This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to episode 168 of the Cult of Pedagogy podcast.

In this episode we are going to learn how to boost critical thinking in any classroom

with a technique called mistake analysis.

Picture yourself with your students reviewing or discussing course content in some way.

You ask a closed-ended question, something that has a correct answer,

but the student who volunteers gets the answer wrong. What do you do next?

Instructionally, this is an important moment. You could go way wrong and embarrass the student,

which could escalate into a behavior issue or more likely just discourage that student from

ever participating in your class again. You could just be neutral and say something like

no not quite and then move on. This could also be discouraging but probably wouldn't be devastating.

A third option would be to use the moment as an opportunity for critical thinking.

For digging deeper into why the mistake was made so that the student, their classmates,

and even you can get a better understanding of the underlying misconceptions that present

themselves while learning your content. This is the kind of shift my guest Colin Seal wants

to see us make in our classrooms. As a young student, seal often found himself unsatisfied with

and unmotivated by school until a teacher recognized his abilities and had him tested for the gifted

and talented program. Inside that privileged space where his intellect was challenged and critical

thinking was served up regularly, the difference was night and day and he started to experience

much greater academic success. After training as a math teacher and later when he attended law

school, Seal's earlier experiences coalesced into a new mission. All students, not just those

labeled as advanced, should be given regular practice and critical thinking and it didn't have

to be anything complicated. All teachers had to do was start implementing critical thinking practices

...