Teach like a champion 3.0: 63 techniques that put students on the path to college - Lemov Doug 2021

Technique 59: Positive framing
Building student motivation and trust

This is a book about the tools teachers can use to build dynamic and inclusive classrooms that foster the greatest amount of learning and achievement possible and ensure that students thrive. But even seemingly successful methods, Adeyemi Stembridge reminds us, “can fall utterly flat” if they don't find receptiveness among students.

This receptiveness is fostered via cultural and relational means. We must seek to make all students feel known and understood by their teacher, experience connection to the content, and trust in the endeavor of school. But there are psychological aspects, mindsets held internally by students that are critical factors in whether we (and they) succeed. Motivation is first among these. Learning requires effort, self-discipline, struggle, and perseverance; students will have to give and sustain effort and attention to succeed. They will have to decide, in short, that learning is worth working for.

It is hard to help a student achieve something they are not motivated to learn. For some students, motivation is a bright flame that merely has to be protected and fed with opportunity; for others it has scarcely (yet) been sparked. With some students we have to do everything we can to keep them in the game until they come to see the value of playing: They need, but do not yet want, what schools offer.

The range of students we encounter is wide, but in almost every case, engendering and fostering the internal desire to learn is a part of the work of teaching, one in which we are always engaged, whether we realize that or not.

That's a key realization: we are always influencing motivation. The moment when we have a good long talk with students about effort and motivation may help, but less probably than the daily habits students fall into, the pervasive influence of what those around them do, and the compounded effect of a thousand small interactions we have with them when our minds are on something else.

One of the requirements of motivation—particularly for those students who begin with a skeptical attitude—is trust. Students have to come to believe in the endeavor of school and, as a result, be willing to try. I say that trust is a requirement but not a prerequisite of motivation because building trust can take time. It has to happen eventually for teaching to take hold. That does not mean it has to be there for you to start. Trust can take a long time—longer than you have before you start teaching. Happily, teaching well is one of the primary ways trust is built.

My colleague Dan Cotton framed for our team a model for how trust is built that continues to be meaningful for us. To feel trust, students have to feel safe, successful, and known.

Feeling safe means being physically safe—students can't feel at risk of being bullied or threatened—but also psychologically safe—it has to be OK to try, to be wrong, to take risks. There can never be snickers for trying and failing or, worse, for trying at all. As Zaretta Hammond writes, “Neuroscience tells us the brain feels safest and most relaxed when we are connected to others we trust to treat us well.” If we truly want our students to be prepared for the transformative experience of learning, then we must establish for them that the classroom is a place in which they belong and will be respected.

Feeling known refers to having a sense of belonging and importance. Students have to feel like their teacher—and the institution—knows them and sees them as both a part of a community and as an individual—not just one of a group of students in third period or eighth grade. Of course that means they have to know that their identities and cultures are welcomed and valued, but in a much more everyday sense students have to feel seen, literally and figuratively—with the literal often causing the figurative. This is often expressed in small moments. Using student names, and inventing opportunities to greet students by name, is hugely important, for example. Saying someone's name is a small reminder of something larger: that we know them for themselves; that we see them in the crowd. One of the reasons I love it when teachers greet students as they enter the room is so they can say, “We missed you yesterday,” “I love your hair,” “Are those new glasses?” and, yes, “Make sure to get me your essay; it was due yesterday.” That, too, tells a student they matter. But Denarius Frazier (see Denarius Frazier: Remainder) is also making students feel known when he circulates in his math class and sees their work and the products of their minds. “Much better,” he tells one student. The message is: “I saw what you did today and how it was different from what you did yesterday.”

Successful is perhaps the easiest of the three elements to overlook, though its role in motivation is larger than most people realize. Motivation, Peps Mccrea explains,¹ is “as much a product of learning as it is the driver of it… . If we care about building motivation for the long run, we must prioritize proficiency. It is the ultimate self-fulfilling engine of education.”

