Mistakes are good!

We encourage our students to show their mistakes and not erase them, a simple cross is better than whiteout or erasing.

This process is helpful for students to see where they went wrong and choose a different path the next time, and is a powerful metric for teachers to see where misconceptions are happening and provide the basis for individualised help.

Jo Boaler is a British education author and Nomellini-Olivier Professor of Mathematics Education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Boaler is involved in promoting mathematics education reform and equitable mathematics classrooms. For more information visit YouCubed.org