Methods to Correct Your Student’s Mistakes Without Hurting Them

Rohan Mathew

All the students make mistakes and it is a wrong perception that students can’t make a mistake, in fact, students learn better when they make mistakes. Students learn better when they make mistakes. But today we all want our children to be intelligent and brilliant in their childhood. We are making them busy in doing those things which are suppressing their childhood, just in order to make the best and perfect whereas we all know there is nothing such as perfect in this world. Now, regarding the same topic, giving feedback is an art in which every teacher should be perfect. When a tutor gives positive feedback to the students then they feel confident and tend to improve themselves more. But in a vice versa, when a student is given poor feedback by the teacher then he/she loses the motivation and usually ends up failing the semester or getting lesser marks. There are two ways to teach like if a tutor asks the student details about ERP full form and LMS full form and he/she is not able to answer then either teacher can insult the student by condemning his/her low level of knowledge or tutor can say,” its ok if you don’t know the answer, at least you tried”. And the next day you can ask again the details about ERP full form and LMS full form but this time you will get all details of these terms. Because positive feedback gave motivation to the student to prepare the topics and give the answer correctly. This is the correct way to make the mistakes of students correct without hurting them. Let’s understand about such more methods:

  • A tutor should never underestimate any student. Every student is an ocean of talents and this is the responsibility of the tutor to encourage the children not to demotivate them. Tutor needs to understand that a small amount of appreciation can do the magic in the student’s knowledge level and his/her learning. but this should be also kept in concern that too much praise can bring arrogance in the student so it should be balanced. Teacher should never praise any tiniest mistake of the student just because he or she is the tutor’s favourite. Therefore, instead of just saying brilliant job! explain to them why it was brilliant. 
  • It is the tutor’s responsibility that he or she should always correct the student’s mistakes but there should be some creativity while correcting the students. It is not a big thing to call any of the acts of the student wrong, instead your value as a teacher will flash when you will add education to all of your correctional suggestions. There should always be something to learn in your correctional speech to the students.
  • It doesn’t matter at all that you have a Ph.D. in any subject but if you are unable to make your student understand the topic you are teaching then it is all in vain. When a tutor gives his feedback, he or she should make sure that he or she should use layman language so that even students can understand what they have to work on to improve themselves. 
  • Teachers should not only give feedback and pinpoint the mistakes only. It is their responsibility to correct them and here comes the role of knowledge as a tutor. Correcting the answers is not a big deal but the method is important. For example, a maths problem can be solved in two or three ways but tutors usually apply that method which is demonstrated in books, instead they should choose that method which can be understood by children easily.
  • Teachers should never use a few things in their speech while correcting the mistakes of the students. Such as, he or she should never mention any student born genius and other born nincompoop. Instead, this should be made very clear to the students that learning is that process through which any student can achieve good marks and knowledge. These ways you correct the student’s mistake without hurting them and by showing them the correct path.
  • Students are an ocean of talent and there is nothing they can’t do by themselves so it is the duty of the teacher to make the students understand that before coming to the teacher for making any correction in their mistakes, they should give a try by themselves  to seek their own ability also and rely on their own knowledge.