Praise, Like Gold and Diamonds

949 Words4 Pages
Proper application of praise is an important way to stimulate students' interest in learning and is also an indispensable teaching tool while educating them. In my opinion, praise is an important part of feedback and learning for students; student will determine their own behavior from others’ feedback. “Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity,” Samuel Johnson once said. Praise is valuable feedback about a student’s action; however, it cannot be excessive. By receiving various forms of encouragement and praise, students will be able to develope an interactive, educational way to communicate. Not only will their communication improve, but also many other ways of thinking, such as ideological, psychological and cognition thinking. We need to master the art of using praise and criticism to better foster younger generations during their learning years. First, the feedback of praise should focus on a student’s specific action instead of praising the student directly. In Anya Kamenetz’s article The Difference Between Praise and Feedback, Dweck, from Stanford University claims that praise should based on student’s effort and process (Anya “The Difference”). For example, saying: “You did a good job on this; you must put a lot of effort into it!” is better than saying: “You are such a good student.” I remember, once, in an economic class, we were assigned to do a really hard problem set. My peers and I spent days and nights working on those problems but were still unsure about some of the graphs when we turned in. We did not get a bad grade on that assignment, but what made us happy and more confident wash our instructors’ comments: “good thoughts”, “well explained.” These could be found beside every question and an entire paragraph was written to us regarding what we needed improved. Through her words, we felt as though our effort was worth it.
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