Reversing Underachievement:Changing Attitudes

Children’s attitudes towards learning affect their performance at school. There are students feel proud to be at the top of the class, whereas others try to get by with as little effort as possible.
Underachiever students think differently as compare to achievers therefore, perform differently.  

Following examples of responses to some statement by achiever and underachiever students can illuminate the differences between both. 

• Beliefs About Intelligence 

Achievers: 

"I can get smarter by learning and trying hard."

Underachievers:

"I have a certain amount of ability which determines how smart I am."

• Response to Difficult Academic Tasks

Achievers:

 "If I fail, it's because I didn't try hard enough." (Achievers confidently plan strategies to overcome their failures).

Underachievers: 

"If I fail, it's because I don't have the ability to do it." (Underachievers avoid academic challenges and feel helpless when faced with a difficult task).

• Rewards they look to from homework

Achievers: 

"I feel smart when I put forth my best effort, don't understand something at first and then figure it out or learn something new."

Underachievers:

 "I feel smart when a task is easy for me," or "I don't have to put forth much effort," or "I don't make mistakes," or "I can finish a project first."

In early years mostly students perform well however, as the work became harder and harder, some students could not cope with, find challenging thus, their grades began to suffer. 

It does not mean that we should give-up that they can ever perform better. All required is the change in their attitude and it could happen with a little encouragement from you to help them gain confidence in their abilities and develop a positive attitude toward learning. 
Help children believe in them and let them know that they can do anything once they set their mind to it. Explain children the value of the task at hand and praise their performance. As students complete a task they gain a sense of accomplishment. Yet he or she may appreciate a challenge and be more willing to try new things. To improve the academic performance it is important that children must have a confident mindset and high self-esteem.

Transforming Underachievers as Independent Learners

"You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it within himself". 

Galileo

 Teachers’ Role:

The role of teachers to assist students in becoming independent learners is extremely critical as pupils do not become successful independent learners by themselves. To change students as independent learners, the role of teachers becomes one of leader rather than controller of learning. 

Teacher as facilitator: 

Leaving the traditional ‘chalk and talk’ approach of teaching teachers require to have a greater access to knowledge and skills in order  to respond the students, needs and interests. Most importantly the teachers must sharpen the students’ skills of learning and rather transferring the knowledge to them, enable them to learn how to know the unknown?  

How teachers can facilitate students? 

There are countless ways of facilitating students to encourage independent learning and these vary with every lesson and every student. Following are some of them.

• Provide resource materials to learners
  
• Encouraging group work so that learners can learn from each other
• Sharpen learners’ desire of  learning
• Collaborate with pupils to set shared learning goals
• Integrate (Information Communication Technology) in your lessons
  
• Provide opportunities of self assessment to learners for their learning
• Give feedback on learners’ progress and encourage self and peer editing before the final draft of work.

 I hope you will find this list helpful. Share your reflections ones you practice these in your classrooms.