Wrong is The New Right

"Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes." - John Dewey

In the commercial above, a widely known successful basketball player admits his success is due to failures. This is a powerful statement to embrace failure and encourage a growth mindset.

Encouraging mistakes in the classroom might possibly be the best teaching strategy a teacher can implement.  Research shows that mistakes make our brain grow, whereas when we get an answer correct, there are no changes to the brain.  Making mistakes allows for learning opportunities and opportunities for reflection. Therefore, if Michael Jordan had never failed, he would have never learned how to improve and he may never have come to be known as the greatest basketball player ever. Celebrating mistakes and failures will encourage students to shift their thinking of mistakes from a negative to a positive learning experience.

In my recent placement of a 7/8 classroom, I lead a math lesson that was centered around mistakes.  The unit we were working on was algebra and students were given a worksheet to practice.  At the end of the day, my associate and I went through the worksheets and grouped them together into piles to determine who understood, who needed some help and who completely misunderstood key concepts.

While we were sorting, we came across some interesting findings in students work.  We decided to use these mistakes as a learning opportunity for the next lesson.  We tag teamed the lesson and ensured to be positive and encouraging throughout it as we highlighted mistakes from the papers. We used the app Educreations to place student answers on the smart board and then posed our selves in such a way where in we would say

“We really liked how this person did this, what do you think happened?”

By posing the question in this manner, we provided students with an opportunity for open discussion in which all ideas were valued equally. Even when some were incorrect, the students were able to analyze and problem solve as a group.

Students would then reflect and use critical thinking skills to determine not only where the mistake occurred, but why the mistake occurred. We found that the whole class was engaged primarily when we allowed the students who were placed in the "needing help pile" equal voice in the group discussion.  

The different piles generally reflected the different attitudes towards math. The individuals in the "needing help pile" were typically the students who self identified as not being math people. By encouraging an environment in which mistakes were valued equally, core math concepts were reinforced through trial and error without judgment. These students then were given the tools and support needed to gain confidence in their math abilities.

I can not take credit for this lesson.  Last year I watched a video titled My Favourite No, wherein a teacher conducts a similar warm up lesson.  To me, the most valuable piece of this lesson is that it gets students to reflect on math concepts more in depth. This provides students with a deeper understanding of what it is they're learning.

This reflection piece is vital to creating a culture where mistakes are welcomed because individuals are inherently afraid to make mistakes, especially in front of their peers. We need to move away from this outdated way of thinking, as we know now that mistakes enhance learning. We know now that there is not just one right answer and even when we are wrong, there is always a learning opportunity in that mistake.

So, lets break away from this dichotomy of right vs. wrong and start finding the right in the wrong.