How Do We Learn to Ride Bikes?
This post is inspired by a discussion at #edcampham over the weekend as well as a real personal example I’m living right now. My oldest son is 6 years old and learning how to ride a bike. I put a helmut on him, gave him a few basics, helped him coast and said go! My wife has a slightly different approach and helps him slowly never letting go of the seat and never letting him fall.
This bike riding analogy is great for teaching and correcting errors. When students are making errors in math do we correct them right away so they don’t reinforce an incorrect concept or do we let them fall and figure out on their own the mistakes they were making, after a certain number of trials?
I do know this, the solution is probably a combination of both approaches depending on a variety of circumstances at that given time. I also believe students need to be asked questions to discover mistakes, not be told. Students need to reflect on math thinking and be given time to talk about math, exploring and sharing with others.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic, (and please don’t say who has the better parenting style LOL). Thanks for reading.
Alison, and 
wforrest 8:53 am on April 22, 2016 Permalink
Alison, Thank you for taking time to reply. I too believe in good mistakes and learner reflection. I love your strategy of tell me more and moving away from the perfect question at the right time. It is a great coaching strategy and opens the door for students to examine how their thinking has changed during their learning experience.
Alison 9:52 am on April 21, 2016 Permalink
Consider this. Do you think your son would learn to ride a bike without any instruction at all?
While teaching is innately a difficult task, learning on the other hand, is something that I believe is rather intuitive.
I use the learning to ride a bike analogy specifically in an inquiry based setting – therefor there is no ‘practicing’ of a mistake. I struggle to call any alternative direction in a student’s work a mistake when it strays from what I had envisioned. From a constructivist perspective, I believe in the process of allowing students to stumble, loose their way and sometimes fall off completely when they are learning. As the teacher, this takes a degree of self-control, discomfort, and of course a commitment to the assumption that what the student is doing, is exactly what they need to be doing to get to where they are going.
What’s more important than the ‘mistakes’ are the conditions in which the learning takes place. Indeed, a certain amount of self-reflection is needed on the part of the learner as well as intrinsic motivation. The good news here is that when students’ direct their learning based on their own interest, these qualities are bound to arise. As the teacher, I take my lead from Sugata Mitra and employ “the way of the Granny.” When a student is sharing their learning, I congratulate them, and ask them to tell me more. I feel no pressure to ask the ‘right’ question, or at the ‘perfect’ time, mostly because I’m not sure either really exist. What might be the ideal question in my mind, may be meaningless to the learner.
The unexpected learning that comes from the freedom to learn is boundless. Yes, some mistakes are bound to hurt more than others, however those are also the ones from which we learn the most.
Good luck to your son and his 2-wheel endeavours!
wforrest 8:21 am on April 21, 2016 Permalink
Aviva, Thanks for the reply and great insight. I totally agree we don’t want students falling to the point where they are getting hurt and at the same time we want them to explore and flourish on their own. I love the point of knowing when to insert direct instruction. Also the reflection is key, students need time to reflect on their learning and learn from their great mistakes. Thanks for the reply.
Aviva 3:57 pm on April 20, 2016 Permalink
This is a very interesting post, Bill! While I think that there are a number of factors to influence decisions here, this is my thinking. Let’s go back to your bike analogy:
If you let your son go, and he keeps on falling, falling, and falling again (not learning from his mistakes, but repeating them), what would you do? When would you intervene? And with your wife, after supporting him for so long, when does she let go? If he falls after she releases him, does she let him get back on and try again, or does she support him all over again? If she does let him fall and try again, how many “try agains” does she give him before she intervenes? I wonder if this comes down to the timing for instruction. It’s great to learn from mistakes, but it’s when students (or adults) are not doing so, that maybe some more direct instruction is required. Maybe it’s time to even teach some metacognitive skills and encourage reflection so that the kids can correct their errors. What do you think?
Aviva