Reinvest by giving error its full place!

Teachers from Collège Sainte-Anne share their winning strategies to support their so-called “weak third” students, without lowering their expectations of others. Today, we are discovering one that relies on learning from its own mistakes.

through Jean Desjardins and Isabelle Senécal, Sainte-Anne College

Research shows that our brain learns best from a mistake. So, how do you concretely leave room for error, and what possibilities for reinvestment can be offered?

Ménaïc Champoux, Geneviève Décarie and Karine Villeneuve, French teachers at 2^e cycle at Sainte-Anne College, tried an experience that turned out to be very beneficial for the students. Indeed, following the correction of a writing test, the young people had to identify one of their problems and analyze it. The teachers then relied on reciprocal teaching and built their assessment from the content produced by the students.

The principles of the strategy

• A diagnosis of the learner's strengths and difficulties (establish their profile).
• Analysis of one of the difficulties identified.
• Provide students with tools and encourage them to reason in the form of questioning in an evaluation context.
• Provide differentiated tasks for strong students: produce exercises and answers, help peers.
• The evaluation built from the work of the students.
• The differentiated evaluation grid.

Added value for the weak third

• The work perceived as relevant by the pupil: a single element, directly linked to his competence and his success.
• Development of metacognitive strategies.
• Stable learning over time, lasting.

Tools and Resources

• The digital course space ChallengeU.
• Website creation tools Weebly and Wix, as well as the web pages Tackk.

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Read or reread the different articles in this series.