How to Honour Mistakes in a Student’s Learning Process?
posted on Oct 29, 2020
Imagine a typical classroom setting. While teaching a mathematics topic, say the teacher asks the students to solve a problem on the whiteboard.
Imagine a typical classroom setting. While teaching a mathematics topic, say the teacher asks the students to solve a problem on the whiteboard. One student goes up, makes a mistake in solving the problem and comes to the wrong result. The teacher responded saying, “wrong answer”. A second student goes up next and gets the answer right. Now, the teacher responds by saying, “good work” and moves on to the next problem. What happened here? The teacher discouraged making mistakes and appreciated intelligence. Just by looking at the right solution of the second student, did the first student learn anything? No.
The classrooms of the schools in Greater Noida function in a completely opposite way than the above. Here, mistakes are honoured and encouraged to aid in the learning process. Stumbling is a crucial part of experiential learning. Unless given the freedom to make mistakes, students do not analyse their actions and rectify their efforts. In the top schools, these are how mistakes are typically honoured. And naturally, students are better learners in these institutions as knowledge is hardly force-fed.
The immediate feedback has to be encouraging
The teacher in the above scenario can encourage the first student to learn from his/her mistake by changing the feedback given immediately. Instead of simply saying “wrong answer”, the teacher can follow it up with the statement “could you recognise where you made your mistake?” after the second student solved the problem correctly. Once communicated, the teacher can further say “remember this mistake that you made today and try to improve on that. I am sure you will not repeat the same the next time.” Such encouraging words work to not make mistakes a sin. Students understand that they are to learn from their mistakes rather than face the embarrassment of making them in front of the entire class.
The ambiance of the class must be mistake-friendly
The best school in Greater Noida West has mistake-friendly classrooms where all types of mistakes are encouraged. Students can make mistakes in pronouncing a word, meeting the deadline of an assignment, behaving with a peer or even following a particular rule. Although a few mistakes can be non-academic, their right treatment can help education. And the classroom ambiance should be accommodating and compassionate towards all such mistakes. Instead of outright punishments, the mistakes can be dealt with recognition and analysis. Exploring the root cause of the mistakes help in the rectification process.
Encourage self-learning and presenting ideas without judgement
Self-learning is driven by curiosity. And this is a tactic where students are almost driven to make mistakes as well. Equipped with their novice knowledge, students will falter, misunderstand an idea and develop the wrong perspective. But these must be met with non-judgemental and constructive criticisms where the nudge is to direct the students towards the right concepts instead of demeaning their efforts. This will make the students pursue education and present ideas fearlessly. Honouring their mistakes during self-learning will boost their curiosity and develop further intrinsic motivation to gather knowledge. The flip-classroom strategy is put to use to employ these tactics and allow students to learn from their mistakes.
Tackle frustration that accompanies mistakes
No one can uphold their motivation or drive if he/she continues to make mistakes. Hence, part of honouring mistakes also includes the process where teachers help their students to deal with the associated frustrations. The best CBSE schools in Greater Noida West thus have remedial sessions where students receive one-to-one sessions with the teachers. The ethos of learning being a continuous and rigorous process is also infused among the students. Mistakes get their deserved honour when students start to see that every error is making them better at the task the hand. The old mistakes are reducing in number and the new ones are teaching something new. These notions turn frustrations into motivations to learn and the students show more mettle to acquire education.
Nature has designed human beings to learn from their mistakes. Once we explore and analyse adequately, we rarely repeat the same slip-ups. Hence, it is only natural that schools, as institutions of learning, honour mistakes as there is indeed no better way to learn anything new in life. The BGS Vijnatham school has always been honouring mistakes rather than punishing them. The central philosophy of BGS is that learning is ongoing and long-term. Students here have the freedom to educate themselves, explore out of their curiosity and learn by faltering rather than blindly following the textbooks. Honouring mistakes early makes students confident and fearless. And they grow up to find sure shot success as their errors continue to refine them along the way.