If a learner says “This is too easy,” it is important to figure out why the learner feels that way.
Sometimes learners just want to move on to something new
Learners sometimes say this because they feel like they understand a game’s concept, and they want to move on to something new. Often, the critical factor is whether a learner can reliably solve problems like the ones in the game without making errors. If they can, they are ready to move on.
In some cases, however, learners continue to make errors when they use a concept. In this case, it is important to figure out which kinds of errors they are making.
There are different kinds of errors
Casual/careless mistakes, calculation (procedural) errors, and conceptual errors are very different and require different approaches (Sarswat, 2017, p. 9-18).
- Casual/careless mistakes result from a momentary lack of concentration.
- In calculation errors, the learner is confused about how to do a procedure.
- In conceptual errors, the learner does not understand how a concept relates to a procedure, or does not understand the concept itself.
Procedural and conceptual errors are clues that learners need to review material. You can help these learners by drawing their attention to the specific content they need to learn. Asking them to use the sentence frames can work well here.
Casual/careless mistakes indicate that learners need to pay more attention when checking their answers.
Casual/careless mistakes can be tricky to handle
A tricky situation can come up when learners’ attention drifts because they genuinely understand a concept already. Then, since their attention is drifting, they make casual/careless mistakes.
Asking these learners to review the concept over again will probably not help them, because these learners’ errors are not due to a lack of understanding. What may help these learners is asking them to focus on checking their answers to reduce their error rate.
If they do not see that they still have room for improvement, you can try asking them a few assessment questions, or assist them in keeping written records of their error rates. Such records do not have to be used in grading.
Such approaches may not convince learners who don’t understand that accuracy in arithmetic is a worthwhile goal. It may help to let these learners know that in more advanced classes, the curriculum designers will be assuming that everyone can already do arithmetic problems accurately and consistently, so if they can’t, they may run into barriers.
A way to ask older students to play games
Some older students may feel that games insult their intelligence. Try saying “I know you could learn in other ways. The good thing about these games is that they make the learning happen quickly. Since we have limited time, would you be willing to try?” (Yelon, 1996, p. 143)
Next section: Using the games as paper and pencil activities
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References
Sarswat, Rajesh. 2017. Avoid Silly Mistakes in Mathematics. First Impression.
Yelon, Stephen L. 1996. Powerful Principles of Instruction. White Plains, NY: Longman Publishers.
July 14, 2020