Anyone who reads this blog or has read any of my books knows that I advocate collaboration–rather than competition—to increase student learning. A prime reason is that the number of winners in competition is severely restricted, usually to one. This means that competition produces more losers than winners.
A major advancement in learning would be to desist from the nearly imperceptible yet continual demoralization of K-12 students by fostering competition between students as a way to increase learning. (As I also often note, competition is a marvelous motivator to increase performance but is devastating to young people who feel that they never stand in the winner’s circle.) This very significant yet unintended consequence of academic competition contributes to the reduction … >>>
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