Mistakes are common among students during the learning process. In returning back to school, students bring pencils and erasers among other supplies. However, students learn from a mistake. Therefore, crossing out errors instead of erasing is the better idea. Crossing out errors provides a pathway to the correct solution.
Errors help the learning process. Many schools avoid mistakes and even penalize students for them. However, students benefit from errors. Actually, they benefit from making and correcting their inaccuracies.
Schools focus on correct procedures. They praise students for correct answers and correct problem solving procedures. Thus, students fear mistakes. They fear the prospect of failing. The belief of too many failures effects their self-worth. As a result, students avoid errors to maintain their self-importance.
What To Do About Mistakes
Students must learn to work through mistakes. Teachers and parents have to teach persistence. Encourage students to explore other possibilities and keep trying.
As mistakes are worked through, and a student understands the mistake, the solution stays with the student. This is better than a strategy to solve the problem through memorization.
As a student successfully addresses a mistake, success becomes personal. Students feel their own worth through their efforts in problem solving. Also, they learn through persistence, they build a skill that leads to further learning.
Get It Wrong
Wrong answers provide teachers and parents with the strengths and weaknesses of students. It provides an understanding to teaching new content and to correct misunderstandings. In addition, it indicates where students fall in the learning of new content.
Wrong answers to problems are a way of learning the correct solution. It is not in a person’s comfort zone to make a mistake. However, the more students make errors, the more they learn.
Students move from errors and begin to extend their learning. They learn to embrace their errors and push forward into the learning process. They create a path to new learning experiences.
Mistakes are part of life. They lead to life long learning. Don’t encourage students to be perfect. Encourage them to make mistakes in the process of learning.
