First…I grabbed the pile of papers and divided them into piles of students who got the same or similar answers. I then grabbed three pages off of different piles to form trios of students who had DIFFERENT responses.
The task!
My reasoning here is that I want students to be ok with being wrong…that FINDING mistakes and misconceptions is the game…not getting the right answer. With pencils, the temptation to “alter” responses is too great–and it isn’t where the learning happens. I have taught my students about the brain research (If you haven’t read Mathematical Mindsets by Jo Boaler RUN to go get it. I’ll throw in an affiliate link at the bottom of this post if you want it. It is a game changer) that simply making mistakes grows brains. If you can FIND them, the learning is magnified. We celebrate them!
