The reality show “The Voice” offers vocal contestants the opportunity to sing for four popular musical entertainment artists in a blind audition. The coaches’ chairs are faced towards the audience during rookie artists’ performances; those interested in an artist press their button. .

What if in education we had “the lesson?” What if there was only a auditory recording of the teacher in classroom? What would you hope to hear? Based on the words used, expression, tone, and volume-what qualities would you use to pick your teacher artist?

Use the link below to share what you would want to hear.
Share here

Entertainment, in many forms , thrives on the sensationalizing of struggle and then success. The culture of error is not always as entertaining when we are a part of it. However, feedback and learning are strongest in the presence of error. Making it safe to be wrong is one of the most powerful gifts a teacher can provide students in his or her classroom. Here is a link to an example of a classroom for which time to think, process and support errors are valued.

Culture of Error

Teachers must plan the classroom to be alert to learning failures (“error”) as soon as it begins occurring. This is why designing formative assessments toward your target and goal are critical. Like a driver using a rear-view mirror–good drivers check them every five seconds. Click here to connect to 56 examples of formative assessments. Having a plan after providing the formative assessment is important for being responsive to student errors.
Students have a part of in the culture of error process, too. They can work to hide their errors from their teacher (most are skilled at this), in which case they are much harder to see, or they can willingly expose their errors without fear of embarrassment. Knowing the learning targets and learning goal, knowing what it looks like to hit the target and having this insight to share exactly which part difficult is a a great start to creating the positive culture of error.

Mentors-Talk with your mentee about dignifying errors and helping students with think time. I like to use the acronym of 3 R’s when a student answers a question wrong-Restate the question, Reduce the question (go back a step) or help the student to Relearn. Using wait time is a skill that has to be practiced. How can students be held accountable for responding to the learning if they don’t know or are confused?