Productive struggle – it sounds like an oxymoron but makes perfect sense when utilized properly in a classroom setting. When students engage in this strategic challenge, they’re encouraged to make more attempts than they may be used to and persevere through frustration to solve a problem. The goal is bigger than providing a correct answer — it’s about the process of getting there. Students can foster critical thinking skills, persistence, self-regulation, and more with productive struggle. There are many strategies for teachers to implement this concept once it is clearly understood.
What Is Productive Struggle?
Why Productive Struggle Is Important
Key Elements of Productive Struggle
Benefits of Productive Struggle
Productive Struggle Implementation Strategies
Best Practices for Leveraging Productive Struggle
Productive struggle is intended to help students develop strong habits of the mind – perseverance, flexible thinking and active learning. This state of engagement can be somewhat uncomfortable for students as they experiment with trial-and-error, but well-trained teachers ensure proper guidance. Productive struggle can be implemented with varying subject matter, but is most common in K-12 math.
By practicing productive struggle, students go beyond passive reading, listening or watching. Their brains actually produce myelin – the protective covering surrounding nerve cells that control thinking and muscles – which helps with retaining new skills. Learners’ engagement with productive struggle is expected to be weak at first but will become the norm with practice.
Teachers who encourage productive struggle help students become highly successful problem solvers far beyond the classroom setting.
When students are encouraged struggle productively, as they attempt to solve a problem, they will start to ask themselves these questions:
Questions like these are a great start to concrete comprehension and engagement.
Productive struggle can be especially useful in the realm of mathematics, where instruction based solely on memorization and arithmetic all too often leads students to misunderstand and dislike math.
One of the goals of productive struggle is for students to be able to develop a conceptual understanding of a question and implement their own creative solution. These are some tips for teachers to assist with the process:
A productive struggle must:
It becomes unproductive when:
Throughout the process, teachers should be aware of providing motivation and constructive feedback without giving away any answers. Even if a strong attempt by a student does not work out, creative problem solving should be praised.
The beauty of productive struggle is that there is no single way to do it. During authentic engagement with a math problem, for example, some students will choose to visually draw out the question with shapes while other classmates break the same question down into more manageable pieces.
Over time, problem-solving as a process will become the norm, helping students take ownership of their learning beyond the lesson at hand. Students who know how to productively struggle will learn to:
To get you started with this educational method, here are some examples of productive struggle:
Present a problem and step back to allow students to work through it on their own.
Practice over time to limit burnout. Students who space out their learning outperform students who try to learn everything in longer sessions.
Force the retrieval of memories by giving students frequent practice tests. Opting for short-answer questions instead of multiple choice is a great way to strengthen thought processes.
Interleaving, or mixing new lessons in with the old, is another great way to get students using their long-term memory over just the short-term.
If students are struggling and asking for help, these are some best practices to consider:
For more resources, explore the Education Certificate through the University of San Diego’s Professional and Continuing Education program, intended to motivate teachers to improve and enhance their instructional techniques.
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