from delancyplace.com:
In today's encore excerpt - making errors is normal, and making mistakes is a necessary
part of learning. In Teach Like a Champion, Doug Lemov's brilliant distillation
of forty-nine techniques for teachers to use to improve student performance, he
writes that teachers should normalize error and avoid chastening students for getting
things wrong. (Lemov's book has application far beyond the classroom):
"Error followed by correction and instruction is the fundamental process of schooling.
You get it wrong, and then you get it right. If getting it wrong and then getting
it right is normal, teachers should normalize error and respond to both parts of
this sequence as if they were totally and completely normal. After all, they are.
WRONG ANSWERS: DON'T CHASTEN; DON'T EXCUSE
"Avoid chastening wrong answers, for example, 'No, we already talked about this.
You have to flip the sign, Ruben.' And do not make excuses for students who get
answers wrong: 'Oh, that's okay, Charlise. That was a really hard one.' In fact,
if wrong answers are truly a normal and healthy part of the learning process, they
don't need much narration at all.
"It's better, in fact, to avoid spending a lot of time talking about wrongness and
get down to the work of fixing it as quickly as possible. Although many teachers
feel obligated to name every answer as right or wrong, spending time making that
judgment is usually a step you can skip entirely before getting to work. For example,
you could respond to a wrong answer by a student named Noah by saying, 'Let's try
that again, Noah. What's the first thing we have to do?' or even, 'What's the first
thing we have to do in solving this kind of problem, Noah?' This second situation
is particularly interesting because it remains ambiguous to Noah and his classmates
whether the answer was right or wrong as they start reworking the problem. There's
a bit of suspense, and they will have to figure it out for themselves. When and
if you do name an answer as wrong, do so quickly and simply ('not quite') and keep
moving. Again, since getting it wrong is normal, you don't have to feel badly about
it. In fact, if all students are getting all questions right, the work you're giving
them isn't hard enough.
RIGHT ANSWERS: DON'T FLATTER; DON'T FUSS
"Praising right answers can have one of two perverse effects on students. If you
make too much of fuss, you suggest to students - unless it's patently obvious that
an answer really is exceptional - that you're surprised that they got the answer
right. And as a variety of social science research has recently documented, praising
students for being 'smart' perversely incents them not to take risks (apparently
they worry about no longer looking smart if they get things wrong), in contrast
to praising students for working hard, which incents them to take risks and take
on challenges.
"Thus, in most cases when a student gets an answer correct, acknowledge that the
student has done the work correctly or has worked hard; then move on:
" 'That's right, Noah. Nice work.' Champion teachers show their students they expect
both right and wrong to happen by not making too big a deal of either. Of course,
there will be times when you want to sprinkle in stronger praise ('Such an insightful
answer, Carla. Awesome'). Just do so carefully so that such praise isn't diluted
by overuse."
[Editor's note: We were reminded of this principle recently when touring the Franklin
Institute's nationally recognized Science Leadership Academy and finding that the
powerful learning mantra of the engineering department was "fail early, fail often."]
Author: Doug Lemov
Title: Teach Like a Champion
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Date: Copyright 2010 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Pages: 221-223
Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College
by Doug Lemov by Jossey-Bass
Paperback