Mistakes By Teachers...

Excellent advice Del - GA from me!

Hard to judge as you do not descibe the context of the mistake.

If the mistake was that you incorrectly presented Bernouli's Law at the most basic and fundemental level in a lecture setting, you may need to correct this as not doing so may cause harm to the students.

Are the students required to follow a text book for this class? If so, did your presentation grossly contradict that shown in the text.

Did a student question your lecture content. If so, man up to the error.

Hard to say how bad the mistake was as you don't provide sufficient information.

If you find that it will truly haunt you, then honesty is the best policy. Going over it with the students again the right way will be most beneficial for the students and help you ease your mind. If students only rely on your lecture notes (those who don't read the textbook surely will), this mistake can result in a wrong problem if they do not find a mistake. They trust you as a teacher to show them the right way to do things.

There is more to be said about the person who admits their mistakes than a person who 'never' makes mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes and the person who states that they 'never' made a mistake is lying.

"If you find that it will truly haunt you, then honesty is the best policy."

And otherwise??

Making mistakes happens to the best of us. This is a good opportunity to teach about critical review, which should apply to everyone.

Yeah, critical self review. Admit it, but don't make a big deal, most of them probably weren't paying attention anyway.

If you admit your mistake, explain the mistake, then explain the right way, anyone who holds this mistake over your head is probably either an enemy or a close friend.

The enemy is trying to cause trouble.

The friend is just trying to get back at you for something you did to them.

The students should most likely respect you more for your admission of the mistake than if you deny it and cause them problems in the future.

Good Answer! Common sense with anecdotal evidence. I'm giving it to you however, despite your use of the word "claculations", whatever that is!

duh!

"claculations" now that I can't pin on our educational system......that was me

thanks for grading on content though

I agree completely.

Would like to add some more points:

*Try never to speak, which you are not confident about. No body is master of all subjects. No harm in admiting that you do not know somethings. At the same time, give offer to students to share their knowledge on the subject, if they can.

(I know university professors of physics, who say in news paper article that "Bird do not get electrical shock while standing on high tension wires, because their feet has electrical insulation.)

*Try to teach the way of thinking, not only the mathematical steps for the solution.

*Share your industrial experience. Academic professors do not have that to share. Theory is one thing and practical situation is another.

GA chris

Have to agree with Del the Cat. Honesty is the best policy. Own up and challenge the students to tell you where you went wrong - the better ones will already know.

In my time as a student there were at least three times where I had to correct a lecturer about some pretty basic stuff, so the good news for you is that you are not the first.

I'd be interested in a report on how the confession went.

A problem is a dragon with a gift in its' mouth...,

Slay the dragon and the gift is yours...

The Chinese use a symbol for problem, consists of two symbols:Challenge and opportunity.

Slay the dragon,take the gift,meet the challenge and sieze the opportunity.

Do not build your reputation on perfection, but upon open, honest communication

with your students.

Hello everybody:

"Be honest. Pencils still come with erasers on them for a good reason".

What a big truth!, TVP45, GA from me.

This topic extends beyond the classroom and academics. It permeates our daily lives in our relationships with others and our businesses.

The baseline is that everyone makes mistakes.

The measure of a man, woman or a business is how a mistake is dealt with. Integrity is the measure of such.

Even though there's no 'engineering units' for integrity, there isn't a one of us who doesn't sense its magnitude in our business and personal interactions.

Yeah. We ought to follow Chrisg288's advice. I try to remember:

Admit it.

Fix it.

Don't repeat it.

Don't apologize.

Compensate anybody that suffered from it.

I am an electrical engineer and spent my whole time in design department in electrical industry. After retirement I joint engineering college as professor. I had also made mistake while teaching them net work analysis. I realized my mistake same day. I tried to find where I had gone wrong and how could I have checked the same then and there itself. Next day First thing I did was to tell them that I was wrong in my yesterday's teaching. I repeated the whole portion again and pointing out the mistake I made. I also told that how I could have checked the mistake then and there itself. Students reaction was totally positive and they noted every thing. My acceptance of mistake definitely raised level of respect for me.

Hi Number,

Don't apologize, just correct your error without telling that it was an error. You are supposed to tell good things to students and they will learn the correction over your original error.

To eliminate errors, learn what you have to say and say less than you want to say. Be simple! Yes, use simplicity to the point!

If you want to be perfect, forget to teach and do things. Perfection doesn't exist. It's a dream and a want or need for someone to be better than others, Gil.

here is one I wrote in 1993... but still pertinent.

"Honesty"

To: Me
From: Me

Be honest with yourself about your warm, glowing sensuousness
and you will have Love.

