M. Ruth Elliott

One challenge of teaching Penn students is summed up in the common aphorism—“Perfect is the enemy of good.” All Penn students are capable of striving for excellence. That is, they can challenge themselves to complete rigorous work with the goal of improving. The problem is that they often strive for perfection, which means they try to avoid even temporary failures, thus inhibiting true growth. As instructors we aim to create an environment that requires excellence but discourages perfectionism in our students—we want students to engage in our courses with the goal of learning and not with the goal of getting a good grade without achieving any new understanding. 

There are a number of ways students exhibit perfectionist tendencies. They obsess about points because they obsess over meeting only the highest standards; they can’t give concise answers because they want to show everything they know; they struggle to start assignments because they fear trying something new and not succeeding. These students place their self-value in perceived performance rather than accepting their own inherent value, which will allow them to become resilient in the face of obstacles. When students relay these concerns to me outside of class, I find that listening to discern if the problem the student brings to me is rooted in a student’s perfectionist tendencies can provide me a chance to encourage the right goals, motivate the right study habits, and assure students of their capacity to succeed.

That conversation, however, is easier said than done. I want to consider specific ways we can actually implement strategies that encourage excellence in our students and avoid perfectionism.

1. Practice what you preach. Don’t just diagnose perfectionist tendencies in the classroom—put this analysis to the mirror. As teachers we have a unique capacity in the classroom to set the tone for the space and to be an example of the type of learner we want our students to be. I used to feel pressure to have more knowledge than my students in my subject area, and now I tell them I’m glad I can learn from their knowledge and experiences. I no longer worry about being self-aware in front of the class, instead teasing myself or making fun of my own idiosyncrasies. When they ask an incisive question to which I don’t know the answer, I sometimes tell them, congratulations, you have the same questions I do! I admit openly that I’m trying new things with course structure or exam questions, and ask for their feedback so I too can grow. The easiest way to create a positive and warm learning environment is to simply geek out about the things you’re learning in the discipline yourself, so students feel comfortable not knowing everything yet, because the great truth is…you don’t either!
2. Build in flexibility with assignments and lower the stakes. I give daily or weekly quizzes, but students can drop half of them throughout the semester. This gives students a chance to adjust their study methods to the class and your style of assessment, to use trial and error without penalty on early assignments, and to enter a feedback loop where early poor performance becomes an opportunity for the instructor to check in with students and suggest options for a trajectory change.
3. Re-brand some assignments as “projects” (even if not explicitly). Projects have a built-in timeline where brainstorming and drafting and implementing feedback from the instructor are expected but not graded. Semester-long research projects are a typical example of this but also I give regular homework assignments spaced weeks apart so that students have a chance to work together, try and fail, and ask questions before finalizing their answers. These tend to feel more rewarding for students and less intimidating because there is plenty time to be confused, make errors, collaborate, and correct their understanding before it is graded. 
4. Encourage collaboration but be careful how you assess it. My goals for group work are for students to explore applications of key concepts, give possible interpretations of data, be creative and flexible in their ideas, grow in critical thinking, attempt a difficult problem, articulate the right questions, and generally to be curious!  If these are my goals, detailing benchmarks for them or insisting on some proof of productivity from them at the end of class is actually counterproductive and frustrating at best. I set up class to consist of group work where assigned groups have designated in-class problems for the groups to work on before we discuss it as a class. Though I don’t grade the group work, most students come to realize that their scores on homework and exams suffer if they haven’t made the best of their time in class and in groups, and so the accountability as well as the gratification from these efforts happens, though it is delayed.  
5. Teach students to verbalize (good) questions. Perfectionists especially can stay stuck for too long before asking themselves or their instructors the right questions. Find ways to require students to ask questions: ask them to post questions on an online forum, write them on paper and turn them in at the beginning or end of class, or even have them attempt writing quiz or exam questions for their upcoming assessments. Projects are also ways for students to formulate and then answer their own questions about a topic of choice. Good questions are self-aware—they don’t hog space in the classroom, show off, or insist on an instructor giving them a value judgment (ie “is this [answer] right or wrong?”) but rather do a fair self-assessment of their own work first. Good questions ask for clarifications of concepts, or identify the assumptions one made as they reached their conclusion. Or let them work in groups before asking questions, because I find often students are more willing to ask questions once they’ve discussed it with their peers first.

My desire is for students to understand that knowledge is a gift to be received, rather than a metric by which we obtain our value. But as each of us grows in knowledge, we have more responsibility to apply that knowledge in our lives. The advantage to striving for excellence is that one overcomes obstacles resiliently, seeks new challenges eagerly, and finds satisfaction in having changed or improved. Temporary setbacks, unpredictability, the possibility of conflict, and the making of errors are pivotal to the process of growth and so need to be more welcome in learning activities. I aim for my classes to present students with an opportunity to be curious, to wonder, to build, to grow, to collaborate, and so I myself am striving for excellence in the classroom in these ways, though, of course, I don’t do it perfectly.

M. Ruth Elliott is a lecturer in biochemistry for the College of Liberal and Professional Studies at Penn.

This essay continues the series that began in the fall of 1994 as the joint creation of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Lindback Society for Distinguished Teaching. See https://almanac.upenn.edu/talk-about-teaching-and-learning-archive for previous essays.