Encouraging Students' Effort and Persistence

In 2010 Cognitive Psychologist Daniel Willingham authored a book that asked Why Don’t Students like school? His answer? Thinking is hard. It’s hard for everyone, but especially young learners who are still developing habits and strategies that will help them remain engaged. Willingham writes that the human brain naturally reduces engagement during routine activities, as though it's taking a vacation from the effort required to think deeply. Yes, thinking and learning is hard, but it’s also never been more important. The kindergarten students that learn in 2014 classrooms will retire around 2074. Is there any doubt our schools are preparing students for a future we can’t predict? As Dylan Wiliam says, today’s learners must be capable of success in situations for which they are not specifically prepared.

It is because our brains are not wired to think and learn that teachers need to act in ways that encourage their students to persist.  To be clear, I am not arguing that it is a teachers job to motivate students. Rather, I believe teachers are responsible for creating the conditions by which students motivate themselves. We can begin to create these conditions by first eliminating the unintentional things we’re doing that discourage students effort and persistence.

 1. Grading student performance inaccurately and inequitably
 Traditional grading methods rank among the greatest drains on students’ effort and persistence. Reeves (2010) argues that grades elicit an emotional response and wrongfully signal an end to learning. Worse, letter grades provide poor feedback on learning. If you disagree, ask an “A” student to list their academic strengths. Many will struggle to specifically articulate learning strengths, mostly because the primary feedback they receive is in the form of a single letter. Even when teachers litter student work with all kinds of feedback, most students won’t read much past the letter grade atop the page. When that letter grade is consistently average or below, students develop a mindset that they’re “just not that smart,” thus reducing effort and persistence.

 2.  Focus on weakness
Schools are conditioned to focus on students’ weaknesses rather than their strengths. Yvette Jackson (2010) writes of the Pedagogy of Confidence, and states that student motivation to learn is directly affected by teachers' confidence in their students' potential. We show confidence in students when we work to illuminate their strengths and help show them that learning is a talent developed over time, as opposed to some innate attribute that some are born with and some are not. If educators don’t act in ways that express belief in their students’ capacity to learn, their kids will likely opt-out right at the moment when sustained effort and targeted practice would stretch them most.

 3. Lack of efficacy
Low teacher efficacy can lead to reduced effort and persistence among students. In Finding Your Leadership Focus: What Matters Most for Student Results, Reeves defines educator efficacy as “the personal conviction of teachers and administrators that their actions are the primary influences on the academic success of students” (Reeves, 2011). When teachers blame students for failing to learn, they’re really displaying a lack of belief in their own ability to produce a desired result. The effort and persistence of students will improve when teachers take ownership over learning and adopt the mind frame that the success and failure of student learning is a result of what the teacher did or did not do (Hattie, 2012).

4. Failure to teach performance character
Schools don’t traditionally teach students important character traits like perseverance, grit, self-control, optimism, and curiosity. Tough (2012) argues that to help chronically low performing but intelligent students, educators must first recognize that character is as important as intellect. If we don’t help students develop habits aligned with academic and intellectual success, they will fail to persist when learning becomes difficult. In 2009, Coyle unlocked the Talent Code by showing that when learners engage in deep practice, that is, practice so close to the edge of their ability that they consistently make and self-correct errors, they can increase skill up to ten times faster.  Learning takes off when teachers assign practice work just beyond a student's current ability, where making and correcting mistakes makes them smarter. Without the intentional development of performance character traits like resilience and grit, students are unlikely to willingly and consistently operate at the edges of their ability.

 So, what can teachers do differently to encourage students’ effort and persistence?

 1. Grade more effectively
Teachers can encourage student effort and persistence by providing feedback that is timely, targeted, and requires more thinking and more work on behalf of the student. Whereas grades denote an end to learning, comment only grading allows students to see failure and mistakes as integral components of the learning process. In addition to providing actionable feedback, teachers increase the effort and persistence of their learners when they allow students to self-assess/self-grade their learning. When consistently given the chance to grade their own learning, students become evaluators of their understanding, and critically reflect upon what they might do differently to show increased growth.

 2. Connect to students
When a student knows you care, they will care what you know. Schools strong in student connectedness graduate students strong in effort and persistence. Delpit (2012) writes that students learn as much for their teachers as they do from their teachers. The stronger the connection a student has to their teacher, their classmates and the curriculum, the more likely they are to persist when learning is hard. School systems can establish stronger connections to students and their families by becoming more culturally and linguistically responsive. All teachers’ classrooms, content and actions ought to reflect and validate the home and lived experiences of the students they serve.

 3. Build the learning capacity of students
If you were to ask your learners to list the characteristics of a good student, would they respond with descriptors like quiet, compliant, and cooperative, or would they list qualities like resilient, self-aware, optimistic, curious, and collaborative? The culture of learning in too many classrooms rewards students for playing school well, primarily because the routines and procedures put in place by the teacher promote compliancy. For example, when we require students to hand-in an assignment despite it being incomplete or failing to meet expectations, we promote conformity and work completion over learning. If we wish for students to give greater effort, we must act in ways that show we value conscientious learners who strive for accuracy and are willing to take risks, ask questions, and accept error and failure as a natural byproduct of being challenged.

 4. Learn from each other
 Teachers can no longer view learning as just for students. Schools must become vibrant learning cultures where teachers work collaboratively and view each other as learning resources. When teachers utilize each other’s genius, students benefit and entire schools systems give more effort.  The notion that effective teacher collaboration elicits improved student effort and achievement is not new. Schmoker (2011) writes that if school systems are to maximize student learning, it is imperative that collaborative teams work to ensure a guaranteed and viable curriculum is actually taught, and that teachers are creating and delivering sound, effective lessons.  

 If teachers don't work differently to ensure their learners persist, gaps in student achievement will. Instructional leaders ought to begin asking teachers what they’re doing to encourage or discourage effort and persistence so that students can begin to develop habits and mindsets that yield increased success. As teachers begin to view their role as a developer of effective learners, schools will begin to narrow gaps in achievement and students will finish their schooling capable of having success in situations for which they were not specifically prepared.