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Thread: Making Mistakes
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    Sara S's Avatar
    Sara S
    Auntie Wacco

    Making Mistakes

    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
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