When students are obsessed with proving their intelligence to others, they often opt for the easier task in classrooms because they know that they will succeed in it. If they are constantly told that they are smart, they might be afraid to fail. They will only answer the questions that they know are right. Many times, the best way for students to learn is through their mistakes, and if a student is obsessed with intelligence and getting the right answers, they might not ever learn the concepts, only what to say to get it right.
To provide the most effective praise for students, teachers need to praise their students for putting effort into their work. They need to motivate students to achieve, but rather than telling them that they are smart, they need to say, "Good effort." Teachers need to remember that if a student is not focussed on effort and only on intelligence, they might not fully learn in school, and they won't get much else out of the experience other than knowing the right answers.
I definitely agree that a key factor in showing kids praise is that we need to give them the right kind of praise. As you said it's not about telling a child "oh, you're so smart" because that then gives them the impression that what could happen if I'm not smart. What happens if I do fail? Will my teacher not find me to be as smart? It's very important to use the right praise and phrasing when we are giving praise to our students. We need to be able to focus on what truly is important and allow the student to feel as if even when they fail they can still conquer whatever task is at at hand.
ReplyDeleteI thought you did a great job pointing out the main concepts of praise in the article by Dweck. I think it's very important that teachers focus on praising students for their efforts rather than for their intelligence because they can control their efforts but no their intelligence. I also like how you included that praising for easier tasks can be detrimental because it makes students believe that the teacher values these easy tasks, and this can also show that the teacher believes they're dumb.
ReplyDeleteI like your ideas here, and especially Sam's suggestion above. It's important to see that intelligence (as most people see it) is something internal, stable, and uncontrollable (this is relevant to attribution theory!) so if a teacher praises intelligence or attributes success to intelligence, she's pushing for something that's uncontrollable. By asking for more effort, that's something a student has power over.
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