Creating Learning Success in Your Classroom

A Successful Learning Equation

“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can,” are among the most memorable lines from The Little Engine That Could as she tugs and pulls the load of toys and treats, slowly at first, gradually making progress to reward her efforts. Do you remember how the story ends? The engine successfully pulls her load up the mountain and makes her delivery to the excited boys and girls.

Many of us think of our students as little engines who need only to put forth effort to succeed. How often have we asked a student to think or work just a little harder to meet a learning goal?

We often make a correlation between increased effort and increased student success. In other words, we tend to relate effort to success rather than relating effort to ability.

What if we shift perspective and examine effort as a multiplier of ability that drives success? In other words, effort increases, improves, or augments ability. The effort expended results in increased ability — ability raised up, accelerated, improved. Relating this correlation back to the little engine example, when she expends the effort to pull the load up the mountain, her ability increases. She is better able to succeed in meeting her goal.

Add a manageable task (any understanding that requires a healthy balance of effort and ability) to the equation, and the end result is success. The little engine’s task is a challenging but manageable one. We want the same manageable and challenging learning tasks for our students.

The equation looks like this:

EFFORT x Ability + Manageable Task = SUCCESS

When the successful learning equation is in place, our students, like the little engine, will proclaim, “I knew I could!”

Creating Learning Success in Your Classroom

Create an Encouraging Environment
One of the keys to creating learning success in your classroom is offering your students an encouraging environment. An encouraging environment focuses on learning and thinking where teachers believe that students are capable of and responsible for learning. In an encouraging environment, students help and respect one another, and each person knows that it is all right to have a different “manageable task” than someone else.

Student effort should receive positive reinforcement and reward. Those applying effort to a manageable task are engaged in learning and receive coaching, encouragement, support, and advancement toward their vision, their goal, by a teacher identifying and reinforcing the successes.

Communication in an encouraging environment generally focuses on the process rather than on the student. Here are some examples: “The hard work really shows in this project.” “That math problem was a hard one! Let’s do another to see if we can make the formula work this time.” “What is the next step in this project?”

Offer Approval Statements That Reflect Student Values Take communication a step further by offering approval statements. Approval statements rely on some knowledge of what the learner values. Take some time to get to know each student. You can easily discover what a learner values by paying attention to their actions and communication.

Credible, sincere, and believable approval feels the best to those receiving it. For a student who values his or her organizational skills, a comment like, “This essay shows great organization. Each idea is clearly developed” can go a long way. For a student who values his or her creative talents, use an approval statement like, “This story is fantastic. It shows real creativity in character development and in the twist at the end.”

Students are more inclined to exert effort and demonstrate their ability when what matters to them is acknowledged.

Offer Encouraging Phrases
Encouraging words speak to the action, the behavior, or the process. Teachers can ask, “What needs to be done next?” or “How’s it going?” or “What is needed for this?” They can reinforce the learning as it occurs: “Keep at it!” or “That’s it! Good job.” And teachers can offer a combination of a question with reinforcement, such as “I’ll bet we can do this one another way. What do you think?” or “We’ve done some like this before. Can you tell me or show me the parts you remember?”

Encouraging phrases like these underscore the effort students are putting forth and the ability they have to accomplish a manageable task.

Dweck, C. S. (2002). Messages that motivate: How praise molds students’ beliefs, motivation, and performance (in surprising ways). In J. Aronson (Ed.), Improving academic achievement: Impact of psychological factors on education (pp. 37-60). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

McInerney, D. M., & Van Etten, S. (Eds.). (2001). Research on sociocultural influences on motivation and learning (Vol. 1). Greenwich, CT: Information Age.

Muir, M. R. (2000). What underachieving middle school students believe motivates them to learn. Dissertation Abstracts International, 61(5-A), 1733.

Source: The above information is based on PLS’s upcoming publication entitled Tapping Student Effort, Increasing Student Achievement and from the graduate course Designing Motivation for All Learners®. For more information see "Related Graduate Course" to the right.

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