Planned failure is an effective way to scaffold success. Creating success criteria with students has been extremely rewarding for me and this year I have developed an even better way to get students engaged and make my assessment far more descriptive and specific. Key steps to improving learning outcomes include planning failure into assignments, building success criteria based on actual student experience with students after their opportunities to fail, following up with targetted feedback through self-assessment, peer-assessment, and teacher conferences, and providing additional opportunities to improve.
Planned failure may sound counterintuitive but research shows that failure is an integral part of improvement. After all, if our students didn't need to improve, why would they be trying to learn? Regardless of how it sounds, I was able to relate to this concept because personally, it only seems like I'm able to learn anything 'the hard way'. My version of planning failure isn't as terrible as you may imagine. I start by assigning a fairly open-ended task with minimum instructions and no exemplars. This can generate some very interesting interpretations that could even be improvements on what I initially had in mind. In response to student requests for details, I like to ask with a smile, "What do you think?" which empowers the students to be creative because they are unrestricted by my pre-conceived expectations.
The students are then left with work time to think and develop their products with positive feedback and encouragement. This part of the process activates their problem-solving processing which is required for deep learning. During this struggling phase students are free to explore their ideas and build towards fulfilling the expectations based on their own ideas about what is required. Having time and positive encouragement at this point encourages students to visualize their own ideas and keeps room for creative expression. The instructions need to be devoid of too many details or specifics with regards to elements that might limit the products but the format of the final product needs to be clear and literal with a definite time frame. Having a time limit helps students limit the scope of their products and promotes the use of techniques and strategies they are already comfortable with. This is beneficial to the next step of success criteria building because we all get to see various the student strengths.
Once the 'failure' is complete, it is critical that the work is shared as a class. We take time to examine the work as a group so that we can compare the various strategies for problem solving. During this time, it is important that the teacher does not give much feedback other than to point out the positives. Many students are highly sensitive to criticism and are very easily able to identify the weaknesses but struggle to identify things they have done well. A few prompts that I find helpful when students are not forthcoming with reflections right away is for them to look for "something similar to what you did", "something very different from your own work", "something you really like", "something that you find confusing or surprising". I encourage students to ask questions that pertain to helping them identify, reflect on, and clarify the elements of the work that is effective. It is helpful to leave this process on a positive, non-judgemental note so it helps to finish up the class by asking students to identify something they liked about the work and express why they liked it.
The next class is the success criteria building process. Have students identify the elements that they think are essential to having a high quality result. This is done in a brainstorming style session and encourage lots of ideas, recording all of them randomly without rejecting any of them. If a student makes a suggestion that has already been mentioned, I like to ask them to clarify if they mean the same thing as the other person or if they have a different meaning because sometimes students have forgotten that the idea was already noted but sometimes they have a nuance to add and they need help recognizing how it is the same idea. This conversational style of brainstorming helps the students actively engage in analyzing the elements of the work and how to explain them. Students can be successful at this task because they have already tried (and somewhat failed) to be successful so they have a first-hand understanding of what success should be. Once all the criteria have been identified, have students discuss with their peers which criteria are more important and which are less important. Focus on selecting the top 3 or 4 criteria by consensus.
After class, I take the criteria that they created and I sort them into categories based on the ones that are most important. I then create a rubric directly based on the criteria. I explain what I did and show the connections between the success criteria they identified and the rubric that I made based on it. I provide copies to them so they can examine and give feedback on the contents. This is an opportunity for them to really engage with the rubric and develop a personal idea of how they can achieve success. If changes need to be made to the rubric based on student feedback it can be made at this point. This continuously honours the student voice in the process. In order to ensure that students are engaging with the rubric, have them now assess their 'failed' first attempt and identify their personal strengths and areas for improvement using the criteria. Then, as they are working on a different assignment, (which can be doing the same thing with a peer's work) I like to conference with them individually to determine if they have engaged with the rubric as expected and that they were able to identify areas for growth. The focus of the conversation is on which criteria they know how they can improve and guide them into suggestions for how to improve areas that they may not be sure how to improve. The end result of the conference is to have students identify a plan for how to improve.
Now it's time for the next assignment which is similar in a fundamental way but different enough that they are not repeating the same learning goals. Remind them to use the rubric to help them improve in their targetted areas. Then step back and let them work only providing encouragement and reassurance as needed. The role of the instructor at this point is to assist with focus, facilitate progress, and to ask questions that help the students reflect on the success criteria as needed. Instruction takes the task of directing students to resources they may find helpful depending on what the student is trying to improve. Once students have determined that they are 'done', have them get a peer to assess them and revise as needed. When that has been done, have them conduct a self-assessment in a conference setting and highlight the growth they have made by comparing their assessment with the previous work they did. Ask them to identify something they could still fix and if they can't, identify something for them and explain how they should go about it. This process ensures that feedback is immediate, utilized, concrete, and helpful.
Finally, when they have completed the project it is time to celebrate the biggest successes and to focus the outcomes in terms of growth. Sometimes students are already extremely high achieving in one specific area and that area still shows as their best area. Rather than praising them for what they were already good at, this process is meant to highlight the criteria on which they displayed the most growth. So, I may be praising them for something that they are still not reaching high achievement in but that they have improved on. I will hone my praise by telling them about how much improvement they made and ask them to reflect on what it was they did to make the improvement. This enhances their metacognition and helps them to remember how to work in that area of weakness in the future.
Some students need a lot more guided feedback than others and this process of learning provides a fluid learning environment that is perfect for meeting the needs of diverse learners. A little planned failure paves the way for a lot of improvements! It also helps students step away from focussing solely on the end result, mark, or product, and helps them to re-frame the way they think of learning as a process that requires trying things out, stepping back, comparing, reflecting, analysing, prioritising, and fine-tuning. This student-centred method develops learning strategies and metacognitive awareness of the process of learning itself and helps students take ownership of assessment.
I hope you'll try this method and let me know how it went.
Summary of steps:
1. Give an assignment with a deadline that seems a little short.
2. Let students struggle and solve it on their own while providing encouragement for them to think independently.
3. Share the results in a non-judgementally venue and encourage positive reflections.
4. Facilitate students as they brainstorm a set of success criteria for the assignment.
5. Create a rubric based on the criteria they selected.
6. Have students self and peer assess using the new rubric with a focus on identifying strengths and areas for growth.
7. Give a similar assignment with a somewhat flexible due date putting the emphasis on quality.
8. Provide encouragement and guidance in the form of resources and specific strategies as needed.
9. Provide feedback as requested through conferences while guiding students to make improvements based on the rubric criteria.
10. Praise for growth and encourage metacognition as students reflect on their learning process.
