LEARNING FROM MISTAKES

Mistakes are an inescapable part of our life experience and preside over any learning process. Pretending that the error does not exist except to be corrected is the wrong approach. Wanting to avoid the error means to stop and inhibit learning. For this reason we try to create an atmosphere in which it is allowed to experience emotion without any fear and in which it is considered as a means to become aware of possibilities. It should be stressed here that the correction process must be placed in a humanistic- affective conception of didactics: error is a natural part of the learning process and the student must find in the teacher, in his classmates, in the educational system in general the necessary understanding so that the error does not lead to anxiety situations; it is necessary to promote forms of correction that lead to encouragement and develop the student's self-correction skills and to increase his critical autonomy also in the management of error.

STRATEGIES FOR TEACHERS

1. Recognizing the errors and why they happened. 

2. In order to learn from mistakes, it is important first of all to accompany the students in recognizing them and to understand them. Sometimes it is difficult to recognize them because there is a cognitive dissonance, a state of psychological and emotional tension: admitting a mistake is often in dissonance with our self-esteem, to the point that we find ourselves justifying it or attributing it to someone else in order not to question deep opinions about ourselves. The recognition of the error is related to its cause: does the student know the correct way or is he distracted? 

3. Do not dramatize the errors, use them as a joyful opportunity for group learning (recurring error in class, collective and generic) and privileged (individual and specific).

4. Reevaluate mistakes, every mistake can really be creative as it generates an opportunity to review the procedure, resilience, or extract other skills. Always emphasize what you have learned from that mistake!

5. Make mistakes: make them deliberately. Practice introducing yourself into a system of controlled errors. An invitation not to see the error as an enemy but as an inevitable and valuable companion. 

6. Use the error creatively to never forget it again and to have fun with competence. "In every error lies the possibility of a story" G. Rodari. es: changing vowels change things, and stories are born.

7. Study Examples of illustrious errors. es The discovery of America is the result of an error: Christopher Columbus was convinced to arrive in the Indies. Leonardo Da Vinci, genius par excellence, achieved goals and created masterpieces even if - or better: thanks to the fact that - he collected a lot of mistakes (the flying machines, all failed, or the painting technique used for the Last Supper, just to give a couple of examples.