4. Provide options for Sustaining Effort & Persistence

Provide options for Sustaining Effort & Persistence

• Heighten salience of goals and objectives: For students to really grasp the purpose and significance of a learning activity, they must be reminded of its goals. Therefore, make sure to display lesson and activity goals in diverse formats and places (i.e., discussion boards, course syllabus, etc.), require learners to state the goals in their own words, emphasize the difference between long- and short-term goals and have open discussions on the parameters required to achieve excellence while being mindful of ‘students’ cultural background and interests.
• Vary demands and resources to optimize challenge: Even if all learners can benefit from being challenged in the classroom in order to create and produce new knowledge and meaning, not all of them need to be challenged in the same ways. Therefore, provide alternatives in the accepted tools and intensity levels, and emphasize process, effort, and improvement standards over external evaluation and competition.
• Foster collaboration and community: Communication and collaboration are skills all learners need to develop to succeed in different academic and professional environments. Fostering communities of learners and peer mentoring opportunities should be a focus for educators. Provide flexible instead of fixed groupings to allow multiple role exploration, give each group clear goals, roles, and responsibilities, support group performance expectations by creating clear rubrics and instructions.
• Increase mastery-oriented feedback: Learners need assessments guidance that emphasizes effort and process. Provide feedback that is relevant, timely, constructive, and does not focus on peer comparison and competition.