A great sports quote I saw recently asked “Which player are you?” and then said “Bad players don’t take much seriously. Average players take games seriously. Good players take practice & games seriously. Great players take academics, nutrition, warm-ups, individual work, weight room, conditioning, film, practice & games seriously.”
I love this quote because it flies in the face of what is part of the demise of recent generations and the age old saying “kids these days” who need instant gratification for any action they take. When we see all the greats in sports, or any performance-oriented task, we only see their greatness. Sure, we hear the cool stories of perseverance like how Michael Jordan was cut from the high school basketball team and went on to be the best player who ever played, but we don’t see the thousands of hours they put in to get to their greatness.
And even if someone does take on this mindset in sports, that to be great you have to care about all aspects of what will make you great, it seems even less common for someone to take on this mindset about succeeding in school, and ultimately doing well on tests.
Now, I’m not saying that in your one classroom you should focus on teaching students about taking care of themselves down to the final detail of nutrition and sleep. Sure, it can be something to address and promote with students, afterall, we are teaching the whole student. But what I am saying is that there is a way to help you students make the connection between what they do in your classroom and their tests. Better put, there’s a way to help students see the effort to performance ratio. In that, the more effective effort they put in to your class, the more their performance indicators (tests and grades) will show that.
It’s the same as saying to a player, the more you focus on working hard at practice and taking care of yourself, the better you will be in games… where it really matters.
So, in the spirit of the title of this episode, how about we use tests to our (and our students') advantage, much like athletes use the game (what is ultimately their test) to their advantage?
In this episode I’ve got three ways for you to use tests to your advantage in order to help shift the mindset of your students to clearly understand the connection between their hard work of learning and their performance on tests, ultimately giving you more accountable and empowered students so you can focus on building those connections and relationships.
So let’s get to it.
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FLIPPED CLASSROOM STARTER KIT: https://www.teachonamission.com/starterkit
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