Teacher Toms Blog

MAY 22, 2025

Not once had I seen a sign of frustration or failure. I didn't like the feeling of failure the exchange gave me, even as I knew I'd not failed. I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 14 years. Every time she tried to crush the tissue like you showed them, the paper came off."

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STEM Art Failure Languages 89

Teacher Toms Blog

JUNE 19, 2025

The failures of school are taken by most people as proof that education is very costly, very complex, always arcane, and frequently impossible task." When Illich was writing, our kindergartens and preschools, and even, for the most part, our elementary schools, were far less school-ish than they are today. I've written since 2009.

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Motivation Testing Failure Grades 100

Edsurge

JUNE 4, 2025

Since 2012, the authors write, Detroits community leaders, educators and politicians, have tried citywide messaging campaigns and community pledges; phone calls, home visits, and parent contracts; church buses and afterschool programming; data-driven tiered support systems; and court-run diversion programs.

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Failure Grades Achievement Writing 153

Teacher Toms Blog

JULY 14, 2025

In her mind there was a fairly equal opportunity for joyful success or painful failure. I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 14 years. If the girl was going to jump, she would be taking a chance. The poet and author Marge Piercy wrote, "All human acts are committed on insufficient information."

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Failure Fairness Writing Learning 83

eSchool News

OCTOBER 9, 2023

Ninth-grade English was a paradox for me—both the best and worst year for helping me learn to write. I credit Mr. Johnson’s class for eventually helping me pass the AP Writing exam my senior year without ever taking an AP-level English class. Writing became less of an exploration of ideas and more of a high-stakes gamble.

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Writing Failure Essay English 286

Edsurge

NOVEMBER 26, 2019

Over the last five years, I have worked hard to teach my students that failure is a gift. This isn’t a new idea, but we still struggle with the idea that failure is a necessary component of success. Embracing failure can seem counterintuitive to students. They are loud, chaotic, and full of failure and growth.

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Failure Testing Beliefs Middle School 217

eSchool News

JANUARY 30, 2023

Learning a new language is challenging, requiring a student to master four basic skills–listening, reading, speaking, and writing–from scratch. Speaking and writing are about producing the language, requiring a different mental muscle from learners. Writing is essential for professional and long-distance communication.

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Writing Skills Essay Languages 274

Ask a Tech Teacher

OCTOBER 21, 2015

Too often, students–and teachers–believe learning comes from success when in truth, it’s as likely to be the product of failure. Here are ten ways to teach through failure: Use the Mulligan Rule. Common Core expect students to write-edit-resubmit. Don’t hide your failures from students.

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Failure Learning Students Critical Thinking 153

Ask a Tech Teacher

JANUARY 28, 2022

It’ll start with a plot of land and students will write the story, cast the characters, create the entire 1776 world. In case you must ‘sell’ this idea to your administration, here are three great reasons why students should use Minecraft in school: Reading, Writing, and Problem Solving. Make failure fun.

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Writing Reading Teaching Evaluation 199

eSchool News

MARCH 26, 2025

In many classrooms, success still depends on how well a student fits onto a single, familiar bell curve–the one measuring traditional academic achievement in subjects like math, reading, and writing. The reality of jagged learning paths Students arent afraid of hard work–theyre afraid of failure without purpose.

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Failure Math Achievement Beliefs 304

eSchool News

MARCH 14, 2022

Give yourself grace: Showing self-compassion is the act of being kind to yourself and realizing that suffering, imperfections, and failures are part of being human. Then write a few sentences to yourself from the perspective of a caring and compassionate friend.

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Teaching Failure Writing Education 292

Edsurge

APRIL 2, 2019

Writing is more important than ever, but many of today’s students are lousy at it. Warner has been teaching writing at colleges for more than 20 years. And he’s written two books on the topic, including his most recent, called “ Why They Can’t Write. John Warner has some ideas about why that is, and how to fix it.

