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8 Reasons Making Mistakes in Math is the Good thing

Author: Vnaya Education
by Vnaya Education
Posted: Jan 10, 2018

Mathematic is like a puzzle game where the people often get stuck when solving the problems. Far too often, math is seen as a subject that is either right or wrong, and so you better get the answers right or you’ll fail the test. And while it is technically true that we want students to understand math concepts deeply and be able to correctly solve math problems, creating this kind of mindset can cause students to feel frustration and a sense of failure anytime a mistake is made. The reality, however, is that mistakes are a part of the learning process, and we should be teaching and encouraging kids (and ourselves!) to see mistakes as an opportunity for growth and deeper understanding.

  1. Making a mistake is a part of practice- As a classroom teacher, nothing frustrated me more than students coming to class with empty homework assignments and the excuse, "But I didn’t know how to do it." You will never learn until you try. Many of the world’s greatest leaders and inventors saw an unbelievable amount of failure before finding success. But their successes would never have happened if they simply sat back and said, "But I don’t know how!"
  2. Heavyweight working for the brain- The brain is like a muscle that needs to be used and exercised in order to be strengthened. Wrestling with challenging problems is good and important work for your brain!
  3. You get the ownership for the subject- Although many see the classroom teacher’s role as that of lecturer, the truth is students will learn and remember more if they take ownership of their learning and discover solutions for themselves. When students can recognize mistakes and then take time to understand why it’s wrong and how to fix it, they own the understanding and have not simply relied on the teacher to give them the answer.
  4. It makes you aware about what thing won’t work- Understanding what doesn’t work is just as valuable in the learning process as knowing the correct method and solution. As Thomas Edison said, Negative results are just what I want. They’re just as valuable to me as positive results. I can never find the thing that does the job best until I find the ones that don’t."
  5. You might find some unique or different concepts- Sometimes trying an ineffective method to solve a problem leads to other important mathematical ideas and discussions that might never have been had otherwise. Just because you don’t find the correct answer to the current problem does not mean you can’t learn some other important math fact or concept.
  6. The Better grip of the concepts- When you have spent time working out a challenging problem but have not yet found the solution, you can still explain what the question is asking and why what you’ve tried hasn’t worked. Maybe your solution is wrong because you didn’t rightly understand the question in the first place, but now you do. This is valuable math learning.
  7. You lead to the correct solution- This goes back to #1: You’ll never solve it if you never try. Maybe you get it wrong on the first (or tenth) try, but seeing why that’s wrong may point you in the right direction so that you are able to solve it eventually.
  8. Mistakes make you faster and more intellectual- If all you ever do is solve math problems that are easy for you and you never get any wrong, it will not mean much or feel like much of an accomplishment. But what victory and pride you’ll feel when you’ve gotten ten wrong answers and then finally find the solution!

Mistakes should be considered as the part of learning more as this happens like same in actuall. Never get down if you are doing a lots of mistakes, keep on learning the mathematics and you will grow really soon.

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Author: Vnaya Education

Vnaya Education

Member since: Oct 05, 2017
Published articles: 1

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