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[ptarmigan]

I always tell my students that they need to watch me like a hawk. When they point out my errors, I just fix them, laugh at myself a little (if the error is amusing), and move on. Yesterday I got to the end of a problem and had a different result from what I'd remembered, and just said, "Wait, did I mess up somewhere?" and they told me where. The number of arithmetic errors I make in class is crazy.

[conjugate]

ABD_JHS, it sounds like you're handling it about right.  My students will point out when I miss a minus sign or when I forget a multiple of ½; they no longer even joke about whether I will count off if they make the same mistake.  They know I will, but not too harshly.

[nucleo]

My students will point out when I miss a minus sign or when I forget a multiple of ½; they no longer even joke about whether I will count off if they make the same mistake. 

I say in class quite frequently, "I have never claimed that I'd get 100% on my own quizzes."

[itried]

Yes, this is so normal! It's such a delicate balance between admitting our errors and laughing at ourselves -- which our students need to see so they themselves can build character -- and gaining and retaining students' trust, which they need in order to learn from us. That balance can be very nuanced, and it takes years of practice to strike.

I find that doing math or chemistry problems on the white board is really difficult, because I'm standing too close to the equations. There's something about only being able to see one or two factors at a time that disrupts my information processing; it helps when I stand back from the board while I'm writing equations. This can happen even when I'm just constructing sentences on the white board; I often skip a word or letter, and this rarely if ever happens when I'm typing or writing by hand.

[polly_mer]

I find that doing math or chemistry problems on the white board is really difficult, because I'm standing too close to the equations. There's something about only being able to see one or two factors at a time that disrupts my information processing; it helps when I stand back from the board while I'm writing equations. This can happen even when I'm just constructing sentences on the white board; I often skip a word or letter, and this rarely if ever happens when I'm typing or writing by hand.

This.  To see me lecture sometimes, you'd wonder how I manage to put my own shoes on.  But, it's having far too much to keep in my head and the fact that the board spatial arrangement doesn't let me see as much as when I wrote my notes on gridded paper.  Consequently, I skip lines and sometimes I manage to transpose numbers or just plain put the wrong ones on the wrong lines.

[prof_cj]

Last semester was the first time I had a real full course load of 5 classes. I screwed up A LOT. Dates, lesson plans, turning papers in to the right class...it's human nature.

I've got the same workload this semester too, and even though I still do better, I make slip-ups. My students don't care as long as I can laugh at it too.

[dr_mk]

When I make a mistake on the white board in front of a class, I've been known to pull out a red marker and circle my own mistakes and take off points on my own work.

[dr_know]

Once I was so ill when grading papers that I graded them according to the wrong prompt.  No one received above a C.  I gave them back, mentioning how disappointed I was that everyone neglected to do XYZ.  Then one student said that was last week's prompt, not this week's.  I apologized profusely and took the papers back.  Grading them according to the prompt yielded an A and a few Bs, plus the other grades.  Now that's embarrassing.  All you can do is honestly face your mistakes and do your best to correct them.  Most students will be understanding.  Only the true jerks will hold it against you.  Keep your head up and remember the semester will end soon enough.