“Mental wandering through mistake”: an educational research on perception and management of errors in primary school

Abstract

The article presents an educational research on the value of error, carried out as part of the Service Learning project, in a primary school in Verona. It was started from the educational project “Mental wandering through mistake” which involved students in an imaginary journey to discover the various aspects that error brings with it. Through play and reflective activities, followed by self and
peer feedback experiences, the aim was to promote a perception and proactive management of errors. A qualitative study was therefore conducted, aimed at understanding how mistakes are elaborated in children’s thoughts and how their ideas condition
the way they act and approach error. After the outline of the theoretical framework and the practical-educational choices made, the activities implemented in the classroom will be described and the findings of the research will be presented, emerging from the analysis of the data collected during the project using a crossbreeding method.