Value in Failure vs. Value in Success

[Ginger Power]

I have been thinking to myself (and debating with others) the value of failure vs. the value of success. I don't think that anybody will question that both hold great value in the learning process for students and mentors alike. What I've been asking is how do we as mentors balance these methods of learning? Mentors generally have the power to intervene in students' struggles and take away the lessons that can be learned from failure, but at the same time, save the student from frustration and give them a new skill with which they can create bigger and more exciting problems to be solved. Obviously there is no "correct", one-size-fits-all answer, but there are surely more successful, and less successful methods.

Here is my take on the issue:
My parents tell me that I am supposed to go to the boy's bathroom and guide me through the process. I successfully do it over and over and never have an issue. I have succeeded in learning which bathroom to use: value in success.
But maybe one day I'm tired, or knowing me, not paying full attention and I mistakenly walk into the girls bathroom (something I'd be willing to bet most of us have done). The embarrassment and humiliation will cause me never to forget to check the sign before walking into the bathroom: value in failure.

Long story short, value that comes from success is generally easy to come by when it's handed to you, but the value that comes from failure has a more permanent and lasting effect.

On the other hand:
The strategy team is debating what direction the team should go for the year and has hit a major road block. They can't figure out what to do and the argument is getting heated. Mentor William Beatty has this great game-breaking idea that he proposes to the students. They can all now move on and begin implementing the idea: value in success.
Meanwhile many other teams who resent mentor-built-robots allow the students to debate until their voices are hoarse. After a week or two they finally agree and have a student crafted strategy. They end the year as an average team and all agree the students need to be quicker in deciding the strategy next year: value in failure.

Long story short, value that comes from failure takes more time and often leads to fewer new discoveries and experiences (less build time and prototyping time in the above example). Value from success often allows for more and greater success and failure opportunities since it can be done in a quick way.

So basically I typed all that to say I have no idea how to balance out success and failure. I think this is a question that every mentor and team should answer for themselves. I also think it is a question that drives a lot of the mentor-built vs. student-built debate (please don't let it turn into one of those). As a mentor going into my second year, and trying to be the most effective mentor that I can, I'd be really interested to hear how others have answered this question for themselves in the past.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by Ginger Power

I have been thinking to myself (and debating with others) the value of failure vs. the value of success. I don't think that anybody will question that both hold great value in the learning process for students and mentors alike. What I've been asking is how do we as mentors balance these methods of learning? Mentors generally have the power to intervene in students' struggles and take away the lessons that can be learned from failure, but at the same time, save the student from frustration and give them a new skill with which they can create bigger and more exciting problems to be solved. Obviously there is no "correct", one-size-fits-all answer, but there are surely more successful, and less successful methods.

Here is my take on the issue:
My parents tell me that I am supposed to go to the boy's bathroom and guide me through the process. I successfully do it over and over and never have an issue. I have succeeded in learning which bathroom to use: value in success.
But maybe one day I'm tired, or knowing me, not paying full attention and I mistakenly walk into the girls bathroom (something I'd be willing to bet most of us have done). The embarrassment and humiliation will cause me never to forget to check the sign before walking into the bathroom: value in failure.

Long story short, value that comes from success is generally easy to come by when it's handed to you, but the value that comes from failure has a more permanent and lasting effect.

On the other hand:
The strategy team is debating what direction the team should go for the year and has hit a major road block. They can't figure out what to do and the argument is getting heated. Mentor William Beatty has this great game-breaking idea that he proposes to the students. They can all now move on and begin implementing the idea: value in success.
Meanwhile many other teams who resent mentor-built-robots allow the students to debate until their voices are hoarse. After a week or two they finally agree and have a student crafted strategy. They end the year as an average team and all agree the students need to be quicker in deciding the strategy next year: value in failure.

Long story short, value that comes from failure takes more time and often leads to fewer new discoveries and experiences (less build time and prototyping time in the above example). Value from success often allows for more and greater success and failure opportunities since it can be done in a quick way.

So basically I typed all that to say I have no idea how to balance out success and failure. I think this is a question that every mentor and team should answer for themselves. I also think it is a question that drives a lot of the mentor-built vs. student-built debate (please don't let it turn into one of those). As a mentor going into my second year, and trying to be the most effective mentor that I can, I'd be really interested to hear how others have answered this question for themselves in the past.

