Learning by failing

Stuart Middleton  blogged last week about his experiences as a ‘first generation’ university student and how he learnt from failing a his first year at university.

A good follow up to my reading of the furtureored blog where where were two postings on learning through failure and the role of failure in constructive learning.

The above blogs gave me some food for thought, as my experiences as a teacher of tutors, has brought home to me that some tutors are more empathetic with students. Especially if they had experienced some form of ‘failure’ at school. For instance, many of our trades tutors, ‘fell’ into an apprenticeship due to not completing school cert. while at school. So many of them have gone on to complete other academic endeavours, but their memory of not doing well at school, remains with them. For many of these tutors, using 'failure' to motivate young trades students to aspire to better results, is one strategy I have observed in trades teaching. Learning by making mistakes, is therefore a useful strategy, in a supported learning enviroment.