"A life spent making mistakes is not only most honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing" - George Bernard Shaw
- As a teacher we must accept that mistakes are a part of process of learning. So accept the mistakes of your students and instead of just pin pointing on mistakes, give them an opportunity to reflect on what and where they went wrong.
- Specifically in subjects like mathematics just grading a test paper will not help the students. They inturn should know exactly where did the mistake happen.
✓ Mistake could be because of few reasons as below:
- Confusion between concepts.
- Lack of clarity on conceptual understanding.
- Lack of concentration.
- Misapplication of operations rules.
- Lack of practice.
- Before math class, talk about “mathematical courage,” or the idea that students should ask questions when they don’t understand something, be unafraid to make mistakes, explain their thinking, listen to how other people thought about a problem, and be open to suggestions. Don't worry about taking time away from academic material. Taking time to focus on how students interact with each other, how they're feeling, and how they're behaving, will help create conditions conducive for overcoming academic challenges (KQED.org).
- A teacher who has applied learning from mistakes strategy says, "What I was finding when I was handing back tests the old way, where I put a grade on it, was kids would look at their grade, decide whether they were good at math or not, and put the test away and never look at it again,". As we know this system of just handing back the papers will reflect the grade, and does not show the path for students to improve.
- Teachers know that students learn a tremendous amount from scrutinizing their mistakes, but getting them to take the time to stop and reflect is a challenge.
Click on this link to read an article from a teacher who started learning from mistakes strategy.