Students are in school to learn. We learn most efficiently when we make mistakes. Understanding how students make mistakes and the various types of mistakes that can happen can help teachers to provide feedback.
Julian Edge describes three types of mistakes
- Slips-miscalculations that students make that they can fix themselves
- Errors-Mistakes students cannot fix on their own but require assistance
- Attempts-A student tries but does not yet know how to do it
It is the last two as a teacher that we are most concern. Helping students with errors and providing assistants with attempts is critical to the development of student learning.
Assessing Students
Students need to know at least two things whenever they are given feedback
- What they did well (positive feedback)
- What they need to do in order to improve (constructive feedback)
Positive feedback provides students with an understanding of what they have mastered. Whatever they did correctly are…
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