Is making a mistake better?
This is the question I was asked by a stage 4 student this week, while I was introducing the maths unit. I was explaining that getting the correct answer was good but so was getting the wrong answer – as long as you take the time to find out what went wrong.
Making a mistake provides an opportunity to review our work, reflect on our understanding and clarify or correct our skills so that we are more likely to remember them in the future. By making mistakes, we also start to recognise what can go wrong and avoid it in the future.
So is making a mistake better? Well it isn’t a yes or no answer, but I certainly encourage the students to welcome mistakes and learn from them, and they will find over time that they make far fewer mistakes.
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