How Might We Help Students See Formative Practice as the Foundation for Learning?

There’s a question that has bothered me throughout my time as a teacher: Why do so many of our students believe that only graded work matters? They walk into class asking not “What will I learn?” but “Will this be graded?” This mindset—that learning is something that happens only when points are at stake—represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how growth actually works. When I joined Cohort 21, I knew I had to tackle this head-on. My driving question became: How might we help students see formative practice as the foundation for learning?

This question wasn’t academic for me. It was personal. I’ve watched brilliant students ignore practice work, skip reflection and revision opportunities, and avoid the chance to struggle productively because they couldn’t see the connection between effort and growth. I’ve also seen students paralyzed by the fear of grades, unable to take the intellectual risks that real learning requires. However, I’ve witnessed the moment when a student finally gets it. When students realize that the practice, the feedback, the reflection and revision cycle is where the magic happens. That moment became my focus for this work.

What I Did & Its Impact

Changing a student’s fundamental belief about learning isn’t something that can be accomplished with a single activity or intervention. It requires consistency, visibility, and regular celebration. Here’s what happened in my classroom.

The Disengaged Student Who Learned to Self-Regulate

I had a student, let’s call him Milton, who believed the “only grades matter” mentality. He was disengaged, dismissive of formative feedback, and convinced that practice work was busywork. But something shifted when I started making his growth visible to him in real time. Instead of just marking his work, I created a simple before and after comparison system where Milton could see his own growth over time. He started noticing patterns, asking questions, and most importantly, applying self-regulation strategies without being prompted.

What amazed me most was watching him transfer these skills outside the classroom. His teachers began reporting that Milton was asking for feedback in other classes, revising his work voluntarily, and talking about his learning process with peers. He had internalized the idea that practice leads to mastery.

Building a Culture of Peer Recognition and Celebration

I realized early on that celebration couldn’t be left to chance. So I built it into the rhythm of our classroom. We started a “Student of the Week” spotlight where the focus wasn’t on who had the highest grade, but on who demonstrated growth, resilience, or a positive mindset. For example, we celebrated the student who finally understood a concept they had struggled with for weeks. We recognized the peer who asked a clarifying question that helped the whole class. We highlighted the student who revised their work three times because they wanted to understand it better.

This shift in what we celebrated changed everything. Students started seeking out these recognitions not only because they wanted external validation (though that’s normal for humans), but because being seen as a learner mattered to them. Peer recognition became more powerful than any grade. I watched students nominate each other for growth, which created a cycle of accountability that was entirely organic. They were holding each other to a standard of learning, not a standard of performance.

The Question That Changed Everything

One moment crystallized the entire shift for me. Instead of “Will this be graded?” he was asking whether the practice could serve as evidence of his growth. The question itself revealed the mindset toward learning that I had been seeking. This student wasn’t thinking about points anymore. He was thinking about seeing himself improve, which became a model for others.

Now in my classroom, instead of asking questions like “Why do we have to do this?” they ask “What should I focus on first?” The conversation has shifted from grades to growth, from performance to process, from individual achievement to collective learning.

This didn’t happen overnight. It required consistent communication about what I valued, repeated celebration of growth over grades, and a willingness to make the learning process visible at every step. But once students began to see themselves as learners engaged in a process of continuous improvement, the question of grading became almost irrelevant to their motivation.

What I Learned

This journey has taught me things that I hope to carry with me for the rest of my career. And they’re not what I expected when I started.

Students Want to See Themselves as Learners

This is the foundational insight. Students don’t automatically believe they’re learners. In many ways, they’ve been conditioned to see themselves as performers; people who either succeed or fail based on their performance. However, when students find themselves in conditions where they can see themselves improving, where their growth is named and celebrated, they begin to internalize the identity of “learner.” And once they see themselves that way, they begin to act that way.

This means that the work isn’t really about changing behaviour. It’s about changing identity. When students believe they are learners, they naturally engage in learning behaviours. They ask questions. They seek feedback. They reflect. They revise. They persist through difficulty. These aren’t things you have to force or incentivize. They flow naturally from the identity shift.

Students Need to Understand the Effort-Success Connection

I’ve learned that students don’t automatically connect their effort to their success. Many believe that success is either something you have (talent) or you don’t. However, what they need is explicit and repeated evidence that effort, strategy, and practice actually produce results. This is why the before-and-after comparison is so powerful. It makes the causal relationship undeniable. In the case of Milton, he didn’t just hear me say “effort matters.” He saw it in his own work. He could point to the specific practices that led to improvement.

This means feedback has to be about more than correction. It has to show the path from effort to growth. It has to help students see that when they try a new strategy, when they revise based on feedback, when they practice deliberately, they improve. And that improvement is real, measurable, and worth celebrating.

