Two of the most important messages that students hear from teachers are “Don’t be afraid to fail” and “Learn from your mistakes—yours, mine, and ours.” The following TedEd talk explores these familiar ideas. The speaker, Diana Laufenberg, makes the case for why learning through experience, feeling empowered, and embracing failure are all so important to students—so much more so than just going to school to get information.

You can view the transcript for “Diana Laufenberg: How to learn? From mistakes” here (opens in new window).

The idea of learning from one’s mistakes seems straightforward enough, but how does one actually do it? After all, who isn’t disappointed to get a low grade on anything—a test, a quiz, a paper, a project? We all want to do well. Consider the following college students evaluating their own performance:

I recently took a general biology exam and I was so certain that I got all questions right—that I got a 100 percent on the exam. Then I found out this morning that I got a 94 percent! And what annoys me more than the grade is the fact that my mistakes were dumb. Why did I make dumb mistakes? The tests are timed and I don’t have much time to check my answers.^[1]

I’m so mad at myself. I’ve tried everything, I come back to look at the answer after I’ve completed the rest of the test. I go over the answers carefully. It seems as though no matter what I do I can’t catch my mistakes. I just did it on an accounting test. I missed one question because I didn’t notice the answer was “All of the above.” I have the same problem in another class.

At times we can be hard on ourselves, especially if we feel we could have done better. Learning from mistakes takes practice and reinforcement. As Diana Laufenberg pointed out in her Ted Talk, mistakes can be one of the most important events that happen in a classroom, because they tell you where you need to focus next.^[2]

After you get over the disappointment of making a mistake in the first place, the next step is to home in on why you made it. That’s the learning opportunity. Below are some tips for following up on—and addressing—a range of errors that students commonly make on exams and other assessments.

Tips for Test Follow-up^[3]

Reflection and Further Study

For some additional guidance on what to do in the event of failure and how to proceed with your studies, watch Dr. Stephen Chew’s video I Blew The Exam—Now What?

You can view the transcript for “How to Get the Most Out of Studying: Part 5 of 5, ‘I Blew the Exam, Now What?'” here (opens in new window).

Chew emphasizes the following points:

What not to do:

• Don’t panic
• Don’t go into denial

What to do:

• Do examine how you prepared; be honest with yourself
• Do review the exam; compare errors with notes taken
• Do talk with your professor
• Do examine your study habits
• Do develop a plan

Helpful strategies to raise your grade:

• Commit time and effort
• Minimize distractions
• Attend class
• Set realistic goals
• Don’t begin to slide
• Don’t give away points

Don’t be the student who . . .

• keeps studying the same way, hoping to improve
• waits until the end of the term to ask for help
• skips class to focus on other classes
• falls further behind waiting to find time to catch up
• crams at the last minute
• doesn’t do assignments because they are small or late
• panics and gives up