Be honest with yourself about your roasting, flaming anger
and you will change from ruled into ruler.

Be honest with yourself about your putrid, revolting disgusts
and you will have purity.

Be honest with yourself about your peaking, encompassing divinity
and you will have humility.

Be honest with yourself about your heartbreaking eternal sorrow
and you will have compassion.

Be honest with yourself about the value of your words
and you will have audience.

Be honest with yourself about your cringing, hiding fear
and you will have courage.

Be honest with yourself about your hungering, desperate desire
and you will have balance.

Be honest with yourself about your piercing, blinding intelligence
and you will have purpose.

Be honest with yourself about your cold steel judgement,
and you will have sympathy.

Be honest with yourself about your vaulting, cartwheeling joy
and you will have power.

Be honest with yourself about your throbbing, pulsating lust
and you will have beauty.

Be honest with yourself about your craving, needing addiction
and you will have understanding.

Be honest with yourself about your frail, timid mortality
and you will live.

Most of all

Be!

CFG

So, it wasn't so bad, was it? And didn't you feel good about yourself after the whole thing was over.

I consider this a good answer. Or update.

Good choice. You provided the class the corrected technical information and you demonstrated honesty, humility, and integrity. Well done!

I might have apologized to the class that I made an error during that lecture and given them an "optional extra credit" assignment and a few days to investigate on their own what my error might have been. The next lecture would have been to review and correct my error as you did. The smarter and more motivated students (maybe all of them) would have tried for the extra credit and might have learned a lesson in self-reliance as well.

Best Wishes!

For the people, who have given the advice to not apologize: We are not God as teachers. Arrogance is a mistake of pride although it leaves a teacher in position to be in control and maintain the class environment. Sometimes, some students may think less of you for apologizing. This is the cost of humility and it should be easily paid. If your personal integrity tells you to apologize, then do it. Disagree immensely with Chris although others support his position. I have taught students who have had doctorate's and master's degrees from the finest universities, I have taught hardcore prisoners, special needs, gang members, at-risk youth, small children, and just regular people. Sometimes humility is the most important lesson to teach even more then the subject your teaching. The title of Teacher, Instructor, Professor, & Educator carry a social responsibility greater than the importance of the subject your teaching. Apologize but only once to each class an only if needed. After that, the point is made. Good luck and good cheer!

I am one who advocated not apologizing. It's not arrogance.

When I do apologize, it's because I've done something morally wrong. Making a mistake in a derivation is not morally wrong. It's just a mistake. My experience has been that people who apologize rarely fix their mistakes. I fix mine.

Which would you rather have: a person who loudly proclaims "Sorry!" or a person who thoroughly fixes the mistake?

I do understand your position. I just don't believe apologies are limited to moral questions. If I spill my drink on someone, I don't feel morally wrong at all. I still feel the need to apologize. Humility, once again. A social grace. Embrace.

I'm an engineer - I have no social graces, except remembering to wear matching white socks.

My statements were context specific, and assumed that no harm had been done, and even that no student had noticed. All requirements for humility in this situation are covered simply by announcing the error. Announcing a competition to provide the correct answer with a bit of humour, without apologizing, retains and builds respect. At that point, apologizing can have a detrimental effect, and cause disrespect. I recommended a neutral position. This is not because I don't understand humility, but that I understand that the respect of students is more important to their learning. If I apologize when I don't need to, I am serving myself, not my students, and it is detrimental to my role. Context is very important.

Chris

You may think that the beginning of your teaching career is the end of your student career, but it is really the beginning of your learning career.

You really don't know a subject until you have taught it.When teaching is combined with experience, a person enhances his personal pool of knowledge, and is more valuable to his students, because he knows the real world applications of the knowledge that he presents.

The purpose of teaching in my opinion, is not to present cut-and-dried-ready-to-eat solutions to problems , but to teach the student how to learn to find the solutions to unforseen problems that always occur in real life.

If you can teach them how to learn, you will have accomplished your purpose.

Hydraulics and theories like Bernoulli's equation, Mann ins etc are too tough for outsiders without a formal guru. The interpretations vary from person to person. It could be a next confusion affair like Einstein's Theory of relativity. Thermodynamics is again queue in the list. Better learn from experts, clear your self and proceed. Self study should always be consulted with relevant experts. Wrong assumptions can only mislead the students who could be innocent believers in your teaching. So avoid risks.

To teach, you need respect, to gain and hold respect you need credibility. Admit and correct if it is still possible.

"to gain and hold respect you need credibility"

or self-respect and integrity... which is the start of credibility.

ga.

Chris