I made a mistake today.  I had intended to give a quiz today and while I put it on our chapter schedule, I forgot to put it on Schoology.  It wouldn’t have been fair to give them the quiz, but I still wanted to make sure that they knew the material and have a way to assess that.

Inspired by Carol Dweck’s Ted Talk The Power of Yet, I decided to give a “Not Yet” quiz.  In this quiz everyone was required to get 100%.  Some students would get a 100% on the first try, others would need to retake the quiz (and continue to retake the quiz) again and again until they got a 100%.

The quiz I would have created had I not forgotten to schedule it would have looked like this:

1.  Quadratic function in vertex form:
     a.  Find the vertex
     b.  Sketch a graph by hand

2.  Quadratic function in standard form:
     a.  Find the vertex
     b.  Sketch a graph by hand

I partnered the students and instructed everyone to make a quiz for their partner and pass it to them.  They would take this very short quiz and check that they did it right by graphing it on their graphing calculator to verify their vertex was correct and that the pictures matched.  If they got it right, they were done.  If they made a mistake, they would work with their partner to find the error and they would ask their partner for a new quiz.  Partners were instructed to praise their peers when this happened with messages of “It’s great that you made a mistake!  Your brain just grew!  Let me make you another quiz.”

The kids did this and were so kind and supportive of each other.  One student, who took a few attempts to get her 100% at the end said, “I made it!  I feel so accomplished.”

Awesome.  Best Mistake Ever.

(Note:  I am aware that this will cause some grade inflation.  I won’t do this all the time but I do believe that the kids learned from this experience and got a big confidence boost.  As well as a lesson in the reward of grit and perseverance.)