Freedom to Fail

How do I foster risk-taking and innovation in my classroom? (ASCD Arias)

Andrew K. Miller

• Publisher: ASCD
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781416620389
• eBook ISBN: 9781416620419
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In The Freedom to Fail, veteran educator Andrew K. Miller explains the many benefits of intentionally designing opportunities for students to "fail forward" in the classroom. He provides a raft of strategies for ensuring that students experience small, constructive failures as a means to greater achievement, and offers practical suggestions for ensuring that constructive failure doesn't detrimentally affect students' summative assessments. He also describes how teachers, too, can benefit from failure.

Establishing a culture that embraces the freedom to fail helps students to adopt a growth mindset, take risks in the service of greater learning, and develop realistic expectations of what it takes to succeed in the world at large. If we deliberately let our students fail in small ways today, we can help to ensure that they'll triumph in a big way tomorrow.

Redefining Failure

Failure, for most of us, is a negative concept. Students who fail to do their work do poorly in school, and workers who fail to do their jobs get fired. But failure can be positive, too: in the worlds of technology and design, for example, taking risks that generate failure is considered necessary for innovation. If failure is the end of the road in some instances, it can be the beginning of an innovative journey in others.

Unfortunately, schools tend to treat failure as almost exclusively negative. Think back to a time when you failed a test or a quiz or failed to complete an assignment. Do you remember that sinking feeling that there was nothing more you could do? I remember preparing for a big history exam in middle school. There hadn't been any quizzes leading up to the exam, so I didn't know what to expect—short-answer questions? An essay question? Multiple-choice questions? Because I was unprepared for the format of the exam, I got a mediocre score, and I wasn't given an opportunity to retake the test. My failure, in this case, was treated as exclusively negative and final. But when treated as a necessary step toward innovation, failure can help students to

• Promote and establish a growth mindset,
• Build resiliency and a life-long learning mentality, and
• Prepare for the real world.

So, what are we waiting for? Isn't it time we encouraged students to embrace failure as fun, exciting, and filled with possibility rather than as something to dread?

Changing Mindsets

Fear of failure is one of the leading causes of anxiety for students. We've all been fearful of screwing up a presentation or getting an F on a test. But if we frame failure through a growth mindset, we can mitigate students' fears of it and even have them embrace the idea that they can "fail forward." What if we recast the word fail as an acronym that stands for "First Attempt in Learning"? By talking about failure in this way, we reinforce the idea that failure is a beginning rather than an end. And our actions should match our words: We should do what we can to encourage students to grow from failure.

According to Judy Willis, a leading expert on the brain and learning, "fear of risking mistakes reduces the active participation and construction of knowledge because the sensory input (instruction) cannot pass through the RAS (reticular activating system) and amygdala to the prefrontal cortex" (Willis, 2014). When we fear failure, the chemistry of the brain literally gets in the way of more learning. Indeed, research has shown that people who don't have a growth mindset are much less likely to seek out constructive feedback on their work or to be interested in further learning than those who do (Dweck, 2006).

We all want to protect children from failure, but we are actually doing them a disservice if we protect them too much. If students are never given the opportunity to fail, they'll never know how much they can improve. Students who are unaccustomed to failure may become impatient with challenging schoolwork and devalue anything that they don't get correct on the first try (Dweck, 2006).

Resiliency and Life-Long Learning

One reason to prepare students for failure is that it is inevitable; as Thomas Hoerr says, "failure is something we will all face and fostering grit prepares us for it" (2013, p. 40). By allowing and even promoting productive failure in the classroom, we can help students build their resiliency. After all, failure is an indication of what still needs to be learned. Resiliency and perseverance, which are honed through failure, are key life-long skills for students.

When we fail in safe ways, we want to learn more. Our frustration in the face of failure can help us to develop the grit we need to succeed. Consider sports teams: They may lose game after game, but they always get right back to practicing—that is, to learning new strategies, plays, and skills to improve their success rate. If a team never failed, it would never be motivated to improve.

