Once upon a time during my first year teaching, I was passing out graded tests and I handed a barely-passing spelling test to one of my students. She took a look at it, shrugged, and said, “Well, I did my best.” Did your best? That’s what she thought was doing your best??

Not going to lie…I lost it (professionally, of course *wink*).

I was immediately heated, not because she scored poorly, but because this child had not done her best. She hadn’t used any of the spelling strategies I taught them. She hadn’t done any extra credit homework to practice or come to me during the tutoring I offered. Since she turned her test in approximately .5 seconds after I called the last word, I knew she hadn’t checked her work either. She had absolutely not done her best.

I explained that to her, but I realized, these kids have no idea what “doing your best” actually means. It’s a phrase that they hear often, but it’s rarely actually taught. Now, I’m intentional about making sure my students know what “doing your best” means through the strategies I’m going to share today.

Tips for Teaching Students What “Doing Your Best” Means

Talk About the Actions

“Do your best,” is a phrase we use all the time without actually checking that our students understand what it means. Students hear that phrase as an empty affirmation and not a directive. That leads to confusion for your students and extra frustration for you. 

I like to take a moment to talk with my students about what “doing your best” actually looks like for the particular assignment. I start off simple, “What would like look like?” Usually, the response is super general, like, “Try hard.” So I follow up with, “Okay, but what would you do if you were actually doing your best?”

Walk your students through the specific actions that someone who is truly “doing their best” would do. For example, if they are writing a body paragraph for an essay, you might give tell them that “doing their best” would probably include:

• looking over their notes again
• re-reading the passages for more evidence
• asking a peer to edit their writing 

When students know the all the steps involved in a task, they are much more likely to succeed. Tell your students what it would actually look like to do their best on an assignment, and they are much more likely to actually do that.

Show them Exemplars

Imagine you were on a Gordon Ramsey cooking competition show, and the judges have instructed you to create a five-star, Michelin quality dish. Let’s also say that the fanciest restaurant you’ve ever been to is Chili’s. No hate to the Triple Dipper, but that’s not going to get you far. You have no basis for the actual expectation. That’s the exact situation your students are in when you give an assignment without showing them what you expect. A lot of times, they don’t know what you’re actually looking for, and their automatic response is the bare minimum. 

I like to, at the very least, show a grade level exemplar for each major assignment I give. I tell them that they cannot copy the model I give but that they can use it to understand the structure (or [insert another relevant noun] lol) of the assignment. On the weeks where I’m really on my sh*t, I print a copy for each of my students to keep in their binders. It becomes a resource that they can revisit whenever they need. 

Praise Them for Effort

You already know that not all of your students will achieve your academic class goals, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try. Start praising your students for the effort they show and the actions they take that align with “doing their best.” A strategy I use that’s turned out to be very effective is shouting out students showing effort while the class is completing an assignment. If I notice that a student is going through old notes, I might say, “I love that Lizzie is looking back through her organizers for information.” It shows the class that I’m watching, and if someone else is having an issue or feeling stuck, it gives them an idea of a direction to go in.

Embed Checking Over Work and Revision into the Assignment

If you want to guarantee that your students are checking over their work or revising their writing, you’re going to have to make them. I love creating “Are you really finished?” checklists that students have to complete before they turn in work. The checklist will just include the common or frequent mistakes that a simple check would typically take care of.

For example, if my students are doing a worksheet where they have to correct a set of run-ons, the checklist might say:

• I spelled all the words in the sentence correctly.
• I have punctuation at the end of every sentence.
• My name is at the top of my paper.

Or something like that. Think about all the careless mistakes or errors that are indicative of the general, “they did not care,” attitude. Embed those things into your checklist. To make this really effective, dock points for students who inaccurately check off things on the list (as in, those who just “check” it to complete the list). If you need a checklist for complete sentences, my free Sentence Starter Pack has one that you can tape right to their desks!

To Sum Up Teaching Students What “Doing Your Best” Means…

At the end of the day, teaching students what “doing your best” really means is less about motivation and more about clarity. When we stop treating it like a vague character trait and start teaching it as a set of visible actions, students finally have something concrete to aim for. They learn that “doing your best” is not rushing, not guessing, and not giving up the second something feels hard. It is revisiting notes, using strategies, checking work, and being willing to try again. When those expectations are clear and consistently reinforced, students rise to meet them. And you spend far less time feeling frustrated by a phrase that once felt like a cop-out and far more time watching real effort show up on the page.