Students Want to Be Celebrated for Growth, Not Grades

This might sound confusing in a system obsessed with grades, but I’ve watched students’ faces light up when they’re recognized for growth in a way they never do for a high grade. A student who gets an A but hasn’t grown much often looks unmoved. But a student who started struggling and now shows real improvement? They shine. They tell their families. And they bring it up weeks later.

The reason is simple: growth is evidence that you’re a learner. A grade is just a number. Growth shows you that effort works, that persistence pays off, that you’re capable of improvement. That’s what students actually want to feel. That’s what builds confidence and motivation over time. Once I understood this, I stopped worrying about whether students were motivated by grades and started focusing on making growth visible and celebrated.

Communication and Consistency Are Non-Negotiable

None of this would have worked if I hadn’t made an effort about communicating what I valued and consistently celebrating it. I couldn’t just mention growth once and expect it to stick. I had to weave it into every conversation, every feedback comment, every classroom moment. The “Student of the Week” spotlight had to happen every single week, not just when I remembered. The before-and-after comparisons had to be a regular part of the routine, not a one-time activity.

What I learned is that students believe what you consistently celebrate. If you say growth matters but only celebrate high grades, students will know what actually matters. If you say effort is important but never acknowledge it, students will know you don’t mean it. But if you consistently, visibly, repeatedly celebrate growth and the learning process, students will eventually internalize that as what is truly valued in your classroom.

Conclusion

This realization has changed how I approach everything in my classroom, from how I design assignments to how I communicate with families to how I structure our time together. And I believe it’s scalable. It’s not dependent on a particular subject or grade level. It’s about fundamentally shifting what we value and making that value visible every single day.

Teaching Down: How Mentoring Younger Students Transformed Formative Learning Into Purpose

After successfully including peer celebrations to help students see the value in formative practice, I discovered something even more powerful: students need to see their own growth; but they also need to use it to help others grow.

This realization came through a program at my school called Horizons, where my Year 9 Academic Foundations students became “buddies” to Grade 3 and 4 students from underprivileged public schools. What started as community service became an opportunity for formative learning, self-assessment, and the real-world application of their learning skills.

The Challenge: Initial Resistance

When the Horizons program was first introduced to my Year 9 students, their immediate response was filled with skepticism. “Why do we have to do this?” “How is this going to help us?” “Isn’t this just babysitting?”

They didn’t see any connection between their learning skills and teaching younger students. They didn’t understand that the very skills they’d been practicing in their formative work, such as breaking down concepts, explaining ideas clearly, adapting to different learners,  and self-correcting, were exactly what they needed to be effective mentors.

So we had a conversation. I asked my students: “What do you think it takes to teach someone else how to read? How to write? How to do a craft?” The answers came slowly at first, then with growing clarity: “You have to know it really well yourself.” “You have to explain it in a way they understand.” “You have to be patient and encouraging.”

Then I connected the dots: “That’s exactly what formative learning is. It’s the practice, the feedback, the self-correction. When you’re teaching your buddy, you’re using all of those skills. And you’re going to see, in real time, if your teaching is working. That’s the most powerful feedback you can get.”

Over time, the Horizons program wasn’t viewed as babysitting anymore, but as an authentic application of learning skills to serve someone else’s growth.

The Transformation: What My Students Discovered

One student told me: “I realized that when I was teaching my buddy to write, I had to think about all the steps I take when I write. I never really thought about that before. Now I understand why we do all those writing drafts. It’s because writing is a process, and more than just getting it right the first time.”

My students also started monitoring their own teaching in real time. “Wait, my buddy didn’t understand that explanation. Let me try again.” “That craft activity was too hard. Next time I’ll break it into smaller steps.” “My buddy loved that story. I should find more books like that.”

They were doing exactly what we ask students to do in formative learning: notice what’s working, adjust, try again. But now they were doing it because their buddy’s learning depended on it.

Why Teaching Down Works for Formative Learning

I’ve been thinking about why this strategy is so powerful, and I think it comes down to three things:

1. Authenticity

Formative learning often feels abstract to students. “Why do I need to revise this draft?” “Why do I need to practice this skill?” But when you’re teaching someone else, the reason becomes more clear. Your buddy needs you to know this well. Your buddy needs you to explain it clearly. Your buddy’s growth depends on your learning.

2. Visibility of Impact

In traditional formative learning, students might not see the connection between their practice and their summative performance until weeks or months later. But when you’re teaching a younger student, you see the impact immediately. Your buddy learns to read better because you practiced reading aloud. Your buddy writes better because you modeled the writing process. The cause and effect is undeniable.

3. Responsibility and Ownership

When formative learning is just for you, it’s easy to coast. But when someone else is counting on you, you show up differently. My Year 9 students took their role as mentors seriously. They wanted to be good at it. They wanted their buddies to learn. That responsibility transformed how they approached their own learning skills.

