Sharing Personal Stories of Failure

My Story

There is a stereotype in Physics that you have to be born with a natural ability or certain type of brain to be a successful Physicist. I was concerned that students may be bringing this idea into the classroom in ways that could reduce their persistence and success in my class.

I teach general Physics, and I know there are many students who are concerned that struggling in the first part of class could mean that they don’t have what it takes to be successful. Prior to the TxMI fellowship, I never really thought how students’ belonging and confidence was really important for learning and performance in my Physics classes.

When I started teaching, I was told, “Don’t tell your students about your mistakes or failures because you’ll lose their respect.” So I used to only tell the positive side of my story--all the successes I’ve had so students would look up to me. This biased story just propagated the idea that I was perfect and was born to be a Physicist. So I tried something totally different. I went to the opposite side and talked about my failures.

What does this practice look like?

Throughout the term, I took time in my classes to tell a bit about my personal stories of struggle and failure.

Here’s one example of what I said to my students:

How did it impact students?

I was amazed at the positive feedback I got from my students after I started telling my stories of struggle and failure. Below is one student survey response I received that made me feel that sharing my stories really benefited them:

My participation rate throughout the whole semester was 95%, and I was blown away by how much students engaged: they asked questions, they came to my drop-in hours and my Learning Assistants’ office hours, and seemed to be more open to say, “I don’t understand” which helped them to clarify specific questions they had so they could learn the material on their path in Physics. My students this semester earned the highest scores ever in my Physics exams.
 

Implementation Tips and Resources

Here are a few tips that can help you be successful with this practice:

1. Don’t be worried about talking about your own failure. It feels odd the first time, but it gets easier with time. It helps if you can observe the positive impact on the students and their performance. You start believing in the practice and in yourself. (I was skeptical at the beginning.)
2. Collecting students’ comments in the PERTS survey was very helpful. We also had weekly meetings with the TA and LAs to discuss feedback from students and the material for the next week. Be sure to tell students that their feedback matters and that you are open for their feedback. Every problem has a solution and we are all in this together.
3. Think about what you would have liked to know when you were a student.
4. Show your feelings in the classroom. I learned that showing feelings and being sensitive is a good thing and not a weakness.

Here are a few pitfalls to avoid with this practice:

1. Do not minimize the challenges students are facing or suggest “easy” solutions. Rather, acknowledge that it will take time and effort to overcome challenges.
2. Do not be unrealistically positive or needlessly negative. Rather, share both positive and negative aspects of your experiences.
3. Do not assume that students’ experiences will be similar to yours. Your story is just one example they can learn from; students will forge their own belonging journey.
4. Do not try to categorize anything as right or wrong or blame someone else for challenges you faced. If you tell a story, use the word “I” and say “this is how I felt.”

Anything else to consider?

Although this practice was intended to support my students, it also allowed me to address my own concerns and stressors about teaching Zoom classes and everything else going on. So as I was describing my failures and seeing students’ responses, I became more comfortable with my own hiccups and obstacles, and learning from them. It really let me enjoy teaching more and feel like we were all in this together.

I implemented other things in my course to support this practice:

1. Every exam had a make-up exam so that students can work on their improvement right away. We also had in-class quiz questions where students discuss their answer choices in a group (In Zoom we had breakout rooms). This includes 4 LAs in my lecture who helped to facilitate the discussion among the students. I give a 90% score for the participation and 10% for the correct answer (Conveying it is ok to not have a correct answer. It is more important to start the discussion about the physics concepts).
2. I started giving a 5 min break in the middle of each 75 minute lecture.
3. To build community, the Fast Friends questions and “how do you feel” questions were helpful.
4. I asked students for suggestions and got them involved in the solution finding process. This applies to Physics questions and to any other question of technical nature and syllabus layout.