Interesting topic.
I'll add a personal example:
In 2012, we went to the Granite State Regional in New Hamshire during Week 1. We couldn't shoot accurately or even lower a bridge correctly. We ended up not getting picked at a regional. We realized through this experience that the robot needed some major retooling to succeed- Value in Failure.

A few weeks later, we attended the Connecticut Regional. Our shot accuracy wasn't much better the first day, but our bridge lowering and balancing was much better, and that night we decided to switch strategies and become a feeder robot. We ended up getting selected by 195 and 181 and winning the Connecticut Regional. Through this, we learned that a role player could be valuable. Value in Success.

We then attended the Championship event in the Archimedes division. I got a chance to watch the amazing 2012 Archimedes final matches, some of the best matches ever in FRC history. I got to look at 67's robot up close and I said "Wow, that robot is so much simpler than ours." Through looking at their robot (as well as a few others), I learned the value of simplicity and elegance in robot design. This is value from neither success nor failure- I'd call it Value in Inspiration.

I think teams can use all of these, and they're all effective means of gaining value from the FIRST Program.

[evanperryg]

Originally Posted by Kevin Leonard

Interesting topic.
...

We had similar experiences in 2013.

At the wisconsin regional, we were in the lower 20 in terms of scoring. Yet, our unique shape and good driver allowed us to play brutal defense. We ended up being the 23rd overall pick, joining the second seed alliance with 1732 and 111, and got our first (and only) regional win. Through this, we realized that winning wasn't out of the question for our team, and that we might be able to shoot higher (literally)- value in success.

At midwest, we had made massive improvements to the robot. We were shooting into the higher goal, running more cycles per match, and shooting more consistently. We ended the event as the second seed, picking 111 and 1675. Mathematically, our alliance was the highest-scoring at the event, but we lost in semis because of broken parts and consistency problems. Learning from our mistakes, we returned from the event determined to make further improvements- value in failure.

At champs, we expected to be a second pick, if we were in elims at all. We knew the bot was by far the best one we had ever made, but we just didn't know if we'd make the cut. Yet, through some good strategy and a little luck, we ended up being the 7th seeded alliance captain. Even though we didn't make it past quarters, we were excited to even have been there, let alone be an alliance captain- value in success.

I could keep going, but 2014 in a nutshell was a lesson in failure and 2015 in a nutshell was a lesson in success. (at the end, at least) I have always felt that our failures have driven us to improve in the short term, while repeated failures encouraged long-term improvements. However, the value of success is how winning inspires a team to keep getting better. It provides a sense of identity and a sense of direction.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by evanperryg

At the wisconsin regional, we were in the lower 20 in terms of scoring. Yet, our unique shape and good driver allowed us to play brutal defense. We ended up being the 23rd overall pick, joining the second seed alliance with 1732 and 111, and got our first (and only) regional win. Through this, we realized that winning wasn't out of the question for our team, and that we might be able to shoot higher (literally)- value in success.

[emphasis mine] From a similar experience (winning our first ever award in 2009), I'd say this is the most valuable thing to be gained from a taste of success rather than full-on failure. Failure can be motivating, but only if you believe you can succeed if you do what you're being motivated to. Maybe not a thing teams on CD disproportionately struggle with (anymore), but even so it's wise to be on the lookout for demotivation as we try to strike the balance.

[jajabinx124]

Originally Posted by Ginger Power

I have been thinking to myself (and debating with others) the value of failure vs. the value of success. I don't think that anybody will question that both hold great value in the learning process for students and mentors alike. What I've been asking is how do we as mentors balance these methods of learning? Mentors generally have the power to intervene in students' struggles and take away the lessons that can be learned from failure, but at the same time, save the student from frustration and give them a new skill with which they can create bigger and more exciting problems to be solved. Obviously there is no "correct", one-size-fits-all answer, but there are surely more successful, and less successful methods.

Here is my take on the issue:
My parents tell me that I am supposed to go to the boy's bathroom and guide me through the process. I successfully do it over and over and never have an issue. I have succeeded in learning which bathroom to use: value in success.
But maybe one day I'm tired, or knowing me, not paying full attention and I mistakenly walk into the girls bathroom (something I'd be willing to bet most of us have done). The embarrassment and humiliation will cause me never to forget to check the sign before walking into the bathroom: value in failure.

Long story short, value that comes from success is generally easy to come by when it's handed to you, but the value that comes from failure has a more permanent and lasting effect.