Real-World Learning

Rote learning is a thing of the past. We now know that students learn best through authentic experiences connected to the real world (Miller, 2014). It is important, therefore, to communicate the real-world relevance of basic skills to students. We must know how to write properly so that we can one day communicate effectively at work; we must learn math skills to keep our checkbooks balanced; we must learn about color and light if we wish to appreciate great works of art. When we connect learning to authentic experiences, students see that it is necessary first to fail if they want one day to succeed in the real world.

To adequately prepare for their collegiate and professional careers students need to develop their executive-functioning skills, especially reasoning, judgment, critical analysis, and cognitive flexibility (Willis, 2014). Developing cognitive flexibility is particularly important when it comes to positive failure, as it enables us to consider multiple points of view and to approach challenges in different ways. As Willis (2014) notes, we need to "provide experiences to build flexibility to change and increase future comfort adapting to the inevitable changes that will part of [students'] lives." Our students will always experiences failures, and only more so as they grow into adulthood. When we leverage failure effectively in the classroom, we are cultivating cognitive flexibility in students.

Components of Positive Failure

All students deserve an opportunity to fail, to learn from their failure, and to move forward in their learning journey. Ensuring that they face these experiences requires intentional planning both of instructional procedures and of classroom culture. Many moving parts must be in place for failure to be an effective learning tool.

Classroom Culture

If we want students to truly value and learn from failure, we must be intentional about creating a culture that gives them the freedom to do so. By establishing classroom norms and routines that support a safe environment, we can provide students with the scaffolding they need as they fail forward. It is imperative that students have a hand in developing classroom norms so that they feel invested in making them work. Many teachers even have students create norms for classroom teams and groups, ensuring that these, too, are safe spaces for failure. When drafting norms, teachers and students should include statements about how they plan to approach failure.

Relationships and Trust

If students are going to be asked to take risks, feel safe, and learn from their failures, then they absolutely must trust their teachers, so it is imperative that we build strong relationships with them. Yes, it takes time, but it's an investment well made: The more we show students that we're interested in them as individuals and want them all to succeed, the more willing they are to participate—and, importantly, to take risks without worrying about failure. Strategies teachers can use to learn more about their students include learning style inventories, student surveys, and one-on-one interviews at the beginning of the year. Teachers can also commit to greeting every student personally as he or she enters their class and to thank them individually as they leave.

Consider taking the time to discuss students' nonacademic interests with them, as this can provide you with a strong bonding experience. Many of our students think we are a lot less like them than we really are—a myth we must work to dispel. As you work to build relationships, ask yourself: How do your students feel welcome in your class? What obstacles are getting in the way of making students feel welcome? What can I do to make students feel more welcome and safe in my classroom?

A Culture of Inquiry

Establishing a culture of inquiry is critical if students are to embrace failure as a learning opportunity. To that end, teachers should construct (or co-construct with students) questions that prompt further student questioning (Wiggins & McTighe, 2013). For example, consider a group of students engaged in designing a bridge for class. The teacher might ask them, "How do we design a bridge that will hold the most weight?" This question is designed to turn power over to the students so they can generate their own questions. It's a good idea to post questions such as these prominently in the classroom. In fact, the walls of the room should honor questions and inquiry rather than answers. As students fail forward in their learning, knowing that they will have the opportunity to ask further questions helps them feel safe. The important thing isn't getting the bridge design right the first time, but rather asking questions and taking risks. And when questions have more than one right answer, students are more likely take risks.

It is sometimes a challenge for teachers serving as facilitators of inquiry to listen carefully and patiently to students. When teachers listen carefully, they can ask the right probing and clarifying questions to push students toward deeper inquiry. By asking questions, teachers are also modeling a culture of inquiry and presenting themselves as fellow inquirers rather than purveyors of all knowledge.

Discussions about Failure

When teachers set norms for the classroom at the beginning of the year, they should also share norms related to failure with students. Socratic seminars can be effective vehicles for discussing the different aspects of failure. These discussions can be paired with selections of powerful quotes, inspiring news stories, and selections from biographies. Here are some questions to consider when setting norms about failure with students:

• Why do we fail?
• Why is a failure a valuable opportunity?
• How can we fail in a productive way?
• What can we learn from this person about failure?

