What is effort?

-Some answers as we build some common language at home and at school:

One of the key finding is educational research over the last several years is that effective effort in school allows students to 'grow smarter' through perseverance, resourcefulness, and resiliency.  

As a parent myself, sometimes we can struggle with the concept of effort as a developed skill--yet below is some specific information on the topic that was developed by Jon Saphier and his research team.  Saphier has identified the skill of developing effective effort as 'attribution retraining'.  Through experiences at home and school, students often attribute school academic success on innate ability "he/she's just born smart" and/or mere chance "I just was lucky when I scored a good grade on this test".  Having spent almost 10 years in a middle school classroom, I can attest that when students were provided the clear strategies to their learning and then applied effective effort, they achieved the most academic success!

Here's Saphier's work--enjoy!

"What is Effective Effort?

(taken from The Skillful Teacher: Building Your Teaching Skills, by Saphier, Haley-Speca, Gower; 2008; pp. 299-301)

Students must believe that they have control over their success.  “Attribution retraining means getting students to change their attributions of success and failure away from factors over which they have little control (luck, task difficulty, innate ability) to the factor over which they have the greatest control: effort.  Teaching effective effort means making students aware that effective effort (effort that results in the achievement of a goal) is a combination of working hard and applying effective strategies.  Emphasizing the strategy component with students is essential to giving them an explanation other than lack of ability when they are working hard and aren’t yet seeing progress….Students need to be taught what effective effort means and how to employ all six of its attributes:

1. TIME: Do I put in sufficient time to get the job done?

Although time alone is far from sufficient to accomplish difficult academic tasks, it is absolutely required.  And it is true that some students truly don’t realize that several hours of outlining, drafting, and editing may be required to make an essay meet a high standard.

2. FOCUS: Am I working efficiently and without distraction?

Work time should be efficient and low in distraction.  There is plenty of latitude for individual style in defining focus.  Some students don’t find music, even loud music, distracting while they work.  In fact for some it is a way of blocking out other environmental distractions.  But talking to friends about the upcoming weekend or watching TV while doing academic work is not compatible with the concept of focus.

3. RESOURCEFULNESS: Do I reach out for help and know where to go for it?

Students need to know to reach beyond themselves for help, know how to do so, and where to go.  Sources of help may be other people (study buddies, homework help centers, relatives) or other sources (reference books, online services, reference librarians).

4. STRATEGIES: What strategies am I using or could I use?  Do I have alternatives when a strategy isn’t working?

Students need to know and use appropriate strategies to deal with academic tasks.  A voluminous literature confirms that students do significantly better in academic work when their teachers explicitly teach them strategies for improving reading comprehension, organizing and revising writing, and reviewing, remembering, and summarizing (Paris, Wasik, and Turner, 1991; Pressley, Borkowski, and Schneider, 1987)

5. USE OF FEEDBACK: How or where can I get feedback on what I am doing?  What does the feedback tell me about how to improve my performance?

Good students listen to and look carefully at the feedback they get from teachers and use it to improve their performance.

6. COMMITMENT: When something is difficult, do I stick with it?  Do I really try hard?  Effective effort is grounded in will.  You have to want to accomplish something to put out the effort and organize yourself to complete a tough learning task.  You don’t have to like it, but you do have to be committed to trying hard.