ABSTRACT
A major obstacle to learning in school and elsewhere is the fear of making a mistake, coupled with the fear of other people noticing it. “You learn from your mistakes” is a meaningless phrase to the students at all performance levels who are saddled with this fear. Nonetheless, mistakes are helpful for learning if students have the habit of mind and attitude necessary to recognize and use them as such. For students to gain this knowledge, habit, and attitude, case studies of mistakes can be collected and analyzed. The teacher first models the value of mistakes as learning experiences by sharing several personal experiences. Some of these mistakes should be of an academic nature. When the teacher has thus demythologized mistakes as the enemy, students are encouraged to “collect” their academic mistakes by keeping a journal of them along with what they learned or could learn from them. Once these journals have been shared with partners and discussed, students can choose a mistake and the accompanying learning to write up to share with the class.
