DOES FOCUS ON PERFORMANCE HINDER LEARNING?

Research shows, not surprisingly, that most parents, teachers, and students perceive school as a “performance zone.” In school, as in a performance, students are expected to

• do as well as they can, 
• execute flawlessly on mostly standardized tests that provide one (and only one) correct answer to each question, 
• master the material, and 
• avoid mistakes. 

We pay less attention to the “learning zone” in which

• the goal is to improve, 
• students focus is on what they have not mastered yet, and 
• mistakes are expected.

In the “learning zone,” the mistakes are result of being challenged, rather than the result of a laps of focus and unpreparedness. Eduardo Briceno offers an interesting article on "Transforming Schools from Performance to Learning," i.e. how we all operate in both "performance" and "learning" zones, and how we can improve learning by deliberately (and consciously) alternating between these two zones.