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Building on Mistakes anyone?

For those of you that have attended the 2011 instructor workshops to date, has anyone tried the building on mistakes strategy yet? If so, we’d love to hear how it went.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jimmy Gialelis on April 24, 2011 at 6:29pm

Yes I have Ms. Lewis, and I have interesting results. I have noticed a phenomenon amongst younger students, there is an "all or nothing" mentality driven into their minds. Basically, it's "if I make one mistake, I'm a failure." Maybe it's an arizona thing, I'm curious as to anyone else noticing this trend in students. I tell my students it's OK to make mistakes because that's part of the learning process, after all how would someone know what "right" was if they had no idea what "wrong" was. I am sure it's a product of pop culture ("we gotta have the biggest, the best, be #1...etc.). I also believe it's a product of the huge amount of "assessments" given through elementary school. Kids have such anxiety and pressures by the time they are in 6th grade, I'm appauled by it all. It translates into adulthood from my observations.