Quality of Failure

I want my student to feel free in my class to uniquely express their ideas and thoughts, and authentically make the effort to take risks as they learn. Fear of failure and judgement often makes this difficult for an individual to be feel free. I ran across an approach another teacher has used to address this “fear of failure,” when reading How Humans Learn during the Ohlone College 2020 Summer book read. I liked the approach so much I decided to copy it and use it in our class.

I have thought about this assignment a little more, and I have now moved more towards asking you to write a Self-Evaluation. I will be provided more guidance as the semester progresses.

Here is a link on How to Write a Self-Evaluation.

This has been taken from Patricia Taylor’s (Briar Cliff University) Writing in the Digital Age 2018 syllabus.

Quality of Failure

One of the greatest hindrances to a student’s active learning can be fear of failure: fear of looking silly or stupid in front of a classmate or faculty member, or fear of not getting a good grade on a project. For some students, this fear can become crippling: they choose not to take risks, they might choose not to turn work in because it isn’t as good as they think it should be, or they may not even try to complete the work because they are afraid it may prove they aren’t good enough.

However, the ability to fail well is an important skill, perhaps even more important than doing something “right” the first time. This class will provide you with opportunities to fail well. If you fail because you tried hard and put in the work, or because you took an intellectual risk, that is inherently valuable. As Edward Burger argues, “individuals need to embrace the realization that taking risks and failing are often the essential moves necessary to bring clarity, understanding, and innovation.” Rejecting the fear of failure, he writes, can result in “a mind enlivened by curiosity and the intellectual audacity to take risks and create new ideas, a mind that sees a world of unlimited possibilities.”

As a teacher, I value curiosity, risk taking, persistence, integrity, and selfawareness more than simple success. I believe there are good, useful types of failure, and poor types of failure. Failure can be good depending on what you do both before and after you fail. High quality failure requires care and effort before, and a willingness to learn afterwards. Low quality failure comes from carelessness, excessive procrastination, refusing to take responsibility for one’s actions, or ignoring offers of assistance or constructive criticism.

For this reason, 5% of your grade will be dedicated to “quality of failure.” To earn this 5%, you will write a reflection at end of the semester in which you discuss the quality of your failure over the semester. You will be graded not on how much you failed, but what led to your failures and how you handled your failures. Were you willing to challenge yourself to take risks that might result in failure? Were you aware of when you have failed, and did you refuse to give up in the face of failure? Did you find ways to use your failure to create something new and interesting? Have you grown from your failures? I hope this grade category will give you the freedom to try new things, and even to fail at them, and to come back having learned something from the experience.

You will include the reflection in your final exam,