Spotlight on SOTL: Failure in University: Strategies to Re-Shape Classrooms to Embrace a ‘Pedagogy of Failure’

This article is based on the following research article:

Eckstein, L. E., Finaret, A. B., & Whitenack, L. B. (2023). Teaching the Inevitable: Embracing a Pedagogy of Failure. Teaching and Learning Inquiry, 11. https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.11.16

How do we deal with failure? How do we talk about failure in classrooms? What can we do to embrace failure in classrooms? In this article, Lydia Eckstein, Amelia Finaret and Lisa Whitnack explore how instructors can incorporate a “pedagogy of failure” in university classrooms by providing several strategies to promote student learning, success, growth, belonging, and well-being.

What did the researchers do and find?

As students, staff, and faculty navigating higher education, we encounter a wide range of setbacks and experience failures at various levels. Speaking specifically to an undergraduate student experience, Eckstein et al (2023) reviewed literature and utilized personal experiences to understand the resulting effects of failure in academia. The authors note that the fear of failure “prevents students from taking risks, starting or finishing tasks, getting involved in new activities or challenging themselves” (p. 2). The researchers emphasize how experiencing failure resulted in increased anxieties, stress-levels, imposter syndrome, and further impacted belonging and student-success within the classroom.

Among the findings, the researchers particularly highlight the ways in which student’s complete assignments with the expectation to receive valuable feedback, however, oftentimes, students are not given an opportunity to effectively utilize the feedback to revise or re-visit the assignment. This could reduce the stress and anxieties produced as a result of not being successful on an assignment.

How might you use this research in your teaching?

The researchers suggest several strategies for shaping classrooms to incorporate a “pedagogy of failure.” Although, the authors recognize the challenges and institutional barriers present in relation to course design/methods – for instance, those in teaching roles – such as teaching assistants, adjunct faculty, sessional instructors, racialized instructors – oftentimes do not have a similar level of agency or access to resources compared to tenured counterparts. However, from conversations in classrooms to reshaping course methods, the researchers identify effective strategies you could incorporate:

1. “share and & destigmatize your failures
2. teach about imposter syndrome
3. teach about growth mindsets
4. structure assignments for revision
5. use alternate grading schemes
6. prioritize practice & process
7. use varied assignment types
8. meet with students individually” (p. 4)

While the researchers suggest these strategies can be implemented in undergraduate classes, similar methods can be further implemented at the graduate-level. Importantly, we need to shift students’ – and perhaps our own – perceptions away from the fear of failure and towards embracing failure; and this ultimately begins with meaningful and transformational changes in our classrooms and institutions.

Stay tuned for the next Spotlight on SoTL coming to the MacPherson Memo on July 5, 2023.