The Power of Mistakes and Struggle
Today, the math in my class was all about the struggle. I posed a challenging problem in class and I was hoping to look for strategies children were using as they struggled. I also noticed children's body language and facial expression as they struggled. It was interesting to see that most of them were trying something to figure out the 'answer', the 'right' answer. When they felt they had the answer, their math talk stopped. There was nothing more left for them to do as in their minds they were 'done'. It is interesting that the messages we send about mistakes and wrong answers as well as about right answers really lead to the way student act in class. In fact I struggled to debrief the math today because it was really students' attitude I was debriefing and not the math strategies themselves. Nancy, my teaching partner suggested that I should ask students what they did when they were struggling. I read parts of pages 2-4 from the book to the students and they were quite amazed with the idea of "brain plasticity" and the possibility of our brains to grow.
Today, the math in my class was all about the struggle. I posed a challenging problem in class and I was hoping to look for strategies children were using as they struggled. I also noticed children's body language and facial expression as they struggled. It was interesting to see that most of them were trying something to figure out the 'answer', the 'right' answer. When they felt they had the answer, their math talk stopped. There was nothing more left for them to do as in their minds they were 'done'. It is interesting that the messages we send about mistakes and wrong answers as well as about right answers really lead to the way student act in class. In fact I struggled to debrief the math today because it was really students' attitude I was debriefing and not the math strategies themselves. Nancy, my teaching partner suggested that I should ask students what they did when they were struggling. I read parts of pages 2-4 from the book to the students and they were quite amazed with the idea of "brain plasticity" and the possibility of our brains to grow.
Your observations are so interesting to me. As I reflect on myself as a learner I am very much the opposite. When I struggle I actually find that I need to disengage from communicating with others so that I can give myself a chance to understand the problem and where it is I might need to ask for help. Once I find the answer I am better to talk through my thinking and listen to another perspective that I might not have thought of. Yet in real life when the answer can be one of many things you are right I do tend to survey for opinions and weigh all the options before reaching a final conclusion myself. I suppose it might depend on the context??
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