The Importance of Winning Streaks in Student Learning

When I was in high school, I was a member of a highly successful, nationally ranked basketball team.  As a Junior, our team was ranked 4th in the nation and #1 in the state of CA, and as a senior we were ranked 6th in the nation.  The summer going into my junior year, we even won a national championship against state AAU teams in a Las Vegas tournament.

In these two years, our team won 66 games and lost only 4 times.  When you win with this type of regularity (and often times dominance), you have coaches that never allow anyone to get complacent, and every player on the team is always giving 100%, our team developed a confidence that we would not lose. 

The Importance of Winning Streaks

With this basketball team, even when we played teams that were bigger, stronger, more athletic, or had a player of greater national prominence, we were confident that we would win. We expected to win.

Just as winning in sports develops confidence in its players, being successful or winning in school, develops confidence in students.

 In “Winning Streaks,” by Dr. Steven Weber , he writes how retired legendary Duke University coach Mike Krzyzewski has said, “The key to winning is to avoid losing twice in a row." He meant that if you lose once and fix it, you can remain confident. Losing twice, though, can raise questions, crack that confidence, and make recovery more difficult.”

 Weber continues,

"So when learners suffer a failure, we must get them back to success as quickly as possible to restore their confidence in their capabilities."

 Assessment Through the Students Eyes

There’s an article, “Assessment Through the Student’s Eyes”, that should be read and discussed by every teacher and their staff in every school in America. In this article, Rick Stiggins writes, “Historically, a major role of assessment has been to detect and highlight differences in student learning in order to rank students according to their achievement. Such assessment experiences have produced winners and losers. Some students succeed early and build on winning streaks to learn more as they grow; others fail early and often, falling farther and farther behind…As we all know, the mission of schools has changed. Today's schools are less focused on merely sorting students and more focused on helping all students succeed in meeting standards.

This evolution in the mission of schools means that we can't let students who have not yet met standards fall into losing streaks, succumb to hopelessness, and stop trying.”

BrainPOP Provides Winning Streaks for Students

Most people know that BrainPOP makes learning engaging, and effective for students of all levels to practice and apply complex, grade-level skills while deepening comprehension alongside content knowledge and domain-specific vocabulary across ELA, social studies, math, and science.

What many do not know, is that BrainPOP now offers Insights Reports, that help teachers and school administrators deliver and monitor meaningful learning experiences to students.

BrainPOP’s new reports turn those teachable moments into easily trackable instructional insights on students’ literacy skill growth. Teachers and administrators can now:

These reports show how and where students are practicing literacy skills and gives teachers data to make informed instructional decisions. With these reports, teachers can view individual student proficiency, or see an entire classroom's performance. These reports give teachers the insights they need to differentiate instruction and support every students' needs.

Watch this video on Tracking with Teacher Reporting to see how BrainPOP can be used for measurable gains.

To Empower Kids to Shape the World Around Them & Within Them

BrainPOP's mission is "To empower kids to shape the world around them and within them." With BrainPOP's new Insights Reports, teachers and administrators can now drive instructional impact in ways that build and measure the skills needed to thrive in tomorrow's world.

*The views and opinions expressed in this article are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities within BrainPOP.