Finding Value in Error
Teachers, like doctors, are expected to be mistake free.
Administrators, parents, and even other teachers judge them very negatively for
making mistakes. Yet when a teacher forms strong relationships with another
teacher or two, they share their problems freely, ask for and give advice, and
learn from each other. This also happens in schools where mentor teachers share
ideas with new teachers.
9 Ways to Teach With Mistakes
The problem for students is not that they make mistakes. The
real problem is that teachers don't use those mistakes to allow and promote
learning. Because shame is currently attached to mistakes, students are afraid
to take chances, explore, and think for themselves. As a clear example of how
damaging this view can be, look at the makeup of most gifted and talented
programs. In far too many schools, the students in these classes are not the
most creative risk takers or unique thinkers. They are the students who scored
the highest on standardized tests. Therefore, we label as gifted or talented
the students who make the fewest mistakes. I believe that it's a mistake to
think of mistakes as something bad. When mistakes become learning opportunities,
everything changes. Students take more risks, think in new ways, cheat less,
and solve mysteries that had previously eluded them.
Here are some things that we can do in the classroom to
change this defeating way of thinking, including both formal and informal
evaluation processes:
Stop marking errors on tests and papers without explaining
why they're wrong. Give enough explanation to help your student understand what
went wrong and how to fix it. A big red X is insufficient.
Give students a chance to correct their mistakes and redo
their work. This allows mistakes to become learning opportunities.
Improvement must become a significant factor in the
evaluation process. The more a student improves, the higher his or her grade.
Nothing shows learning from mistakes more than improvement.
When a student makes a mistake in a class discussion, don't
say things like, "No, wrong, can anyone help him?" Don't just call on
someone else without further comment. Instead, ask the student, "Why do
you think so? Can you give an example? If you could ask yourself a question
about your answer, what would it be?"
If a teacher asks,
"Who was the first PM of the India?" and a student answers,
"Narendra Modi," instead of saying, "You're wrong," try
saying, "Narendra Modi is a PM, you're right about that. However, he
wasn't the first. Let's go further back in history." Even silly answers
can be responded to in this way.
If a student needs help with an answer, let him or her
choose a classmate to help. Call the helper something like a "personal
consultant."
Instead of (or at least in addition to) walls filled with
students' achievements, have a wall where students can brag about their biggest
mistakes and what they learned from them.
Have biweekly class meetings where students share a mistake
they made, what happened after, and what they learned.
Be sure to tell the class about your own mistakes,
especially if they are funny, and what you learned from them.
I would love to see a sign on every entrance to every school
that says, "Everyone who enters here will learn." Learning means not
being afraid to examine mistakes that teachers make and encouraging students to
think in ways that might produce mistakes. Use all these mistakes to learn
from, to improve, and to feel good about individual progress.
About the Author:
The Author is Ms. Nupoor Batra, Meenakshi Public School
www.meenakshipublicschool.com
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