First Attempt In Learning

One of the consequences of a teacher centered approached to learning is instilling a lack of self-efficacy in students. I work in a classroom that is used to support teachers and students -- there are people coming and going all of the time, working on various projects and tests. Yesterday, I worked with a student on a math question that pertained to interest rates and the value of a house over time.

When the student arrived at a solution, she told me that she was certain that the number didn't make sense; however, she didn't know why and she was unsure how to determine a different answer. As I asked her to explain her thinking, I noticed that she wanted/needed me to verify whether or not she was correct each step of the way. I could see it in her body language and the way in which she kept looking at me to confirm that she was right. She was afraid to make any further mistakes.

Although I was tempted to "help" her by correcting her mistakes and telling her what to do, I kept asking her what she thought. Within a few minutes she started to explain her thinking aloud and another student, who was working on an English project, overheard our conversation. He asked if the formula was correctly imputed into the calculator, which led to a conversation between the two students who, by the way, didn't know each other and are in different grades.

In the end, the student couldn't determine the correct answer to the math problem but she was able to explain why her answer was incorrect. I told her to write down her thinking so her teacher could see her learning.

We need to empower our students and make failure a part of learning.