There Is Brilliance In Every Thoughtful Wrong Answer

This past week I gave each of my students a math problem to do on an index card - collected each of them - sorted them into right and wrong stacks - then decided on one wrong answer to present to the class.  Here are two examples of student work from this past week - one has the correct answer (top) and the other has the wrong answer (bottom).  This idea comes from the activity 'My Favorite No' - video link - this activity is not just a math activity but can be used in any subject area.

This school year I have tried to embrace two driving philosophies in my classroom - 'Variety is the spice of life' (an effort to bring excitement into the classroom) and 'There is brilliance in every thoughtful wrong answer'.

I listened to a webinar last year (Dan Myers) where the guests were talking about how teachers encourage students to try (persevere) and to create a safe environment for making mistakes.  One of the guests (sorry, I cannot remember their name) suggested that there is brilliance in every wrong answer.  I was not real sure about the idea until I started thinking about it and what it looks like in the classroom.  Then I realized that if I changed my mindset of 'correcting errors' to 'identifying points of brilliance' that this could change my students' attitudes toward the challenging skills of math.

But what I was not prepared for was the impact that it had on my instructional decisions.  In order to have mistakes, I had to create opportunities for students to make mistakes - which meant giving students problems to work on (easy enough).  To see the mistakes, I had to be able to see the work - which meant having students write out their thinking so that it was visual.  At this point, I could then talk with students about their 'brilliance' (correctness) and offer insights into what needs to be corrected.

To model for students, I engage in a whole group analysis of the problem - focusing on what is correct in the problem (the brilliance).  And then we discuss what the mistake is.  There are times when we do this whole class and there are times that we do this individually - the idea that individual students can think critically ('The Magic of Mistakes' - Colin Seale).  Critical thinking is a challenge for many students who struggle with certain skills - they need the practice and reinforcement that they are 'brilliant' (correct) in parts of the problem and just need to learn from the small mistakes they do make.

During these difficult times of a pandemic, where students are in and out of the classroom due to no fault of their own, we need to build student confidence and allow students to thrive at every opportunity we can when we do have them inside the classroom.

I encourage you to allow students to make mistakes and go beyond that by having students show their brilliance because each and every student is brilliant in our District - sometimes we just need to show them how brilliant they are.

Give yourself grace during these difficult times and if you have then give yourself more grace.

Teaching and still loving it,  

Kevin Stott                           

De Anza Middle School      

Math 8 & Integrated Math I