A virtual classroom is a great way to learn but people usually get more outside of it. You know why? Because in the real world, they get to make mistakes and learn from it. Experience, they say, is the best teacher and life is the main lesson. As we all go through this life, it is the mistakes that leave the deepest mark in our consciousness. It is what motivates us to act – whether to move forward or backward. It is the errors that we make that keeps us changing.
In this world, change is a good thing. It can mean we are either growing or shrinking, but most of the time, it is the former. And one of the catalysts for change is our mistakes. If something is not right, we change it.
This is the reason why a mistake-driven approach will make your virtual classroom more effective. However, you have to make sure that you can implement this in your course well. Otherwise, you might end up robbing the learners of their confidence if the calculated risks in the course end up being too difficult.
Here are tips that will help you create a successful mistake-driven virtual classroom.
Give learners the freedom to discover the consequences.
When you are using this approach in your course, you have to let your learners discover the consequences themselves. You present them with a situation that will lead them to make mistakes. Give them choices – both the wrong and right. Ideally, you want to give them the wrong option and then leave them to discover the consequences. This will allow them to recognize the signs of the mistake. Do not point to them what went wrong. Let them come to the conclusion themselves. It makes them feel accountable for the mistake – which is an important lesson to learn so they will be more careful about their decisions.
Provide the tools to help them solve the problem.
Another tip while implementing a mistake-driven approach in your virtual classroom is to give the learners the tools that will help them solve the crisis. Once you have placed them in the problem, do not put markers that will lead them out of it. Let them figure out how to dig themselves out of the mess. This will help develop, not just their problem-solving skills, but also their critical thinking skills.
Highlight the lesson within the activities.
Do not concentrate on making the activities superb. You have to focus on the learning process. This is how you help them with the skills that they need to learn. The experience should be your priority so you can give the learners the right scenarios and simulations that will give them the best chance to recover from the calculated mistake that they made.
Provide immediate feedback.
Finally, it is important for you to give the learners immediate feedback – especially when they are straying too far from the correct answer. While you want the learner to discover the answer themselves, you should not leave them alone. This might cause them their confidence in dealing with the future problems. You need to give them guidance without revealing how it should be done. That is the best way to facilitate their learning.
Following these tips will allow you to make use of mistakes as learning tools in your virtual classroom. Since making mistakes is usually inevitable, you might as well help the learners develop the skills to recover from the errors they will make in the future.
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