Accomplishing a task successfully and learning that they can succeed leads students to want more. That's why effective teaching that leads to student mastery is one of the greatest long-term sources of student motivation and trust. Part of why Christine Torres's students love and trust her and work so hard throughout each lesson is her skill as a teacher. Every day they enter a place that's orderly and productive and see themselves learning and accomplishing things. They feel capable and accomplished and, naturally, like that feeling. Peps Mccrea calls this “scholarly identity” and it often comes from the outside in. They see themselves doing well at English and conclude they must like and value English.

But motivation is shaped most of all by norms. That's the hidden secret. It's the most important factor and it's mostly invisible to us. People are evolved to be supremely social—think here of the “cooperative eye” hypothesis—and will be inclined to do what the group is doing even without realizing it. “Norms are so powerful they override more formal school policies or rules. However, their largely invisible and unconscious nature makes them easy to underestimate if not totally ignore,” writes Mccrea. Norms will emerge, in any setting where there are people, and they will shape behavior. It is merely a question of whether they are deliberate or accidental norms. In many schools it is the latter.

The strength of a norm's influence over us, however, also depends on how much we feel a part of and identify with those exhibiting the norms. Motivation is mediated by belonging.

What I focus on in this chapter is how to make students feel belonging, trust, and motivation, so that teachers find a receptive audience for learning. Put another way, this chapter describes rules of thumb for the daily interactions with students in which motivation and trust are built.

Technique 59: Positive framing

People are motivated by the positive far more than by the negative. Seeking success and happiness will spur stronger action than seeking to avoid punishment. “When we are happy—when our mindset and mood are positive—we are smarter, more motivated, and thus more successful. Happiness is the center, and success revolves around it,” concludes Shawn Achor, summarizing years of studying happiness. Positivity inspires and motivates and that should influence the way we teach. But positivity, particularly in learning settings, is often misunderstood.

One flaw is the assumption that praise is the same thing as positivity. Praise is telling someone they have done something well. Positivity (in this case) is the delivery of information students need in a manner that motivates, inspires, and communicates our belief in their capacity. This is important because teachers are often told to use a “praise sandwich” or to praise five times as often as they criticize. But telling someone they're doing great several times so that you can then say And you have to line up your decimals consistently is problematic.

Believing that you must wrap criticism with praise assumes that students are fragile and can't take constructive feedback—that criticism is something a teacher has to trick them into hearing. Most students want to understand how to get better and come to trust adults who tell them the truth when they also know that those adults believe in them.

Inaccurate or unwarranted praise “is unlikely to stand for long in the face of contrary experience,” writes Peps Mccrea. “Promises of success that don't eventually materialize will only serve to undermine motivation and erode trust.”

We all know the teacher who's inclined to describe every idea, every answer, every action as “awesome.” Soon enough that word and his praise more generally become less meaningful. When everything is awesome, nothing is.

Which isn't to say praise isn't profoundly important and motivating. It is. But that's all the more reason to preserve its value.

So the key is often not to praise more. Rather, aspire to give a range of useful and honest feedback and guidance that includes both praise and critical or corrective feedback, but do so positively, in a manner that motivates, inspires, and communicates our belief in our students' capacity.

Using Positive Framing allows you to give all kinds of feedback, as required by the situation, while keeping culture strong and students motivated. Doubly so for redirections—moments when we say to a student, “Do that differently.” If those moments remind the person you're talking to that you want them to be successful and that you believe in and trust their intentions, students will trust you more and be motivated to follow your guidance.

Positive Framing, then, is the technique of framing interactions—particularly academic or behavioral redirections—so that they reinforce a larger picture of faith and trust, even while you remind students of a better course of action.

Next are six rules of thumb to follow. As you read about them, be sure to check out the classroom examples in the video Montage: Positive Framing.

Assume the Best

One of the most pervasive tendencies in human psychology is the Fundamental Attribution Error—the idea that, when in doubt, we tend to attribute another person's actions to their character or personality rather than to the situation. We often assume intentionality behind a mistake.

You can hear this in classrooms where a teacher's words imply that a student did something wrong deliberately when in fact there is little ground to assume that.

