I always loved Ms. Frizzle’s motto of “Get messy, make mistakes!” As educators, we want our students to be successful, which somehow translates to “don’t make mistakes.” I know that I’ve been guilty of thinking “Man! I’ve taught this concept over and over again! You would think they would have it down perfectly by now.” This is especially true when it comes to my students making mistakes in math.
As I’ve shifted away from this mindset, I’ve come up with 6 ways that I’ve been able to help my students not only identify and fix mistakes in their own work but celebrate them and recognize that they are learning.
Here are 6 ways to help your students identify and fix their mistakes in math:
1. Make Mistakes On Purpose
Each day, my students complete a spiral review with 4 questions. As they are working, I walk around, observing their work. Oftentimes, I will notice that some students are making the same mistake. When we go over the spiral review as a class, I will make the same mistake they have made on purpose. When I get the incorrect answer, I will often have a student say "That's not right!" They then get to explain where my mistake was.
One word of caution with this method: Once you are finished making the incorrect mistake, you want to make it very clear where the mistake was, and how to fix it. With the attention span of a goldfish, some students might just catch the "mistake" part, and not the "how-to-fix-the-mistake" part, and continue to solve it incorrectly.
Sometimes, I will tell my students before I solve it that I am going to make a mistake and that they need to find what I did incorrectly. This helps my students focus on the work I am doing because they are hunting for the mistake.
2. Have Students Share Out Their Mistakes
After we do our spiral review, I give the students a chance to explain mistakes that they made in their work. They get to come up to the front of the room and tell us what mistake they made and how they fixed it. My students love doing this. If I ever forget to ask "Did anyone make any mistakes they want to share?" one of my students will remind me.
I love this because it allows other students to hear where common mistakes are. They also learn that their peers make mistakes, just like they do. It really helps to build a culture of making mistakes in our classroom (which I talk more about below).
3. Use Error Analysis Activities
I love giving my students the opportunity to find mistakes. It helps them to develop critical thinking skills that they can use to solve their own math work. One of my favorite ways to do this is to grab a set of error analysis task cards that focuses on the math skill that we are working on.
There is a math problem that needs to be solved on each card. Then, someone has gone through and solved the entire problem. However, there is always some simple mistake in the work that has been done. When we do these task cards, I give my students the chance to go through the work and find the mistake. When they find the mistake, they write down what the mistake was, and then they solve it correctly.
Making error analysis task cards can be a little time-consuming though, so I’ve got a free set for you if you want to check them out. CLICK HERE to grab a FREE set of error analysis task cards for adding and subtracting fractions with like denominators.
4. Create a List of Common Mistakes Students Make
Another thing I like to do to help my students identify mistakes is to create a list together of common mistakes that students make. For example, when we are talking about multi-digit subtraction, one common mistake is that students forget to ungroup when it is necessary. We give specific examples, like trying to subtract from 0. Another mistake is that students will make is adding instead of subtracting. We create this list and post it in the classroom, so my students have something to refer back to when they are doing their math work in the future.
5. Create a Culture of Making Mistakes
I believe the most important thing that you can do to help your students find and fix their mistakes is to build a culture of having a growth mindset in your classroom. I love it when my students make mistakes because that is how they learn and grow. I tell them that each day. I praise them for making mistakes. I want them to feel like making mistakes is okay. I want them to feel like when they make mistakes they are learning.
Making mistakes easier for some students than others. I have had my fair share of students who are such perfectionists that they do not even want to try for fear of being wrong. As we build a culture of making mistakes in our classrooms, our students will feel safer in trying new things, and their confidence in their math skills will grow.
6. Change the Problem to Make the Mistake Correct
Let’s say you are reviewing multiplication facts with your class, and you come to 7 x 8 (a trickier math fact for some kids). One student says the answer is 54. Rather than stating that the answer is 56 and moving on, ask the student if they can come up with a problem where 54 would be the correct answer. This could be a good practice to do with the whole class, or in a small group. By coaching students to see that there is a context in which their answer could be correct, we are empowering them to become more flexible mathematicians in the future.
Having your students find and fix their mistakes in math can be a challenge. It takes time to build up that culture, but it is well worth it as your students can really find and identify mistakes in their work.
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