Why successful problem solving is like the TV show "Chopped"
Productive struggle, part II: one researcher on the evidence
Happy Friday, Bell Ringers! Thanks to all who showed up and watched Left Behind with us— that was my third viewing, and I still cried (again). If you missed this important documentary, watch it on your own here.
In last week’s newsletter, I reported a story about “productive struggle,” a common elementary school teaching practice in which lessons begin with problem-solving exercises that students have had little or no experience with, the idea being that a) they might come up with something cool on their own, and b) they will learn the importance of trying hard.
Teachers are trained to teach young students that way, and popular elementary school curricula begin lessons with productive struggle problems. Yet a growing group of teachers, districts and even some state agencies are saying the practice is making it harder for students to learn math, and they’re backing away from productive struggle done this particular way, and embracing evidence-based practices like the instructional hierarchy.
But I’m not done with this story yet: what does research say about productive struggle? I wanted to ask a researcher who specializes in the math cognition of young students to explain the evidence.
What Boston College psychologist Elida Laski talks about in this important video episode might surprise you (or maybe not): this brand of productive struggle now used with millions of students has morphed from the research base, and has been misinterpreted. Some of Laski’s work includes studies on successful Asian countries who use problems-first approaches with young students—she said the technique has run away from, and in some cases become the opposite, of its original intention.
“The original definition of productive struggle, it was not meant to be sort of any challenge or anything that’s really hard. It was meant to be a struggle that’s actually going to lead to thinking and learning. So the intention was to help students move their skills forward, maybe by setting up particular kinds of problems that are within reach,” Laski says in the following video. Productive struggle used correctly would look a lot more like the Bjorks’ desirable difficulties, she said.
Laski, who does a great job breaking down the nuance of when productive struggle is useful and when it’s not according to the evidence, told me that successful problem solving is a lot like the TV show Chopped:
