Narrator: All too often, students see mistakes as a source of embarrassment, stress or even humiliation. But according to a 2018 study, brain scans show that making mistakes sets off productive brain activity. And according to the psychologist Carol Dweck, “Every time a student makes a mistake, they grow a synapse.”

So, if mistakes and learning go hand in hand, how do you make sure your classroom is mistake friendly? When students with math anxiety confront numbers, the same fear center that lights up when people see snakes or spiders is activated. To overcome fear in our classrooms, we must identify and confront self-destructive thinking, replacing the thought, “I’m stupid,” with the thought, “I’m learning.”

But don’t respond to the fear of failure by making things easier. In a 2008 study, students who were given challenging, open-ended math questions, outperformed their peers on final exams. Challenging questions forced students to explore, grapple with and discard the wrong solutions before arriving at the correct ones, deepening their grasp of the topic.

When students work on things they care deeply about, they are more likely to tolerate the unavoidable mistakes. Use surveys and get-to-know-you activities, so that you can incorporate student interests into your classroom. In your classroom, explicitly label some activities as rough-draft thinking. That gives students the permission to ask questions, make mistakes and then revise without worrying about being right or wrong. Highlight the fact that it’s beneficial to talk through ideas that aren’t fully formed. To create a classroom culture that is truly open to mistakes, you need to model them in front of your students.

The expectation that all student work needs to be graded remains one of the largest obstacles to innovation and productivity in classrooms. Grade only 225 percent of assignments. You’ll free up hours of your own time, and also promote a low-stress classroom environment in which students are encouraged to take risks and produce a greater volume of high-quality work.