3 ms·
> In my experience, I learn the most when I struggle; if a student can shortcut through all the hard parts on, for example, and assignment, they're not going to
by adverbly 3y ago
> In my experience, I learn the most when I struggle; if a student can shortcut through all the hard parts on, for example, and assignment, they're not going to learn very much. On the flip side, when most students struggle, they just give up.
This. 100% this. How do you make someone understand that struggling is good? That - more than anything else - is what I want to be able to teach.
Any tips?
- dmvdoug 3y agoThey have to have the experience of being successful on the other side of the struggle. And they have to have someone showing them the connection. Look at where you were before this. You struggled but persevered. Now look at where you are (in terms of either what you know or what you can do). That’s called growth, and it only happened because you stuck with it. Also, frankly, positive reinforcement will get you a lot of mileage.
- tsumnia 3y agoBuilding perseverance, and more broadly motivation, is still only partially understood in cognitive science. However, Carol Dweck's 'growth mindset' can help bridge the gap by shifting students' opinions away from "some people just get this" to "I don't understand this yet". Other motivation elements outside the scope of the material include intrinsic/extrinsic motivations, role models in the field, self-regulated learning, mindfulness, Baker et. al.'s affect model [1], etc. It's something I usually mention to my students during the later part of the semester - humans are one of the hardest problems out there! We're irrational, something that works for one person won't for the other, even if we know something's bad we'll keep doing it. [1] https://busynessgirl.com/better-to-be-frustrated-than-bored/ https://busynessgirl.com/better-to-be-frustrated-than-bored/