On the other hand:
The strategy team is debating what direction the team should go for the year and has hit a major road block. They can't figure out what to do and the argument is getting heated. Mentor William Beatty has this great game-breaking idea that he proposes to the students. They can all now move on and begin implementing the idea: value in success.
Meanwhile many other teams who resent mentor-built-robots allow the students to debate until their voices are hoarse. After a week or two they finally agree and have a student crafted strategy. They end the year as an average team and all agree the students need to be quicker in deciding the strategy next year: value in failure.

Long story short, value that comes from failure takes more time and often leads to fewer new discoveries and experiences (less build time and prototyping time in the above example). Value from success often allows for more and greater success and failure opportunities since it can be done in a quick way.

So basically I typed all that to say I have no idea how to balance out success and failure. I think this is a question that every mentor and team should answer for themselves. I also think it is a question that drives a lot of the mentor-built vs. student-built debate (please don't let it turn into one of those). As a mentor going into my second year, and trying to be the most effective mentor that I can, I'd be really interested to hear how others have answered this question for themselves in the past.

While I can't answer some parts of your questions, I'll talk a bit about success, failure, and how humans learn from both.

The former and late President of India, Abdul Kalam, viewed the word "fail" as an acronym: First Attempt In Learning. (Most of the time failure is a first attempt in learning). Just something I thought I would throw out there. Humans tend to learn more from failure because after experiencing failure, their mindset can change. The likelihood is more higher if they experience failure that they will learn from it and work harder towards succeeding at what they failed at. Example: A student bombs a Physics unit test and is overwhelmed by the material on the test. The likelihood is high that this student will work twice as harder to suceed on the next unit test. Also, failure must be taken positively. Smile and work hard towards reforming your mistakes.

Success is a whole other story. A lot can be learned from sucess, but I still think a student who fails learns more than a student that suceeds. Part of it is the students mindset, but I'll give an example anyway: A student aces his Physics test and thinks the material is super easy. The student possibly may slack a bit (study wise) for the next unit, because he is under the impression that the material is easy. Sucess sometimes may influence a humans mindset like shown in the example above, success sometimes changes the mindset of the student negatively (for example: "This material is so easy, I don't even have to study for it", I'm particularly guilty of that as most high school students who breeze through high school are). The example and thoughts I provided about success aren't particularly true if you stick to a positive attitude and hard working mindset, regardless of positive results.

I think balancing it is a great idea, both success and failure should be experienced by every FIRST student.

[Ari423]

Originally Posted by jajabinx124

The likelihood is more higher if they experience failure that they will learn from it and work harder towards succeeding at what they failed at. Example: A student bombs a Physics unit test and is overwhelmed by the material on the test. The likelihood is high that this student will work twice as harder to suceed on the next unit test. Also, failure must be taken positively. Smile and work hard towards reforming your mistakes.

According to this, with the amount of failure my team has had we should be amazing by now. </joke>

All kidding aside, I definitely agree that failure propels us to improve. The worst season for my team since we were founded in 1999 was 2014, when we couldn't even pick up the ball and our drive train didn't work for half our matches (we did a 4 traction wheel, 1 CIM per wheel drive; bad idea). Then this past season (2015), we realized we need to step up our game, and we made the best robot we have ever made (arguably, but supported by most). We almost made it to Champs, missing it by about 10 points.

Hopefully our success last year will propel us to improve next year as much as our failure did the previous year. If we continue on our path of improvement, I see a Championship attendance in our future. Here's hopeful.

[Jon Stratis]

This is something that we've actually talked a bit about, as mentors, on my team. We feel that there definitely is value in failure, and it's both a great teaching tool and a part of the Engineering process - even someone was well known as Edison took thousands of failed attempts before he created a commercially viable lightbulb. But even though there's value in failure, we can't ignore the value of success. Repeated and prolonged failure can be discouraging and take away from the inspiration we're all trying to impart. So it's important to have some success mixed in as well.

So, with my team we always try to ensure the students have a successful year. That doesn't mean we go to champs every year, or that we define success by playing on Einstein. A successful year is something you feel in the atmosphere in your teams pit. It's an excitement and hope for the future. You can have that even if your ranked poorly, and likewise you can miss it even if your ranked highly. The key is to set realistic, achievable goals that stretch the team just a bit.

