Teachers’ Conceptualization of Productive Struggle

Current emphases in education around productive struggle reflect efforts to bring a positive light to engaging with challenging and complex tasks. Classroom attention to productive struggle includes guiding students to analyze challenging situations, work through tasks, and evaluate their strategies. Teachers may facilitate productive responses, or they may inadvertently reduce the cognitive demand. This study was part of a larger project supporting general education teachers at grades K-3 through professional learning around recognizing and responding to advanced academic potential. We examined how teachers described productive struggle, including types and sources of struggle and elements that made struggle productive.