7 Suggestions for Building a Positive Learning Environment

A high school in Chicago, USA, has adopted the idea of ​​giving students who have not passed a subject a “Not Yet” score. Do you agree that this is a wonderful decision? If a student gets a fail grade, they will feel like a failure, and that won’t get them anywhere further than where they are. However, if they get a “not yet” grade, they will realize that they are on the learning curve, which gives them another chance to try, and gives them more hope of a bright future, as a result of the positive suggestion that this phrase reflects. Do you realize, as a teacher, how much the phrases that we say to our children have an impact on creating their motivation to learn and increasing their confidence?

In this article, we will define suggestion, quickly highlight its two types and their sources, then talk about its impact on encouraging students to achieve their goals from the learning process by reviewing the results of a longitudinal study conducted at Stanford University on the impact of our unconscious beliefs on how we achieve success, and their profound effects on our choices, behaviors, and ability to achieve our goals. In the end of the article, we will provide you with suggestions for building a positive learning environment.

The concept of suggestion: its types and sources

Suggestion has multiple meanings in language. It is all that you communicate to others through signs, the hidden meanings of speech, the hidden and rapid indication of a meaning, and a hint, or an idea that is transmitted to the person through the senses (touching, hearing, or smelling), or straight from mind to mind.

Suggestions don’t have to come from an external source only, but they may come from within the person themselves, which is known in psychology as autosuggestion, which is a mental process that ends with the individual accepting the ideas that are generated in their minds without criticism or verification.

These suggestions regardless of their kind (positive or negative), source (external or internal), stimuli in the learning environment (emotion, non-verbal gestures of the teacher, the teacher’s words, the learning environment, activities, or the student’s internal suggestions) all build the students’ view of themselves and affect their impression of their personalities and capabilities. 

Suggestion and its effect:

Students’ beliefs about themselves have tremendous power in determining whether or not they can achieve a goal. This is a fact that has become accepted today and popular in scientific, educational, and psychological circles, as a result of several studies and papers in this field. Thus, today we can predict the students’ behavior towards difficult problems, whether they would choose to confront them, or to avoid them and stay in their comfort zone.

Using suggestions, we can predict whether the student will choose to take risks, avoid them and miss opportunities, admit mistakes and accept them as a learning experience, or deny them and blame others.

In a study spanning more than ten years, by Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck and her colleagues, about the impact of our unconscious beliefs on how we achieve success, and their profound effects on our choices and behaviors, and our ability to achieve our goals, they found that some people have a so-called fixed mindset (those believe that their intelligence and talents are fixed and definitive qualities). On the other hand, others have a so-called growth mindset (those believe that abilities and talents can be developed through effort and training; therefore, they can become more intelligent and talented throughout their life stages).

Each mindset predicts how its owners will achieve success in school, work, family life, and personal relationships.

What is interesting about this study, which is one of the long studies, is that the researchers relied on the power of suggestion to change the behavior of students (test sample) in the study. The researchers subjected hundreds of adolescent students to a test consisting of ten questions aimed at assessing their non-verbal ability, and most of them performed well in the test.

Then the researchers divided the students randomly into two groups. The researchers praised the first group for their “fixed mental abilities,” saying: “Great, you did really well on these problems, and you answered (x) questions correctly, and that’s a really good score. You must be good at solving these problems.”

In contrast, the researchers praised the second group of students for their efforts, emphasizing a “growth mindset” and saying: “Great, you answered (x) questions correctly, and that’s a really good score. You must have worked hard to solve these problems.”

In the next part of the study, the researchers wanted to measure the effect of suggestion on the students (test sample). They gave them the freedom to choose an easy task or a difficult one. The result was that 80% of the students who were praised for their intelligence (fixed mindset) chose the easy task, while 67% of students who were praised for their effort (growth mindset) chose the difficult one.

As part of the study, and to confirm its purpose, the researchers asked the students to write a personal letter to their peers, discussing their experience with the research and revealing their test results in the study.

Interestingly, 40% of students who were told they were so smart lied and exaggerated their results, compared to only 13% of students who were praised for their efforts.

“Students of the fixed mindset seemed to be busy proving that they were smart not only to themselves, but to others as well, even if it meant inflating their results,” says scientist Carol Dweck.

What this study concluded is that the students react to suggestions in a way that affects their academic performance. This may be seen by some as a good thing, but in the long run it may not always help achieve real successes. Students who were suggested to be smart believed this and convinced themselves and others of it, and thus dealt with the choice of choosing a difficult or an easy task intelligently, as they chose the easiest path, which some may see as a good thing, but in the long run it may not always help achieve real successes.

As for the second group whose efforts were praised, they accepted the idea that the test results are the result of their efforts; therefore, they were more willing and accepting to make a greater effort in dealing with the difficult task, which promoted ​​accepting mistakes, and being ready to go through new experiences without waiting for results, because what matters is having their efforts noticed and appreciated, rather than having their grades noticed and appreciated.

How does that help me?

“Students don’t care about what you know until they know you care,” says de Porter. That is,  if your attention is focused on the outstanding students who achieve exceptional grades on tests, and you neglect students who do not achieve satisfactory results on tests, with a willful disregard for the effort they spend in learning, don’t expect much from them.

Suggestions for getting started with change:

1. Review yourself, your beliefs, and the mental image that you have of students with outstanding performance. Are you trying to impose this image on them through the suggestions that you send to them?
2. Start raising your awareness of the suggestions – verbal and non-verbal – that you give to students, and assess them by asking yourself:
3. How do these phrases help my students increase their motivation to learn?
4. How can they enhance their confidence in themselves, their skills, and abilities?
5. Notice how students react to the difficulties they encounter in tests or homework.
6. Identify the role you can play in shifting their thinking from focusing on the problem, to the potential solutions.
7. Find a way to help them be flexible, accept change, and make rational decisions that will help them achieve positive results. For example, you could try giving students the final grade at the beginning of the semester in the gradebook, and test how this suggestion helps them make the effort to maintain that score.
8. Write at the beginning of the school year a set of phrases bearing a positive suggestion – provided that it stems from the heart and a deep belief in the students – and say the phrases to them on different occasions, look for the impact they leave on their souls, and notice the change in their behavior.
9. Discuss with them how they see themselves when they fail to solve a problem or answer a question in an exam. These discussions have a great effect in drawing students’ attention to the fact that what they are going through is normal and a part of the learning process, and that accepting it is a healthy thing that helps them be flexible and open to overcome these small obstacles.

In conclusion:

Learning, in its philosophy, establishes the human dimension of the teaching profession. If you go back to the principles of Accelerated Learning for example, you will find that the first principle in it is to “Never suggest the idea that the learner is limited in abilities, and replace these barriers with a strong and positive suggestion, indicating that the learning process is both easy and enjoyable.”

One of the most important human rights of the learner throughout the ages has been to live and learn in an environment that encourages their growth and emphasizes that their mental capabilities are unlimited, which gives them the opportunity to go through experiences and learn from their mistakes. That is, quite simply, to live the experience of “not yet”.