From a practical standpoint, this means that during the build season we let them fail at various things that are correctable. We try our best to ensure they don't do something totally off the wall that will set us back several weeks. But if they cut something too short or drill a hole in the wrong place it's just material - there's more sitting in the corner and they can try again. Likewise if they haven't thought through a design far enough to see the upcoming problems, then we have. We talk A LOT about how we're going to be solving the problems they'll run into next week. A lot of the time, we can be ready with an easy solution to help them get around the problem when they realize it (a solution that is only provided after they've come up with ideas and are still struggling)... Sometimes we don't see a solution to the problem, so we raise the issue earlier to get them thinking about it, and to avoid spending too much time going down a path that isn't going to work.

Don't let anyone fool you - being a mentor is hard. It's hard to manage a teams expectations, abilities, and failures to ensure a n overall successful season, however you define that success... And that definition may be different each year as the teams situation changes, and is largely guided by the expectations you help to manage. But it's also a lot of fun

[chrisfl]

I'm going into my junior year of high school and we just had to read a book sorta like this, "The Triple Package". The book discusses why different ethnic and religious groups in America succeed or fail. Throughout the book the author discusses how the three parts to being successful are
1. Superiority complex
2. Insecurity
3. Impulse Control
The first 2 seem conflicting however they play off of each other.
For example, your team wins your division at champs but gets knocked out on Einstein. This scenario creates the perfect balance you need for learning. In this scenario, your team creates a superiority complex by knowing they are the best in their division however still are insecure after losing on Einstein. These 2 parts foster innovation in the future. If you were to flawlessly win in both your division and on Einstein you wouldn't have that chip on your shoulder to do better next year, you would become relaxed. Meanwhile, the team that got knocked out on Einstein will innovate to try and ensure that doesn't happen again.

1678 is a team that fits this situation. Every year they come out with a great robot and make it onto Einstein and just barely miss the win. Then after years of innovation they manage to win and be on top.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by chrisfl

I'm going into my junior year of high school and we just had to read a book sorta like this, "The Triple Package". The book discusses why different ethnic and religious groups in America succeed or fail. Throughout the book the author discusses how the three parts to being successful are
1. Superiority complex
2. Insecurity
3. Impulse Control
The first 2 seem conflicting however they play off of each other.
For example, your team wins your division at champs but gets knocked out on Einstein. This scenario creates the perfect balance you need for learning. In this scenario, your team creates a superiority complex by knowing they are the best in their division however still are insecure after losing on Einstein. These 2 parts foster innovation in the future. If you were to flawlessly win in both your division and on Einstein you wouldn't have that chip on your shoulder to do better next year, you would become relaxed. Meanwhile, the team that got knocked out on Einstein will innovate to try and ensure that doesn't happen again.

1678 is a team that fits this situation. Every year they come out with a great robot and make it onto Einstein and just barely miss the win. Then after years of innovation they manage to win and be on top.

This makes me scared to see 2826 next year.

[Monochron]

Just as an example of what we have tried, we often do small projects in the off-season that are completely open to student failure, and then offer more guidance and try to deflect failure more during the season or in "large scale" off-season projects.

For instance, last year we did a t-shirt cannon competition where we built 3 teams and had them compete to build the strongest / fastest cannon. The teams were entirely student led with mentors only helping when specifically asked. Rather than mentors constantly offering guidance or trying to foster ideas, we made our involvement entirely up to the students. As a result very few groups came to us for help and only one group was ultimately able to build a cannon that shot more than 10 feet.
Afterwards we had a debrief on what went right with that one team and what went wrong with the others. It was mostly due to one or two students putting in a lot of work researching build techniques and making their mistakes early in the process.

We don't think that the massive 2+ month FRC season is a useful place to let the students fail if we can prevent it. But a short small scale project lets them fail in a more low-key environment and a good post-analysis helps them uncover what caused that failure and how they could prevent it.

[Deke]

As a mentor/coach/teacher I think it is incorrect to choose or let someone fail. Instead we should do our best to give them the correct tools or suggestions to succeed. Teams can then move to bigger and better problems as a whole group.

I like Corsetto's fail faster approach, and to answer the op's question: Failures come often enough that we don't need to create them or let them continue when discovered.

The question I ask is: what are you going to do when you fail? I fail all the time and you are going to fail; there is no doubt about it, no one is perfect. Are you going to try another method, fix the problem, find a solution, or let it take you down?

[FrankJ]

Originally Posted by Infinity2718

As a mentor/coach/teacher I think it is incorrect to choose or let someone fail. ...

