Learning from student mistakes
There are implications, too, for our attitudes to failure in the classroom. If mistakes are essential to learning, to what extent do we design teaching to produce mistakes? Or do we instead stigmatize failure by sending students the message that we do not expect mistakes and that successful learning means notmaking errors ? One way to minimize mistakes is to assign tasks within students’ comfort zones. If tasks are relatively easy, failure is unlikely. But so too is learning. Successful learning is most likely when students are given challenges beyond their comfort zones – challenges that stretch and extend them to the point of making mistakes from which they can learn. A first requirement then is a willingness to see mistakes not as something to be avoided, but as something to be embraced. This has implications for both teachers and students. Much teaching is focused on creating conditions for student success. But effective teaching often means providing opportunities for...
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