I read a Twitter post by @danhasler which encouraged teachers to offer how many times a student can resubmit work and what penalty might be applied. If you’re on Twitter, I’d recommend following Dan’s way of thinking and seeing what he does in colleges – but to me, it seemed an odd question after working in project, challenge, and game-based learning for over a decade. I thought to myself “do people still do that?”. Well it seems they do.
Stage 4 allows UNLIMITED resubmissions inside a project, as long as the student initiates it and there is an intention to improve and learn more. We have a simple box and sheet which students can use to explain what they improved and hand it in again. Even electronic work can be redone right up to the point where we close off the topic.
In Dan’s poll, almost no one chose ‘endless’ and most (who did allow resubmissions) added a penalty. The poster included illustrates the ethos I’m talking about. Learning is a mistake driven process – when it’s at its sharpest. Allowing students to make mistakes and improve later is the opposite of what so much of civic society would like us to believe is normal. Make a mistake, underperform, misunderstand and if you’re lucky you’ll get a second chance – and even then, some punitive act is added – for which you must atone. That simply reinforces that mistakes have a price – and really connect with the ‘assess everything’ culture in so much of education.
This idea of loss prevents people from taking risks. It stops people helping others if we think that it will cost us in some way. Teaching is all about mistakes, it’s about finding the courage to apply yourself to the unfamiliar and accept that students will make mistakes and that is not just okay, it’s the best way to improve. The only time this flow doesn’t work is when the student chooses their own standard. Perhaps ‘near enough is good enough’ or maybe work on this later, and pursue personal business now.
We started the term with this mindset: What is the standard you accept for yourself, and how do you recognise personal growth?
Aside from resubmissions, this has allowed Year 8 to explore more advanced Maths, complete outstanding Maths and some students in Year 8 have chosen to make mistakes learning how to ‘code’. The key learning is to learn from mistakes and take absolute responsibility for your effort and behaviour to maximise EVERYONE’s time.
Coding is about to become a very BIG part of the National Education Curriculum. It’s based on the inspired work of Seymour Papert. I’m thrilled to say we will be using Papert’s idea about computing and play – with a set of super-cool programmable robots – and I’m sure we’ll make lots of fun mistakes! – and those Year 8’s who choose to get ahead – will be peer-leaders … but perhaps only for a short time, as the pack closes in! The best way to learn something deeply is to teach it.
You can download and print this poster from Focus 2 Achieve here.
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