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Writing Essay Feedback Students 167

Catlin Tucker

NOVEMBER 6, 2023

Reduces Fear of Failure When students receive feedback that focuses on the process rather than just the end result, they are less likely to fear failure. add a comment to a digital document or write it on a Post-it). writing assignments, performance tasks, projects).

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Feedback Blended Learning Metacognitive Skills Failure 363

eSchool News

JUNE 27, 2024

Educators talk about writing across the curriculum–what about arts across the curriculum? If you don’t have failure built into your maker education and your PBL system, just forget it. Embracing those failures has to be part of your culture.” This is where PBL and maker education intersect. Why maker education?

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Curriculum Failure Essay Art 286

eSchool News

MARCH 11, 2019

When we consider the studies showing the relationship between bullying, personal failure, and anger to school violence, we must pause and reflect on our own schools and classrooms. Projects ranged from writing songs and developing websites to creating artwork with poetry and coding video games.

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Learning Failure Students Culture 276

Faculty Focus

FEBRUARY 23, 2025

During the two-week module on positive psychology, I wanted students to experience research and writing as positive and engaging activities. Here is how the project unfolded: Day 1: Setting the Stage for Collaborative Writing The project began by gauging student interest in co-authoring an article on student wellness.

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Collaborative Research Writing Failure Students 105

eSchool News

DECEMBER 8, 2023

They will have some amazing successes—and some failures—as they light the way forward and the rest of us endlessly discuss the potential uses and abuses of AI in our classrooms. Give your students a short writing assignment and give ChatGPT the same one, then have your students compare them and talk about the differences.

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Education Intelligence Failure Feedback 323

eSchool News

APRIL 1, 2024

They will have some amazing successes–and some failures–as they light the way forward and the rest of us endlessly discuss the potential uses and abuses of AI in our classrooms. In the coming year, early adopters will continue to play with new AI tools to see how they can be used in education.

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Teaching STEM Education Learning 311

eSchool News

MARCH 26, 2019

Solution: I teach English, so I started using mini-lessons for essay writing to break down skills. The goal of these videos was for students to “see” how their writing skills were progressing over time. Students were correcting their work as they read out loud, which translated to better writing the next assignment.

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Essay Failure Students Writing 189

Faculty Focus

FEBRUARY 23, 2025

During the two-week module on positive psychology, I wanted students to experience research and writing as positive and engaging activities. Here is how the project unfolded: Day 1: Setting the Stage for Collaborative Writing The project began by gauging student interest in co-authoring an article on student wellness.

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Collaborative Research Writing Failure Students 89

Edsurge

MARCH 11, 2019

After more than a decade of researching, writing and presenting, one of the many things he's learned is that course failures are major events for students. Research has shown that traditional variables like attendance and in-class behavior play a role in course failures. The answer?

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Failure Math Academic Development English 156

Edsurge

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

The nation must act with urgency and purpose to ensure all students have access to high quality online learning opportunities,” they write. Approximately 9 million low-income students lack both the hardware and the internet connectivity to enable virtual learning, which “represents a national emergency,” the authors of the report write.

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Learning Internet Writing Failure 218

eSchool News

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

Guidance for using AI in education AI is already impacting education in several areas: plagiarism detection, learning management platforms, analyzing student success/failure metrics, and curriculum development. Related : Texting is negatively impacting students’ writing

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Education Plagiarism Failure Disabilities 306

eSchool News

OCTOBER 25, 2024

After a semester where I threw out the syllabus, I was left with an inspiring question: How can I make my future courses more practical and still keep the academic writing and the academic requirements intact? This is a key consideration as I continue refining my courses for future educators.

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Teaching Teachers STEM Syllabus 268

eSchool News

APRIL 3, 2025

Students, especially in the middle and high school years, have more opportunities than ever to cheat using AI tools, such as writing assistants or even text generators. This anxiety can lead students to seek out AI tools as a quick and easy solution to avoid failure or mitigate their stress.

