Errorless learning is crucial in my classroom. It has opened up so many opportunities for students who struggle to succeed. It allows my students to be successful and gain independent skills.
Simply put, errorless learning is an opportunity in which a student always gets the correct answer. You take away some of the complexity and set the opportunity up so the student is always correct.
But Nicole, why would I want to do that?
Because sometimes, you need your early learners to be independent. You don’t want to fill a three-tier system with tasks the student cannot do correctly. If your student needs assistance to complete tasks, errorless learning fills that need. You can still have them work on file folders and task boxes but ensure the activities more appropriate for the learner.
Errorless learning can also teach a child many important base skills. The ability to work independently. An understanding of starting and completing a task. Match-to-sample skills. Visual perception skills. There is a huge range of pre-academic skills students need before they can be successful and errorless learning opens up that gate.
But Nicole, if everything is errorless, how will they learn?
Errorless learning is not the end all be all in my classroom. My students might work on more complex tasks during teacher time with me and move to errorless tasks for their independent workstations. Errorless tasks are not a substitute for teaching students. It’s a support for teaching students.
Making errorless learning activities is easy! My two favorite ways are adding items to a scene and making an identical match. I have included examples below to help you brainstorm for each task.
For adding items to the scene, you want to get a background. If you do not plan to sell or distribute the task, you can use any image you find on Google. I suggest getting a basic grass scene and pasting it into PowerPoint. Then, print off some pictures of flowers, trees, etc. Laminate the base page and add Velcro. Cut out each item, (i.e. flowers) laminate, and add Velcro. Now your student can complete the garden scene!
The other one I like to make is a matching scene. This is perfect because you can customize it to any student, based on preferred items. Does your student love Mario? Make a matching board of Mario! Grab any image you like and size it on the page. You can make the images as large or as small as you want, depending on the student. I like my matching boards to have 6-9 pictures for beginners. Once you make the board, print it twice. Laminate both and cut up one. The cut up one will be the matching pieces!
If you are in a time crunch, there are some great affordable options on TPT as well. See below to see the tasks I use in my own classroom everyday!
