That students will try their best to improve

This expectation relates to having a ‘growth mindset’. This is the idea that brain function can be improved like a muscle is improved through training. For example, Carol Dweck (a famous research in the growth mindset space) found that:

…students’ mindsets – how they perceive their abilities – played a key role in their motivation and achievement, and we found that if we changed students’ mindsets, we could boost their achievement. More precisely, students who believed their intelligence could be developed (a growth mindset) outperformed those who believed their intelligence was fixed (a fixed mindset).

A growth mindset, however, does need to be carefully managed by both students and teachers. In the same way that you wouldn’t over-train a muscle, the brain also needs to be encouraged to grow and develop at an appropriate pace.