Taking the time to discuss failure with students helps to create a culture where the concept is not always considered a negative. In essence, teachers are imparting a new vocabulary to students that allows them to construct their own knowledge about failure and make powerful discoveries about it.

Celebrating Mistakes as Well as Successes

One of the most powerful things teachers can do to promote the freedom to fail is to acknowledge failures as they happen. When we do this, we encourage students to persevere. Teachers should also acknowledge their own mistakes when they make them: We've all had those days when we know that we could have done better by our students. When that happens, teachers can build trust with students and model embracing failure as a learning opportunity. When students see us admitting our mistakes, they see that everyone makes them and learns from them.

High-Quality Work and High Expectations

One of the critical pillars for the freedom to fail is high expectation for all students. We must believe that all students can reach their full potential. If we shoot for the middle ground, then we will get just that. As students fail, we must begin with the end in mind; we must know what the high-quality work with look like. More importantly, we must make our expectations transparent to students. If students do not believe that they can make progress towards their learning goals, then they will not embrace failures as learning opportunities but rather feel defeated. If, however, we believe in students, we can coach them through their failures to reach their full potential.

It's really easy to settle for less as students fail, especially if they fail a lot. Multiple failures can be fatiguing for both the teacher and student. If we don't encourage students to persevere regardless, we communicate to them that we expect less of them than we do of their peers. Word can get around the classroom, and an inconsistent message can undermine the freedom to fail. Some students may take 3 tries on an assignment, others might take 10—they are all different, and we must expect high-quality work from all.

Walls that Honor Failure

It is a good idea to post quotes that reframe or speak to the power of failure on walls around the classroom. Walls can talk, and as student eyes wander, as they often do, they may come across quotes that will inspire them to fail forward. Images of prominent figures who have failed can also help students reconsider the negativity of failure. It's worth changing out these quotes on a regular basis or considering digital walls that can do this automatically. If you are a blended or fully online teacher, prominently place inspirational quotes on your learning management system or inside digital module pages.

Another idea is to create create pithy phrases out of failure-related acronyms. Here are some examples:

Failure is an OPTION:

• Ongoing: Failure can happen multiple times.
• Practice: Failure is only one step in the learning process.
• Tinkering: Failure involves experimentation.
• Intentional: Failure should be productive.
• Okay: Failure is normal.
• Necessary: Failure provides rich learning.

FAIL stands for

• First
• Attempt
• In
• Learning

Teachers often post examples of outstanding student work in the classroom to show what they expect from students. I would suggest going further and posting examples of work at all stages of the journey, from the first step to the final result. Teachers should consider selecting student work that tells a story of failing forward. Appending the students' own reflections about failure can provide a powerful visual narrative of the learning process.

Room Set Up to Encourage Failing Forward

When students are seated in rows, the arrangement communicates a message of rigidness and lack of collaboration, which works against a culture of failing forward. A more flexible arrangement communicates that a more open approach to learning. If the desks in your room aren't easily moveable, try creating pods, triads, or other structures that communicate collaboration.

In addition to flexible seating arrangements, classrooms should include spaces where students are invited to experiment. Makerspaces, circles, and unassigned tables communicate the idea of learning as an open and experimental process. Another good idea is for teachers to position their desks in non-traditional spots, such as in the middle of the classroom, to encourage a different perspective. Secondary teachers would do well to borrow from elementary teachers' inclinations for workshop and learning stations, as they communicate the playful and flexible side of learning. Experiment with the overall setup of the classroom to communicate tinkering, experimentation, collaboration, flexibility, and problem solving.

Here are some other ideas for communicating openness and embracing experimentation in the classroom:

• Worktables with materials that students can use to experiment and create
• Small-group instruction tables and whole-group instruction centers
• A dedicated space for classroom presentations
• Quiet corners for reflection
• Tables of different heights for sitting and standing
• Movable whiteboards
• A mix of traditional and non-traditional seating options (bean bags, stools)
• Open spaces without furniture

Rigorous Work for Productive ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Redefining Failure
• Encore Divider
• Encore
• References
• Related Resources
• About the Author
• Copyright