Hi Dan! Thank you for sharing your talk. Was super interested in it.
One thought to share: I also find wrong answers to be very valuable because they can be equally telling about misconceptions around teaching—maybe a poorly designed lesson, sequence of lessons, or actual question. And even if I think my lesson was on point, it can still link back to feedback, practice strategy, or the fact that the actual question being asked just sucked or wasn't worded properly.
So many factors can contribute to the formation of a mistake, but I think a lot of the time we operate on the default assumption that considers them only from the point of view of poorly formed student conceptions.
I NEVER tell a student their answer is wrong. Instead I ask EVERY student who gives an answer to tell how they were thinking to get the solution they got. As children go through the thought process to explain their thinking, if they have made an error they often are able to correct their own mistake. This mistake then is described as a method that didn't work. If they don't see a problem then other students in the class may see where the thinking doesn't work and chime in with a question (always a question) that would help lead the student to seeing the mistake ie student: 5+5 is ten right? Then is 6+5 twelve? How much did you add to 5+5 to get 6+5? and so on ( I work with little kids K-3). Sometimes the child might be encouraged to build to show and that often shows the mistake. No wrong answers only mistakes in thinking or counting etc. I cannot tell you what a different mindset this makes in my little students and it enables them to stick with it until things make sense because they know they will.
Hi Dan! Thank you for sharing your talk. Was super interested in it.
One thought to share: I also find wrong answers to be very valuable because they can be equally telling about misconceptions around teaching—maybe a poorly designed lesson, sequence of lessons, or actual question. And even if I think my lesson was on point, it can still link back to feedback, practice strategy, or the fact that the actual question being asked just sucked or wasn't worded properly.
So many factors can contribute to the formation of a mistake, but I think a lot of the time we operate on the default assumption that considers them only from the point of view of poorly formed student conceptions.
I NEVER tell a student their answer is wrong. Instead I ask EVERY student who gives an answer to tell how they were thinking to get the solution they got. As children go through the thought process to explain their thinking, if they have made an error they often are able to correct their own mistake. This mistake then is described as a method that didn't work. If they don't see a problem then other students in the class may see where the thinking doesn't work and chime in with a question (always a question) that would help lead the student to seeing the mistake ie student: 5+5 is ten right? Then is 6+5 twelve? How much did you add to 5+5 to get 6+5? and so on ( I work with little kids K-3). Sometimes the child might be encouraged to build to show and that often shows the mistake. No wrong answers only mistakes in thinking or counting etc. I cannot tell you what a different mindset this makes in my little students and it enables them to stick with it until things make sense because they know they will.
> Instead I ask EVERY student who gives an answer to tell how they were thinking to get the solution they got.
Feels like a VERY important move so students don't learn to equate being asked how they were thinking with being told they're wrong.
Exactly!!