The objective of our research was to adapt, implement, and refine a professional development program focused on supporting informal educators’ instructional practices on ways to plan for and respond to youths’ experiences with failure will have a positive impact on developing participants’ pedagogical practices around failure, as well as developing youths’ affinity for resilience during making tasks and a strong sense of self as a maker.

research highlights

  1. Failure is a learning opportunity—for youth and educators1, 3
    • Educators often shifted from focusing only on youths’ failures to reflecting on their own professional failures.
    • Video reflection helped surface tensions between beliefs and practice, turning moments of discomfort into growth.
  1. Reflection works best when it’s social, situated, and scaffolded2, 3, 6
    • PD worked best when educators reflected in their own settings and with peers, fostering communities of support.
    • When educators reflected together, they began to recognize failure as a relational, interpretive experience, not just a deficit.
  1. Culture shapes how we talk about (and hide) failure4, 6
    • Educators’ practices are shaped by cultural narratives that frame failure as something to avoid—leading some to hide failure or avoid the word entirely in visitor-facing contexts.
    • Empathy emerged as educators imagined failure from learners’ perspectives (sometimes even recalling their own childhood experiences of failure), which humanized and reframed what failure means in practice.
    • Educators’ moments of perceived failure became catalysts for questioning established norms and expectations around how failure “should” be managed; turning discomfort into a driver for reimagined instructional stances.
  1. Practical strategies can foster productive moments of failure1, 3, 5
    • Iteration can be co-constructed when educators support learners in noticing, interpreting, and responding to failures.
    • Effective moves include: asking reflective questions, revoicing learners’ language, and creating “playfail” (playful dissonance) to spark noticing.
    • Through PD cycles, educators also developed new instructional approaches that promoted persistence, modeled vulnerability, and reinforced failure as part of success.

key takeaways

  • Design PD to be in situ and community-oriented rather than isolated.
  • Encourage educators to openly name and reflect on their own “failure moments.”
  • Use video reflection to help educators see and refine their own moves around failure.
  • Conversations about failure should not only challenge deficit narratives but also invite perspective-taking and empathy: What might this moment feel like for a learner? For a peer? For parents? How might this be similar to your own experiences with failure?
  • Equip educators with questioning techniques that prioritize interpretation over quick fixes.
  • Normalize playful approaches that invite learners into co-construction of iteration.
  • Encourage educators to model vulnerability and persistence, reinforcing a culture where failure is seen as a natural part of learning.

Selected References

[1] Simpson, A., Anderson, A., Goeke, M., Caruana, D., & Maltese, A. V. (2025). Identifying and shifting educators’ failure pedagogical mindsets through reflective practices. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(1), 26-40. http://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12658

[2] Simpson, A., Anderson, A., Maltese, A. V., Penney, L., & Paul, K. (2025). Co-adapting a reflective video-based professional development in informal STEM education. Education Sciences, 15(3), Article 353. https://doi.org/10.3390/ educsci15030353

[3] Simpson, A., Maltese, A. V., Paul, K., & Penney, L. (2024). Failure in focus: Unpacking the impact of video-based reflections on museum educator practices. Proceedings of the 131th meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education, Portland, OR. https://peer.asee.org/46853

[4] Simpson, A., Osterhout, A., Anderson, A., & Maltese, A. V. (2025). Museum educators’ perspective of failure: A collective frame analysis. Curator: The Museum Journal, 68(3), 473-483. https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12662

[5] Simpson, A.,Osterhout, A., Anderson, A., Maltese, A. V., & Ruisi, J. (2024). Co-construction of iteration through failure moments: Interactions between museum educators and visitors. Visitor Studies, 27(2), 184-206. https://doi.org/10.1080/10645578.2024.2400031

[6] Simpson, A., Tan, J., Penney, L., Anderson, A., & Maltese, A. V. (Accepted). Feeling through failure: The role of epistemic empathy in the professional growth of museum educators. Learning, Culture and Social Interactions.