...or perhaps you’ve been one for years!
With nearly every child across the globe working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis of 2020, many parents are now working more closely than ever with their children in an effort to maintain a continuity of learning as best we can under the current circumstances.
Whether you are a teacher in the classroom or a parent who is reading this during our current reality of learning-from-home, it is important to know that the way we respond to the math answers given by children plays a critical role in how they think about their own reasoning.
When learners make mistakes, it's almost a reflex to say, "No, that's not correct" – not because we are trying to shut down thinking, but because it's efficient. It saves time and energy and we do it as a way to prevent the learner from going down the wrong pathway of thinking. Saying "NO" is a great strategy when we need to prevent someone from touching something hot or walking across a busy road without checking for traffic, but... when it comes to learning, it is important to invest a few more moments of time encouraging learners to evaluate and justify their ideas.
Here's the interesting part:
We can assess learning by asking the exact same questions whether the given answer is right or wrong.
By asking questions that are reflective, learners engage more deeply with the problem and will often self-correct their own thinking when it's needed (this is powerful!).
Perhaps you're thinking, "Well, that's not very efficient at all – isn't it faster to just tell them that the answer is wrong and ask them to try again?" Well, yes, that IS faster – asking reflective questions is not the most efficient path to let a child know that the answer given was wrong, but it is the ONLY path for helping to develop a true understanding of the math that is in front of them.
The next time your child/student makes a math mistake, rather than saying, "No, that is not correct", try out one of these replies to promote deeper thinking and greater problem solving – We may be surprised at how much we can learn from a wrong answer.
Some reflective questions to try when discussing math with a child:
Exciting sidenote: I talked to a parent this week who couldn't wait to share that she tried this strategy of asking reflective questions instead of saying, “wrong”. She told me that she was nervous because she didn’t really understand the work her child was doing and wasn’t sure how she would be able to help. By the time mom and child were done, the child had a full understanding (and so did mom!). So... you don’t actually have to know the correct answer or understand the strategy that was used before asking reflective questions to gauge your child’s level of understanding (and that is just another brilliant feature of reflective questions!)
