely different! (I know a 6-marker is not representative of a big concept…)

In summary, so far, we know that:

• students need to be able to feel successful to feel motivated¹
• but students need to know how to be successful
• to do this, it is not enough to provide success criteria, WAGOLLs and WABOLLs

It is important to recognise that there are various moments in a lesson where a student can be successful:

• being organised, eg. having the right equipment
• knowing routines, eg. how to use mini-whiteboards in Dr C’s lessons
• retrieving prior knowledge not directly relevant for the lesson
• retrieving the pre-requisite knowledge needed for the lesson
• rehearsing explanations with a partner
• answering questions from memory
• alternatively, looking up answers and not simply copying them without thought

(not an exhaustive list and, indeed, every moment of a lesson could be one in which a student can be successful or not)

Defining each of these moments, modelling the behaviours and processes we expect and providing feedback can make success achievable.

But is it as simple as that?

I am going to explore one of these ‘moments of success’ with the use of a scenario:

Lucy is feeling very low. She hates Science, especially as she can never do well in assessments and the lessons are boring. The teacher has asked the class to get their mini-whiteboards ready as they are going to do a pre-requisite quiz before learning something new.

Lucy is thinking about what she has next and is delighted that it will be lunchtime. But then her face falls as she remembers she has a lunchtime detention. The next thing she knows, everyone is raising their boards. She spots an answer written on the board next to her so she hastily copies it down and raises her board. The teacher praises the class as they all got it right and moves on to the next question.

In this scenario, Lucy is unmotivated and is looking forward to the end of the lesson.

She seems to have no idea of the question being asked and copies the answer from her peer. The teacher assumes the class knows the answer because it appears they all got it right. As this is part of a pre-requisite check, the teacher is now making a false assumption that this bit of knowledge has been successfully retrieved. The lesson will eventually move on to the new material but Lucy may not now be able to link the new knowledge successfully with the right (related) facts. In fact, there is a danger that she will make an incorrect meaning of the new knowledge, leading to a lack of success in the future.

So even though we may be aware of the moments of success within a lesson and even if we define them well to our students, there are still chances students are not successful (even if they appear to be).

How many times have we had students who seem confident in lessons, able to answer simple questions, able to complete independent practice work and then don’t do anywhere near as well as we expect in their assessments?

There are quite a few reasons for this, of course. Maybe the work in lessons does not reflect the assessments. Or maybe students can parrot back facts to us but have no understanding at all (read this post to see how I tackle this). Sometimes, however, the reason may be similar to the scenario above. Students are not motivated and will attempt to go through a lesson with minimal effort, waiting for the bell.

How could the teacher have helped Lucy become more successful during the quiz?

1. Ensure all students are attentive before beginning the pre-requisite check by using Be Seen Looking.
2. When students show their answers, pick on a couple to explain their choice. Do this before saying if their answer is correct or not.
3. Explain why writing a question mark on the mini-whiteboard when the student doesn’t know an answer can be useful data for them as a teacher.
4. If students don’t know an answer (or cannot justify their hastily copied down answer), ensure they know what the correct answer is and then return to them using Cold Call later in the lesson.
5. If Lucy regularly puts in minimal effort, have a private chat with her at the start of the lesson reminding her of their expectations and use non-verbal cues when she seems to be off-task (including when she is silent but clearly not focused).

The more I think about it, the more I realise that it all boils down to the culture you have in your classroom. We all want to have classrooms where we have high expectations of our students. Sometimes, we erroneously equate that to a high success rate in the classroom.

We have to be careful that the culture we are building is not one where students feel the need to cheat (by copying down answers) in order to achieve well. Because, in my opinion, the best way a student can feel successful in the classroom is if they are honest about what they do and don’t know.

Our goal should be long-term and short-term success but if students ‘fail’ in the short-term, this can provide useful information so we can help our students achieve success in the long-term.

Explain why writing a question mark on the mini-whiteboard when the student doesn’t know an answer can be useful data for them as a teacher.

Strategies like the one above can help build the right culture in the classroom. If Lucy had done exactly this, the teacher would have a better insight into what she could retrieve. The teacher could then decide what the next step would be to help Lucy achieve success.

Over time, this honesty would help Lucy feel more competent and in control of her learning in the classroom, increading her motivation.

In summary, there is much to consider when getting our students to succeed in the classroom:

• students need to know how to achieve success as well as what it looks like
• we can do this by having clear definitions of ‘moments of success’, modelling and feedback
• students need to be honest about their knowledge or lack thereof
• build a culture of honesty and regular retrieval so students gain confidence in themselves (success motivation)

References:

1. Eccles, J. S., & Wigfield, A. (2002). Motivational beliefs, values, and goals. Annual Review of
   Psychology, 53, 109–132. LINK.