“Stop trying to disrupt class!” “Why won't you use the feedback I gave you on your first draft?” or “Just a minute, class; some people seem to think they don't have to push in their chairs when we line up.” Such statements attribute ill intention to what could be the result of distraction, lack of practice, or genuine misunderstanding. What if the student had tried to incorporate your feedback, or just plain forgot about the chair? How might hearing statements like these make a confused or flustered student feel? Unless you have clear evidence that a behavior was intentional, it's better to assume that your students have tried (and will try) to do as you've asked.

This mindset also helps us as teachers maintain our emotional constancy and equilibrium. Rather than feeling flustered or defensive—Why won't he follow my directions? Is she trying to get under my skin? How many times have I said this?—assuming the best helps us model calm assurance. This in turn builds trust—students know we will give them the benefit of the doubt and support them through confusion or struggles without jumping to conclusions or taking their actions too personally.

One of the most useful words for assuming the best is forgot, as in, “Just a minute; a couple of us seem to have forgotten to push in their chairs. Let's try that again.” Given the benefit of the doubt, your scholars can focus their energy on doing the task right instead of feeling defensive.

Further, this approach shows your students that you assume they want to do well and believe they can—it's just a matter of nailing down some details.

Confused is another good assume-the-best word, as in, “Just a minute; some people appear to be confused about the directions, so let me give them again.” Another approach is to assume that the error is your own: “Just a minute, class; I must not have been clear: I want you to find every verb in the paragraph working silently on your own. Do that now.” This last one is especially useful. It draws students' attention more directly to your belief that only your own lack of clarity would mean lack of instant follow-through by your focused and diligent charges. And, of course, it also forces you to contemplate that, in fact, you may not have been all that clear.

It is important to note that these phrases will not likely work—nor will this approach—if you do not actually believe the best about the students in front of you. As Adeyemi Stembridge writes, “Authenticity is a must for our students. One of their assets is that they can spot frauds at great distances.” If you are doubtful about student confusion, or worse, if you deliver this observation in a sarcastic tone, then you may actually damage the very relationships that you intend to build up.

Another nice way to assume the best is to see minor struggles as the result of misdirected enthusiasm. When you think this way, you suggest that there was a positive intention for a behavior that merely went awry. In a behavioral situation, this might sound like, “Gentlemen, I appreciate your enthusiasm to get to math class, but we need to walk to the door. Let me see you go back and do it the right way.” In an academic setting, it might sound like, “I appreciate that you are trying to build complex and expressive sentences, but this one might have a little too much in it for clarity.”

Assuming the best is especially effective for errors on challenging academic work. Learning is full of mistakes done for good reasons. There are those that spring from an overabundance of diligence—“You told me to use transition words so I used far too many”—and those rooted in too much enthusiasm—“I've just learned to reduce fractions and now I want to reduce and reduce and reduce everything … even when I can't.”

Assuming the best might give credit for a good idea and then offer the correction: “I like that you're looking to reduce. But we can't do that here.” Or “I love to see you trying to use those transition words but there are so many they've gotten a bit confusing.” Looking for the good intention behind the mistake, looking to assume the best, has the additional benefit of causing you to think about all the good reasons why students might have done something that at first looks egregious. Assuming well-intentioned errors can help you to see more of the positivity that already exists.

It's important to remember that you, too, participate in setting the norms of your classroom by describing what you expect. Assuming the best reinforces positive norms (and expresses a quiet confidence). It suggests that you struggle to imagine a universe in which students would not be productive, considerate, and scholarly because of your faith both in them and in the culture of your own classroom. You implicitly describe the norm you believe to be there—everyone making a good faith effort. If by contrast you were to assume the worst, you would be suggesting that sloppiness, inconsiderateness, and whatever else were what you yourself expected in your classroom.

Of course, you'll want to be careful not to overuse the assume-the-best approach. If a student is clearly struggling—refusing to follow a clearly delivered instruction and is signaling to you that they are in an agitated, emotional state—don't pretend. In such cases, addressing the behavior directly with something more substantive, such as a private individual correction, also helps to get the student back into a productive mode without the attention of the rest of the class.