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Academic Integrity Failure Students Culture 196

eSchool News

JANUARY 28, 2016

A couple of years ago, I taught a student in an online creative writing class. These failures discouraged him, so he stopped trying completely—which caused his already low skill set to deteriorate even further. His writing was riddled with so many errors that it was difficult for me to read. Sparking a love of learning.

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Teaching Writing Reading Feedback 189

Edsurge

DECEMBER 5, 2023

And that can make it hard for students to get used to solving their own problems and learning from the small failures that are meant to happen in school, says Devorah Heitner, an author who advises schools on social media issues. And GPS systems in smartphones and watches let families pinpoint their locations at all times.

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Failure Assignments Communication Middle School 208

Edsurge

DECEMBER 5, 2016

I kept on looking at how we could take these skills of being able to read, write, and think, and take them to the next level. I kept on looking at how we could take these skills of being able to read, write, and think, and take them to the next level. I want my students to write every day. Failure also motivates me.

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Failure Motivation Writing Culture 160

Edsurge

OCTOBER 27, 2023

No one told me about the ugly parts of people management, like having to write folks up or design and implement support plans. I had immense guilt as a parent and partner and overwhelming feelings of failure — and I felt isolated. I had never formally supervised anyone, but was required to facilitate difficult conversations regularly.

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Teachers Failure Schools Coaching 197

Edsurge

JUNE 21, 2017

Ryan Greenberg: When I was thinking about this, I quickly found that the skill people should master is clear writing—the ability to write well. I think that writing English might seem mundane compared with writing a iPhone app, but it really gives you a leg up on people who have just the technical skills.

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Skills Failure Writing Culture 161

EdTech Magazine

AUGUST 14, 2018

In one NASEF class, English 9 and Game Design , participating students develop English-language skills by writing about topics covering the history of esports to comparing mythological heroes from literature to those in video games. By acknowledging this, the North America Scholastic Esports Federation built high-school-level STEM curricula.

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Teachers Failure English Participation 167

Edsurge

OCTOBER 31, 2018

Every time I hear this, I am faced with the gut-wrenching realization that the student has internalized failure by age eleven. This raises two questions for me: How can we turn eleven-year-olds who have internalized failure into students like Abby who retain information for years? We’d discuss and students would get immediate feedback.

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Teaching Failure Quizzes Learning 168

Edsurge

JUNE 21, 2023

Student disengagement in writing at the secondary level is a pervasive challenge school districts face nationwide. Many students perceive writing as formulaic, disconnected from their life experiences and lacking opportunities for personal agency and expression. How do you hope students benefit from the writing tools you developed?

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Education Students Writing Social Studies 167

Edsurge

APRIL 28, 2023

Kristin Neff, a widely recognized research psychologist, self-compassion can improve well-being and it helps us work toward our goals with positive motivation (the desire for our own happiness) rather than negative motivation (fear of failure and inadequacy). Expecting perfection of ourselves can result in feelings of failure or inadequacy.

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Education Motivation Failure Attention 205

Ask a Tech Teacher

MARCH 21, 2023

Below are five of the most critical skills that graduates should possess to make their mark on the job market: Communication Being able to communicate effectively, both in writing and verbally, is invaluable when it comes to interacting with colleagues and customers.

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Skills Failure Motivation Communication 186

eSchool News

DECEMBER 26, 2023

Researchers often bemoan finding a failure in their theory. Moyer writes about this as well: “Some researchers, including Luke Wood at San Diego State University, have argued that focusing solely on effort could be detrimental for children of color, who may benefit from being praised both for ability and intelligence.

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Study Failure Beliefs Achievement 257

Edsurge

OCTOBER 20, 2016

When Failure Is an Option “I have seen students really focus on the material and engage with one another and not worry as much about a grade because if they fail something they can always make up the points from somewhere else,” Queen explains. They can actually learn from failure, so there is really no cost to fail.

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Failure Assignments Quizzes Motivation 165