Mistakes Cause The Brain To Grow

The brain has an interesting way of reacting when a mistake is made.  When a mistake is made, electrical impulses travel through the brain causing one of two things to happen.

First, there is increased electrical activity due to the belief the brain itself is conflicted between knowing the right answer and making a mistake. This happens even if the person does not know they made an error.  The second occurs when the person is aware they made a mistake and pays attention to that mistake.

Mistakes cause our brain to grow, even when we are not aware we made a mistake because the brain is aware and struggles with it. Just because we make mistakes does not mean we are not math people.  It means we are leaning and growing.  The ability to grow is referred to as brain plasticity which is the ability to change, grow, and rewire as needed. 

Researchers have taken scans of the brain which shows the brain does grow when we make mistakes because there are more synapses firing than before.  Unfortunately, the fear people have of failure can prevent them from trying more challenging things which is opposite to the truth.  Failure helps our brains develop.  As your brain grows, you acquire more mastery of the topic until you have learned it.

Furthermore, we need to make sure our classrooms are mistake friendly rather than unfriendly.  When the classroom is perceived as mistake friendly, students are willing to work harder.  A mistake friendly classroom means that mistakes are valued and so is all student thinking rather than just a few.  Students should not feel ashamed of any mistakes they make, especially if they can connect mistakes with improved brain function. It is important we help students understand that making mistakes is helping us learn. 

Unfortunately, people and students often feel as if making mistakes means they are not good at math.  This is not true. They just need practice.  It has been suggested that we praise their perseverance on solving a problem, their use of different ideas to solve a problem rather than telling them they are smart can change their self image.

Often the attitude that effort is the same thing as innate ability can influence their decision to try a problem.  In other words, if they thing a problem is too hard, they won't even try because they think they will never be good at math.  In addition, some teachers spend too much time on getting the right answer rather than understanding the process so they can work any problem.

So take time to celebrate the mistake, focus on the process, so students want to learn.  I read a suggestion from my current book where the author suggests the teacher use the words not yet rather than a failing grade and take time during class to grade a paper with the student to discuss mistakes rather than grading and returning it.  I want to try this to in the hopes to make it more acceptable to make mistakes.

Let me know what you think.  I may or may not be on everyday because the relay tower is covered in ice and my internet is down more than up.  In fact, the internet is sporadic at school and may be slightly more reliable since they set up a special dish.  Just giving you a warming.