After learning about Mr. Santos’s teaching technique, it is apparent that he wants to prepare his students for the future and encourage them to have a positive impact on society. For that reason, he starts his class off with a small activity that requires each …show more content…
Santos also uses the idea of having only “one shot”, which help his students understand the importance of having one chance to get the job done (Fulton & Pepe, 2011). Unlike his affirmation technique, I disagree with his “one shot” concept and also believe that it may cause some confusion for middle and high school students. For instance, in a learning environment, the idea that a student will not make a mistake is highly unrealistic. In school, students are constantly learning new materials and techniques, hence, not every student will understand newer materials right away and some will make mistakes before they fully understand the lesson. Also, the idea that students only have one shot to get an assignment right will also put a lot pressure on them. As a result, they will fear learning new and challenging materials and also develop a fixed mindset whenever they fail (Snowman & McCown, 2015). Although I appreciate that Mr. Santos wants his students to experience how real engineers do not have the chance to make mistakes. I think it’s more important that they learn how to fix problems as they arise and learn how to gain knowledge from every failure they encounter. That way when they do enter the real world, they will understand and know how to tackle problems or mistakes as it …show more content…
Santos class, he also expressed the importance of learning from failures. He encouraged his students to reflect on their assignment and explain why they were successful or not successful (Fulton & Pepe, 2011). This technique allows them to learn from their mistakes and acknowledge what needs to be done in order to fix their mistakes. Furthermore, I agree that failure is an important part of effective STEM teaching because, part of being a STEM educator is teaching students how to deal with problems as they arise using their creativity and critical thinking (Bellanca & Brandt, 2010). Teaching students how to learn from their failure is extremely important because not everything goes as planned in a science classroom, and failure, most times, is inevitable. Even some of the best scholars have dealt with their shares of setbacks, so teaching students how to overcome their failures, by encouraging them to tackle that problem, will help them grow independent learners and help them develop advance problem solving skills (Snowman & McCown,