One of many student works posted from Michael Pershan’s site http://www.mathmistakes.org
Need to Find Common Mistakes in Math?
We often learn from our mistakes. So why aren’t we doing that enough in our Math lessons?
As Math teachers, we try to model how work out certain problems. We will run through certain strategies step by step to show a correct way to working out a problem. How much time do we put doing showing students the wrong way?
It’s surprising how often students make the same types of mistakes in Math. What’s usually missing in our lessons is “what NOT to do”. We’ve all been in the situation where while we are working out the steps to a problem, we’ll casually remind students not to do this, or that. But then we’ll march on to the end of the lesson without mentioning that common error again. Wouldn’t it be useful if we were to see classic math blunders without “outing” a student’s work in front of the classroom? It would also be beneficial to know what can we do as a follow-up to certain typical mistakes.
Math Mistakes is an American site where you can read, analyse or post common math mistakes from actual (anonymous) students. Its author, Michael Pershan (a NYC math teacher), uploads examples almost on a weekly basis from different grades in elementary and secondary levels. Often posters will ask questions pertaining to what kind of feedback could I give this student?
Mathworkz 