Even in the most challenging cases, however—say a student has done something really negative like stealing or belittling a classmate—be careful to let your words judge a specific behavior (“That was dishonest”) rather than a person (“You are dishonest”). Perhaps even say, “That was dishonest, but I know that's not who you are.” A person is always more and better than the moments in which he or she errs, and our language choices give us the opportunity to show in those moments that we still see the best in the people around us.

Live in the Now

In most cases—during class and while your lesson is underway, for example—avoid talking about what went wrong and what students can no longer fix. Talk about what should happen next. Describing what's no longer within your control is negative and demotivating. There's a time and place for processing what went wrong, but the right time is not when your lesson hangs in the balance or when action is required.

When you have to give constructive feedback, start by giving instructions that describe as specifically as possible the next move on the path to success (see technique 52, What to Do).

If David is whispering to his neighbor instead of taking notes, say, “I need to see you taking notes, David,” or, better, because it is more specific, “I should see your pencil moving,” rather than, “Stop talking, David,” or “I've told you before to take notes, David.”

In the previous chapter we saw Emily Bisso use this to great effect: “Write what I write, Joshua.”

Again, the clearer you can be about the next step, the better. As Chip and Dan Heath point out in Switch, “what looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity.” So provide clarity without judgment. If you deliver the directions in a neutral tone, with no frustration evident in your voice, you may be surprised by how helpful it is. Most students want to succeed; by providing them with a clear next step you are helping both of you to get closer to your shared goal.

One challenge here is that we often are too vague in our instructions. When in doubt, shrink the change—a phrase that also comes from the Heath brothers. “One way to motivate action, then, is to make people feel as though they're already closer to the finish line than they might have thought.” Name a small first step that feels doable. So, “Please start taking notes, David,” becomes “Pencil in hand, please.” It's much easier for a potentially reluctant or confused student to engage in a task that is bite-size than one that might feel more overwhelming.

For what it's worth, this is part of the coaching philosophy of the famously positive and successful football coach Pete Carroll, one of the game's best motivators. “We're really disciplined as coaches to always talk about what we want to see,” he says of his entire coaching staff's approach. They always strive to focus on “the desired outcome, not about what went wrong or what the mistake was. We have to be disciplined and always use our language to talk about the next thing you can do right. It's always about what we want to happen, not about the other stuff.”²

Allow Plausible Anonymity

You can often allow students the opportunity to strive to reach your expectations in plausible anonymity as long as they are making a good-faith effort. This would mean, as I discuss in Chapter Eleven, beginning by correcting them without using their names when possible. If a few students are not yet completely ready to move on with the activities of the class, consider making your first correction something like “Check yourself to make sure you've followed the directions.” In most cases, this will yield results faster than calling out individual students by name. It doesn't feel good to hear your teacher say, “Evan, put down the pencil,” if you knew you were about to do just that. Saying to your class, “Wait a minute, Morehouse (or “Tigers” or “fifth grade” or just “guys”), I hear a few voices still talking. I need to see you quiet and ready to go!” is better than lecturing the talkers in front of the class. This plausible anonymity is another way of communicating to students that you believe the best about their intentions and are certain they are just seconds away from being fully ready to move forward with the tasks necessary to learn.

Narrate the Positive and Build Momentum

Compare the statements two teachers recently made in their respective classrooms:

· Teacher 1: (pausing after giving a direction) Monique and Emily are there. I see rows three and four are fully prepared. Just need three people. Thank you for fixing that, David. Ah, now we're there, so let's get started.

· Teacher 2: (same setting) I need two people paying attention at this table. Some people don't appear to be listening. This table also has some students who are not paying attention to my directions. I'll wait, gentlemen, and if I have to give consequences, I will.

In the first teacher's classroom, things appear to be moving in the right direction because the teacher narrates the evidence of student follow-through, of students doing as they're asked, of things getting done. He calls his students' attention to this fact, thereby normalizing it. He doesn't praise when students do what he asks, but merely acknowledges or describes. He wants them to know he sees it, but he also doesn't want to confuse doing what's expected with doing “great.” If I am sitting in this classroom and seek, as most students do, to be normal, I now sense the normality of positive, on-task behavior and will likely choose to do the same.

