Students face a range of fears: rejection, disappointment, disapproval, the unknown, isolation, and even success itself. In my time as a private tutor and teacher, I have found that fear is one of the most pervasive emotions that interferes with learning. It is a debilitating emotion, often leaving students paralyzed as they face the daunting task of having their thinking and way of experiencing the world analyzed. This fear can cause students to shy away from critical thinking and engaging with instruction. Dealing with this requires educators to understand the emotional prerequisites of learning as well as the bravery it takes for students to put their thinking on display. To teach effectively, we must create a comfortable environment and foster student confidence, enabling students to have the courage to explore academically.
To help put students at ease, it is essential that educators both explicitly and implicitly define the role of failure and growth in the learning process. Improvement without failure is impossible, and it is crucial to recognize failure as a necessary component of growth and learning rather than something to be avoided. I address this through open discussions about the roles of confusion, failure, and growth as well as incorporating practice and assessments that encourage exploration without overly penalizing incorrect answers. Additionally, comfort can come from the more difficult-to-define feeling of instructor support in a classroom. Students should feel that their instructor is invested in their learning, wants them to succeed, and is there to support their progress rather than judge it. Learning names, interacting with students outside of instruction time, and showing a genuine interest in students’ lives go a long way towards this, but what is important is that students begin to feel supported and safe in their classroom.
Once comfort is established and students are more at ease, we can encourage the confidence that students need to take that first step towards discovery. This is best done through positive reinforcement and praise for good work. Too often, feedback revolves exclusively around what students have done wrong and how they can improve, which reinforces students’ fear of failure. To combat this, I provide examples of what students have done well, both during class and in their assignments. Providing opportunities for students to contribute and praising students for participating, especially for modeling their thinking, is particularly effective for building an atmosphere of support and student confidence. Confidence, within a supportive environment, can help students overcome their fear and indecision, with the goal of creating intrepid explorers who can discover and learn for themselves.
Once students are comfortable and confident, instruction can be most effective. I define instruction broadly as mastery of content and modeling critical thinking. Mastery of content is the most basic part of instruction, as educators must be experts in their subject matter. Building on their mastery, educators should explicitly model critical thinking through the class’s content and demonstrate the importance of developing critical thinking skills. The benefit of this modeling is twofold: it makes content more accessible for students, as they can understand the relationships within course content, and it encourages critical thinking skills that facilitate further learning. This style of teaching is likely more demanding, as teachers must understand their underlying thought processes before presenting them to students. However, education research shows that emphasizing metacognition, this process of thinking about thinking, is beneficial for students, as it helps them identify and solve problems independently. The hope is also that being more explicit about the instructor’s thought processes will make the connections between content and important underlying ideas more apparent to students.
These first two components, comfort and confidence, emphasize the overlap between mentoring and teaching. Learning is an emotional process for students as they navigate fear and confidence, which educators cannot ignore. I thoroughly enjoy guiding students through this process and have seen the benefits it brings them, which is why I place such a strong emphasis on the role mentoring plays in education. Having worked with many students over the years at all levels of content instruction, I have come to realize that the greatest impact comes from students feeling that I believe in them and their potential for success. My goal is to lean into the responsibility of mentorship to make instruction more effective. Additionally, these relationships benefit students throughout their educational journey, e.g., interns learning to code outside of their responsibilities, students seeking advice on their future, and requests for letters of recommendation.
While I believe teachers can considerably impact the learning environment, so can students’ own experiences and situations. Therefore, my goal as a teacher is to provide a comfortable environment that fosters confidence in all students who are in a position to be receptive to it. Some of this is beyond the instructor’s control, but the goal is to create an environment that allows students the safety to develop critical thinking skills, which in turn aid them in understanding course-specific content and their overall learning.