Connecting the Dots

I started this journey with peer celebrations—making formative growth visible and valued within the classroom. But ‘teaching down’ took it further. It showed students that their learning skills weren’t just for their own success. They were tools for helping others.

The progression went from “I can see my own growth, and my peers celebrate it,” to “I can use my learning skills to help someone else grow.”

This is the real goal of formative learning. Not compliance. Not grades. But the development of learners who understand that practice, feedback, and growth are lifelong, and that those processes are most meaningful when they’re in service of something bigger than ourselves.

An Invitation to Other Educators

If you’re working on shifting student mindsets about formative learning, I want to challenge you with this: Don’t just make formative learning visible. Make it purposeful.

Find ways for your students to use their learning skills in service of others. Whether that’s peer tutoring, mentoring younger students, teaching a community skill, or creating resources for others to learn from, the key is connecting practice to purpose.

How Peer Recognition Transformed Student Attitudes Toward Formative Learning

The Challenge We Identified

Here’s a problem I have seen in classrooms everywhere: students view formative practice (ie. non-graded work) as a “warm-up” to the “real work”—summative assessments. They ask, “Will this be graded?” rather than “What will I learn?” This mindset disconnects them from the learning process itself and prevents them from understanding how practice builds mastery.

My specific challenge was this: How might we help students unlearn the belief that only graded work matters, and instead see formative practice as the foundation for genuine learning and summative success?

I knew the root issue wasn’t a lack of practice opportunities. It was a lack of visibility—students couldn’t see their own growth, and they didn’t understand how their daily practice connected to their summative performance.

The Design Thinking Process

Through a Design Thinking process, I explored three potential solution pathways:

1. Connect formative practice to summative assessments by using learning skills from formative work to guide summative tasks
2. Celebrate the formative process and student progress to help them see the value in all learning
3. Intentionally track student growth without focusing on grades, so they can see their development over time

As I dug deeper, I realized these three ideas weren’t competing—they were interconnected. But I needed to start somewhere. So I asked myself: What’s the one lever I can pull that will create immediate, visible impact?

The answer: peer recognition and celebration.

The Experiment: Student of the Week

Here’s what I designed and implemented:

A weekly peer celebration period where students recognize one classmate who has shown remarkable learning and growth. Before/after comparisons of student work (Week 1 vs. Week 4) made the growth tangible and visible.

The Setup:

• Every Friday, we dedicated 10 minutes at the end of class to peer recognition
• Students nominated one peer based on observable growth in their formative work—not grades, but progress
• The nominated student shared a before/after example of their work and reflected on what they learned
• The class celebrated together

Why I chose this approach: Peer recognition is powerful because it’s social, immediate, and shifts classroom culture. When students see their peers valued for growth rather than perfection, the message becomes clear: learning is a process, and progress matters.

What Actually Happened

The results surprised me in the best way.

Student Engagement Shifted: A few days after the first celebration, I noticed students were more engaged in formative practice. They weren’t asking “Will this be graded?” anymore. Instead, they were asking, “Can I use this for my before/after comparison?” The practice itself became the goal, not the grade.

Peer Recognition Created Positive Accountability: Students started paying attention to each other’s growth. They noticed improvements in their classmates’ work that I might have missed. This peer awareness created a positive accountability cycle. Students wanted to show growth because they knew their peers were watching and celebrating it.

Formative Learning Was Reframed: By celebrating growth publicly and consistently, there was a fundamental change in how students talked about their learning. The narrative shifted from “Did I get a good grade?” to “How have I grown?” That’s the mindset shift I was after.

What’s Next?

This pilot was successful enough with one class that I have decided to scale it. Next term, I will roll out the peer celebration system with at least two more classes. 

I have also explored how to involve families by sharing the experience with the student of the week’s parents by email. Seeing their child’s before/after work and understanding the growth journey their student is on provides even further encouragement.

I am also documenting this more systematically. I will continue to collect student work samples, recording reflections, and tracking summative performance data. By April, I’ll have a fuller picture of the impact.

Why This Matters Beyond My Classroom

Here’s what I want to share with other educators: You don’t need a complete overhaul to shift student mindsets about learning. You need one powerful lever.

For me, that lever was peer recognition. For you, it might be something different. But the design thinking process of identifying the real problem, exploring multiple solutions, testing one focused experiment, and repeating based on real feedback, is the framework that works.

Students want to see themselves as learners. They want to understand how their effort connects to their success. They want to be celebrated for growth, not just grades. We just have to create the conditions for that to happen.

My peer celebration system did that. And now my students are showing me what’s possible when formative learning is visible, valued, and celebrated.

If you’re struggling with the same challenge, I’d love to hear from you. What levers are you pulling in your classroom? What’s working? What surprised you?