The second teacher is telling a different story. Things are going poorly and getting worse. He's doing his best to call our attention to the normality of his being ignored and the fact that this generally occurs without consequence. The second teacher is helping students to see negative norms as they develop and, in broadcasting his anxieties, making them even more visible and prominent as well. In a sense he's creating a self-fulfilling prophecy: he narrates negative behavior into being.

“To modify motivation,” writes Peps Mccrea, “change what … pupils see.” If teachers make “desirable norms”(people doing positive things) more visible to students they will be more likely to join with them. Mccrea calls this “elevating visibility.” To elevate visibility of a norm you want more people to follow, increase their “profusion”—the proportion of students who appear to follow them—and their “prominence”—how much you notice when people do it.

The first teacher is helping students to see more readily how profuse positive and constructive behavior is, and he is making it more prominent to students by letting them know that he sees and that it matters.

Narrating the positive, though useful, is also extremely vulnerable to misapplication, so here are a couple of key rules:

· Use Narrate the Positive as a tool to motivate group behavior as students are deciding whether to work to meet expectations, not as a way to correct individual students after they clearly have not met expectations.

· If you narrate positive on-task behavior during a countdown you are describing behavior that has exceeded expectations. You gave students ten seconds to get their binders out and be ready to take notes, but Jabari is ready at five seconds. It's fine to call that out. It's very different to call out Jabari for having his binder out after your countdown has ended. At that point it might seem as though you are using Jabari's readiness to plead with others who have not followed through in the time you allotted.

Another common misapplication would be this: You're ready to discuss Tuck Everlasting, but Susan is off task, giggling and trying to get Martina's attention. You would not be using positive framing or narrating the positive effectively if you circum-narrated a “praise circle” around Susan: “I see Danni is ready to go. And Elisa. Alexis has her book out.” In this case, I recommend that you address Susan directly but positively: “Susan, show me your best, with your notebook out. We've got lots to do.” If you use the praise circle, students will be pretty aware of what you're doing and are likely to see your positive reinforcement as contrived and disingenuous. And they're likely to think you're afraid to just address Susan. In fact, Susan may think that as well. By directly reminding Susan what is expected—and why—you have helped her get ready to engage with the learning and maintained the norm of readiness that is shared by the class.

Challenge!

Students love to be challenged, to prove they can do things, to compete, to win. So challenge them: exhort them to prove what they can do by building competition into the day. Students can be challenged as individuals or, usually better, as groups, and those groups can compete in various ways:

· Against other groups within the class (e.g. rows, tables)

· Against other groups outside the class (another homeroom)

· Against an impersonal foe (the clock; the test, to prove they're better than it is; their age—“That was acceptable work for seventh graders, but I want to see if we can kick it up to eighth-grade quality.”)

· Against an abstract standard (“I want to see whether you guys have what it takes!”)

Here are some examples to get you started. I'm sure you'll find it fun to think of more:

· “You guys have been doing a great job this week. Let's see if you can take it up a notch.”

· “I love the work I'm seeing. I wonder what happens when we add in another factor.”

· “Let's see if we can write for ten minutes straight without stopping. Ready?!”

· “Ms. Austin said she didn't think you guys could knock out your math tables faster than her class. Let's show 'em what we've got.”

Talk Expectations and Aspirations

When you ask students to do something differently or better, you are helping them become the people they wish to be or to achieve enough to have their choice of dreams. You can use the moments where you ask for better work to remind them of this. When you ask your students to revise their thesis paragraphs, tell them you want them to write as though “you're in college already” or that “with one more draft, you'll be on your way to college.” If your students are fourth graders, ask them to try to look as sharp as the fifth graders. Or tell them you want to do one more draft of their work and have them “really use the words of a scientist [or historian, and so on] this time around.” Tell them you want them to listen to each other like Supreme Court Justices. Although it's nice that you're proud of them (and it's certainly wonderful to tell them that), the goal in the end is not for them to please you but for them to leave you behind on a long journey toward a more distant and more important goal. It's useful if your framing connects them to that goal.