You don't want people to fail. You don't won't airplanes to fail. You do want to teach how to take appropriate risks. Taking risks will lead to occasional failures. Successful people learn to accept failure and continue on. Successful people learn from their failures. Sometimes the only thing they learn is that what they was trying was a really bad idea. Prototypes that don't work aren't necessarily failures.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

You don't want people to fail. You don't won't airplanes to fail. You do want to teach how to take appropriate risks. Taking risks will lead to occasional failures. Successful people learn to accept failure and continue on. Successful people learn from their failures. Sometimes the only thing they learn is that what they was trying was a really bad idea. Prototypes that don't work aren't necessarily failures.

The question here is whether it's good for students in a FIRST environment to have an entire season as a "prototype failure". I would be floored if you found an FRC mentor arugeing students that should be barred from iterative development. Rather, "failure" in this context means the opposite of iteration.

Look at the OP example: The "value in success" example is 71. They succeeded because they failed and iterated upon it. The "value in failure" question comes only when when students are [at risk of] carrying a single failure for an entire season (or longer), e.g. poor strategy resulting in limited opportunities to fail/learn/be inspired in follow-on experiences. We want our students to be successful people and learn from failures, but how do they become successful enough to recognize and handle failure properly? Do they make every mistake to its fullest, or to what extent should mentors facilitate learning from others' previous mistakes (share their experience and knowledge).

[Deke]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

You don't want people to fail. You don't won't airplanes to fail. You do want to teach how to take appropriate risks. Taking risks will lead to occasional failures. Successful people learn to accept failure and continue on. Successful people learn from their failures. Sometimes the only thing they learn is that what they was trying was a really bad idea. Prototypes that don't work aren't necessarily failures.

I would reword this a little bit, its more of a process. Instead of taking appropriate risks, engineering is about identifying risks and mitigating them. Once the criteria are defined, such as a strategy in FRC, ideas are created for solving them. Those ideas should have their risks identified and them gone through the engineering process to eliminate or reduce. If they can't be eliminated analytically, they need to be tested conservatively and eliminated that way. So from a technical standpoint, its not about taking risks, but more about identifying them (which is the hardest part) and reducing them. Without the initial engineering, many prototypes are setup for failure and go through the shotgun approach with hope of finding a solution. With time in FRC and available people, sometimes the analysis gets short changed, but people can be amazed at how much time can be saved with some basic physics calculations. I don't think any ideas are bad, but they must be sorted through to get to the best solution.

Maybe this is from my aerospace background, but we don't take risks, and if anything is in question, we conservatively test it to ensure reliability. Now that doesn't mean there aren't failures during development, but that is what development and prototyping is for, reducing risk.

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

Given how integral finding success is to understanding complex problem domains (and therefore inspiration), I never intentionally "let students fail" in FRC. There will inevitably be enough unintentional failure in any endeavor we take on that adding intentional failure on top of that seems unnecessary.

This is what I was trying to imply in my first post, Jared has explained it more elegantly.

To me the OP's question is the following: Which methodology is better from a mentor perspective? Learning by teaching through success, or learning from teaching through failure? Is there a balance?

My answer still is to teach through success. Learning through failure may be effective, but it is long and time consuming compared to learning through success. Example: basketball coach gives a new kid a basketball and tells him to throw it at the hoop until it goes in. Versus basketball coach pulls the new kid aside for 10 minutes and explains how to use his legs and square up his elbow and finished with a good follow through. Which kids is going to learn faster? I just think the latter process gets everyone farther faster.

[marshall]

I think I'm torn on this subject a little.

Based on the above comments, I have a question about allowing a student to fail. Is there any value in teaching humility through failure? I do my best to find a way to reach all of my students. Sometimes that is easy and sometimes it is more difficult.

A couple of years ago I had one particular student that I could not reach. He was very determined to do things his way after having come from another FRC team that was run very differently than ours and having participated in FRC from a very young age. He was determined to turn our team into his team and have everything his way... In the end, I let him take parts of the process into his own hands and it did not lead to success that year for us. It taught him a lesson that I don't think he would have learned had I put my foot down and said 'no' to him along the way.

To be clear, I'm not sure it was valuable for the entire team. I think it did more harm to the team than good to that one student. It has helped to make me a better mentor for seeing that though. Remember students, your mentors aren't perfect, we are human too.