Wow, since you’ve been taking your painting home to contribute extra time on it, there has been a great improvement. Good job!
Awesome! I should do this more often...
Avoid Praise for Intelligence
Cassie, you are such a talented painter. I can't wait to see what you do next!
Our next painting is realism and I'm not as good at that style. I will only let Mrs. R. down.
Praise Positive Behavior
James, you’ve done a great job at staying focused on your assignment and talking less during work time in class. It shows in the progress of your work.
Really? I will continue to work at this.
Continued...
"Belief that intelligence can be increased through effort — staying with the task and finding the right strategy ("growth mindset") — leads to increased effort and challenge-seeking," (Dweck 1999).
Give Appropriate Feedback
I've noticed you have a hard time communicating about art, which is okay because we are going to work on that. I want you to study longer over artistic elements. Knowing the proper terms will help when you have to talk about art later on in the school year.
Although praise for intelligence is usually well-intentioned and can be motivating when students are doing well, it backfires when students eventually face work that is difficult for them.
Praise Student Achievements
All of your hard work has paid off, you guys did so well in the Art Competition as a class! Congratulations on your achievements and remember if you keep working hard, your art will continue to improve.
Be specific about praised behaviors and reinforce this behavior through feedback.
Praise Students during Difficulty
You all did so well getting your paintings done and turned in for the competition. It's not always about the award and I just want to thank you all for working so hard and let you know you did an excellent job.
When giving appropriate feedback, it's important to be specific and provide a solution and/or guidance for the student to improve.
Sounds like a great plan, Mrs. R.
It's important to praise students when they've worked hard on something and received recognition or rewards but it's still imperative to reinforce the idea of effort and work being the reason.
There may be situations where students have worked very hard and put in a lot effort but the outcome wasn't what the students expected. It's still important to let them know, they've done great at effort even if there is no award or recognition afterwards.