Teaching
Excellence

TOWARD THE BEST IN THE ACADEMY

Distributed courtesy of:

CENTRE FOR CURRICULUM AND
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Fifth Floor, 1483 Douglas Street

Victoria, British Columbia, Canada V8W 3K4

Fall 1989

 

If Learning Involves Risk-taking,
Teaching Involves Trust-building

The premise of this article is that
learning, like all other creative acts,
will flourish in an atmosphere in
which the learner is willing to take
risks, and itis the task of the instruc-
tor to create such an atmosphere for
learning.

If we accept this view of learn-
ing as risk-taking, we can begin to
confront the factors that discourage
students from taking risks and build
a class environment where learning
becomes less of a risk, or where the
risk-taking in learning becomes val-
ued instead of dreaded. Both of
these directions require that instruc-
tors develop a trusting relationship
with students.

When students trust an instruc-
tor, they will believe in the instruc-
tor’s ability to turnany situation into
a learning opportunity; they will
expect the instructor to value their
efforts; they will be willing to take
the chances that lead to learning and
to view failuresas learning opportu-
nities.

What, then, might be the char-
acteristics of an instructor who
would support student risk-taking?
These four stand out:

Model how to take risks: One way
to build student confidence is to be
willing to take risks yourself. A
great deal of emotion and social
behavior is learned through model-
ing (Bandura, 1977). By the way you
handle errors and wrong turns, you

demonstrate to students that even
experts make mistakes. Forexample,
being willing to consider non-stan-
dard questions and situations or
being alert to and bringing in new
developments in the field for which
there are no “correct” answers both
indicate to the students that you also
are in the process of learning.
Exude organization and compe-
tence: Personally, | never worry
about flying unless the pilot starts
sounding nervous. The same seems
true in classroom learning. When
the students are convinced that the
instructor is “in control” and knows
where the class is going, they will
feel more comfortable about taking
risks. They will be confident that if
they make a mistake or go off on a
wrong tangent, the instructor will be
able to bring them back on target.
Therefore, the instructor must be
well-organized and _ solidly
grounded in the content such that he
or she can handle any eventuality.
Minimize the pain of making an
error: Onereason many students are
reluctant to take risks is the fact that
our classrooms have such a strong
evaluation component. They are
afraid that if they make an error in
class, it will affect their grade. There-
fore, it would be useful to separate
the learning from the evaluating.
Doeseverything assigned have to be
graded? If in-class activities are
known to be “preparations” for the

evaluation, but not themselves
graded, students are just as mot-
vated to use that opportunity to
prepare. Evidence from the mastery
learning literature has demonstrated
the value of letting students check
their learning prior to the “real” test
(Bloom, 1984).

Another way to separate grad-
ing from learning is to allow stu-
dents to work together on new ideas.
That way their initial errors will be
tempered by the responses of their
colleagues before being seen by the
instructor. There is a lot of work
being done these days on the bene-
fits of collaborative learning, much
of it demonstrating the positive feel-
ings that result when students work
together (Johnson and Johnson,
1985).

And when you do manage to
separate the learning from theevalu-
ation in the minds of the students,
youshould work onseparating them
in your own mind. How you react to
student errors will be an important
determinant of how they perceive
their own errors. If you look upon
them as learning opportunities and
encourage the students to explore
their own thinking, you will be build-
ing trust and encouraging risk-tak-
ing (Adams, 1986).

Provide risk-taking opportunities:
In order to help students take risks,
the instructor must provide oppor-

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