Make feedback into detective work
This week I want to share a lovely tip from Sammy Kempner that should keep your students on their toes and really get them thinking hard.
Sammy described two ways he “tricks” his students to test if they really understand something. First, he often makes deliberate mistakes whilst going through the solution to the problem. He lets the mistake “hang there”, and if his students do not immediately pick up on in, then Sammy knows they have either not been concentrating or not been listening.
But it is the second tip that really caught my attention, because it is a lovely inversion of something I have been doing for years.
What’s the problem?
Picture the scene. I have asked Tommy to solve a quadratic equation (lucky boy). His first line of explanation is correct, so I say nothing. So is his second line. But he makes a classic mistake on his third line (a minus sign has gone missing). What do I do? I say something like: Tommy, are you sure about that? And because I have not commented up to this point – and because I only ever comment in this way when I have spotted a mistake – Tommy knows he has made a mistake, and so starts thinking about where the mistake is
What’s the tip?
All of this is fine. But how about this as an alternative:
Tommy’s first line of explanation is correct, and I stay quiet. Tommy’s second line is also correct… but now I say: Tommy, are you sure about that? And now Tommy has to really think. He thought he was correct, but now I am questioning him. Is he right? Crucially, Is he confident enough to say: yes, sir, I am sure? And what if I throw this out to the rest of the class: on your mini-whiteboards, copy Tommy’s line of working if you think he is correct, or write a different line of working if you disagree.
A related approach is to regularly ask students to explain how you got that answer following their response to a question. If we ask this whether students are wrong or right then we keep them thinking. Moreover, students explaining incorrect answers provide us with valuable insight into the nature of their misunderstanding so we can support them, and students explaining correct answers can be used to support students who don’t understand yet.
If we challenge our students’ answers when they are correct as well as when they are incorrect we reduce the giveaway signal (or our tell, to use a poker term) and prompt our students to be prepared to back up any answer with sound reasoning.
This is all part of a classroom culture that normalises error and promotes good, hard thinking at all times.
Over to you
- Is there a lesson this week where you could try this tip?
- What would you need to change to make the tip work for you and your students?
You can watch the original video where Sammy shares this tip.
Thanks so much for reading and have a great week.
Craig