Learning from Failure: Moving from Rhetoric to Meaningful Impact 

Learning from failure is a core component to education, however it is not often deliberately taught in university courses. In addition, while the rhetoric around taking risks, embracing failure, and bouncing back is pervasive in higher education, the corresponding structural and sustained supports are lacking. In this interactive session we will dive into the science of learning and explore what we know (and what we don’t know) about how to support students in learning through failure. We’ll look at strategies for teaching students to embrace, learn from, and bounce back from failure. We’ll also explore the growing rhetoric of resilience, and discuss the role power and privilege plays in having permission to fail.
About the Presenter
Dr. Fiona Rawle has a Ph.D in Pathology and Molecular Medicine and is a Professor, Teaching Stream, in the Dept. of Biology and at the Institute for the Study of University Pedagogy, at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Her research focuses on learning from failure, the science of learning, and public communication of science. She is a 2022 3M National Teaching Fellow, and is also a member of the University of Toronto’s TIDE group (Toronto Initiative for Diversity & Excellence), through which she gives lectures and workshops on unconscious bias, equity, and diversity.