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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2024 Sep 18.
Published in final edited form as: Can J Sci Math and Technol Educ. 2024 Feb 3;23(4):687–702. doi: 10.1007/s42330-023-00302-0

Learning to Struggle: Supporting Middle-grade Teachers’ Understanding of Productive Struggle in STEM Teaching and Learning

Johnna Bolyard 1, Reagan Curtis 1, Darran Cairns 2
PMCID: PMC11410339  NIHMSID: NIHMS2022595  PMID: 39296619

Abstract

This qualitative study examines the influence of a 3-year professional development project for middle school mathematics, science, and special education teachers focused on integrating science, mathematics, and engineering in classroom instruction on participants’ understandings of productive struggle in learning. Multi-disciplinary teams of teachers engaged as learners to use engineering design as a framework for integrating significant mathematics and science content supported by effective teaching practices. In this paper, we describe how the components of our professional development design supported teacher-participants to make sense of productive struggle in learning. In particular, participants noted that being able to experience design-based activities as learners and working through solutions with their colleagues supported their understanding of what it means to productively struggle, resulting in their growth as individuals and as teachers. The significance in this work lies in understanding how to effectively support teachers to buy-in to the meaning and value of productive struggle and how engaging in integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), design-based professional learning experiences facilitated that effort.

Keywords: STEM, Professional development, Middle-grade teachers, Productive struggle

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is a frequent topic of current educational discourse as myriad policy documents and funding programs call for improving STEM teaching and learning. Often, calls advocate for an approach that integrates science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (or some combination) in instructional activities and allows teachers to “absorb students in thought-provoking and authentic real-world contexts” (Bush et al., 2018, p. 2).

Concurrently, mathematics and science education researchers have proposed teaching practices that support learning in these disciplines (e.g., Forzani, 2014; McDonald et al., 2013; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), 2014; NGA & CCSSO, N. G. A. C. for B. P. and C. of C. S. S. O., 2010; NGSS Lead States, 2013). Researchers in the “Tools for Ambitious Science Teaching” group described four core practices of ambitious science instruction: engaging students with important science ideas, pressing for explanations, supporting changing ideas, and eliciting students’ thinking (http://ambitiousscienceteaching.org/us/, n.d.). Similarly, the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) articulated eight teaching practices for effective mathematics instruction: establishing goals to focus learning, implementing tasks that promote reasoning and problem-solving, using and connecting representations, facilitating mathematical discourse, building procedural fluency from conceptual understanding, supporting productive struggle, and eliciting and using student thinking (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), 2014).

To support teachers to engage with integrated STEM and effective teaching practices, we designed a 3-year professional development program for middle school mathematics, science, and special education teachers in which multi-disciplinary teams engaged as learners in using engineering design as a framework for integrating significant mathematics and science content supported by effective teaching practices. Through ongoing evaluation of our approach, we noticed one construct strongly resonated with our participants as they described and reflected on their experiences: productive struggle in learning. This prompted us to investigate it more closely. We explored two questions: (1) How did participants experience/understand productive struggle in learning? And (2) how did the design of our professional development approach influence these understandings/experiences? We argue that a professional development approach that utilized engineering design and positioned teachers as learners supported participants’ understanding of the meaning and role of productive struggle in learning as well as how to implement the practice in their teaching.

Background Literature

Teacher Learning

Teacher learning is key to efforts to improve teaching and learning, yet the task of supporting teacher learning is complex (Goldsmith et al., 2014; Opfar & Peddar, 2011). Teacher professional development activities occur in multiple systems, including that of the individual teacher, the facilitators of the professional development experience, and the contexts of the professional development experience (Borko, 2004; Opfer and Pedder 2011); each influences and can be influenced by what teachers may learn from the experiences. Further, teacher learning does not follow a linear process; it occurs in stages and requires sustained, ongoing cycles of practice and reflection (Goldsmith et al., 2014).

In spite of this complexity, researchers have identified aspects of professional development experiences that are particularly effective in supporting teacher learning, including experiences that are collaborative, sustained, and closely connected to practice (Lieberman & Mace, 2008). Borko (2004) highlighted the effectiveness of actively engaging teachers as learners in professional development activities. Studies of teacher learning in STEM, in particular, support these ideas (e.g., Cooper, et al., 2022). Brown and Bogiages (2019) concluded that for teachers to effectively learn how to use an integrated STEM approach, they must experience these “pedagogically ambitious strategies” for themselves (Brown & Bogiages, 2019, p. 111).

Struggle in Learning

The notion of struggle in learning is not novel. For years, cognitive learning theorists (e.g., Piaget, 1960; Skemp, 1971) have suggested that experiencing struggle, disequilibrium, or impasse during learning motivated learners to find a resolution, leading to new learning. Kapur (2008) described productive failure, the notion that undertaking problem-solving efforts that do not lead to a solution can positively impact learning. More recently, Baker et al. (2020) characterized productive struggle as utilizing existing knowledge, perseverance, and sense-making to solve new and novel problems. A key idea across theses constructs is that struggle occurs as a result of efforts to engage in sense-making, create new connections, and deepen understanding.

Research has supported the positive role struggle plays in learning. Hiebert and Grouws (2007) found providing students opportunities to “struggle with important mathematics” (p. 387) to be a main feature that supported meaningful learning. Researchers examining the effects of engaging students in problem-solving tasks before instruction found the approach benefited students’ learning, even when those initial efforts were not successful (Kapur & Bielaczyc, 2012; Kapur 2010, 2011; Schwartz & Martin, 2004). Scaffolding plays an important role. Several studies have found that providing scaffolding support after learners have attempted to solve a problem on their own and reached a point of stalled progress to be effective (Kapur, 2011; Kapur & Bielaczyc, 2012; Schwartz & Martin, 2004; Townsend et al., 2018). Other studies have highlighted the importance of opportunities to collaborate and reflect as students engage in productive struggle. Results of these studies support the practice of providing space for students to share, discuss, and evaluate a variety of solutions and approaches as a key process in supporting deeper learning (Baker et al., 2020; Kapur & Bielaczyc, 2012; Stein et al., 2009).

Supporting productive struggle in learning is complex. An examination of the literature revealed a variety of instructional features that have been explicated as supporting productive struggle in learning (Valentine & Bolyard, 2018). Some include establishing a learning environment that values perseverance and normalizes failure (e.g., Kapur, 2010; 2011; Kapur & Bielaczyc, 2012; Warshauer, 2015); engaging students in high-level tasks (e.g., Stein et al., 2009; Warshauer, 2015); valuing students’ ideas and contributions (e.g., Stein et al., 2009; Warshauer, 2015); scaffolding students’ sense-making (Engle, 2006; Franke et al., 2015); focusing on justification and explanation (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) 2014; Stein et al., 2009); and positioning students as contributors to the learning process (Engle, 2006; Franke et al., 2015).

Most literature discussing productive struggle in learning is grounded in mathematics, likely because it is a specific practice listed in NCTM’s recommendation of effective teaching practices. Although “productive struggle” is not listed as a core practice for ambitious science teaching, an examination of characteristics of classrooms in which ambitious science teaching is occurring demonstrates connections to instructional features related to productive struggle (see http://ambitiousscienceteaching.org/us/, n.d.).

While research has supported the importance of struggle in learning, implementing this practice can be difficult for teachers. US cultural norms view struggle in learning negatively, particularly in science and mathematics, and view the teacher’s role as removing struggle (Stein et al., 2009; Stigler & Hiebert, 2004). Such perspectives can be magnified with respect to particular groups of students for whom teachers’ implicit biases (such as those related to race, ethnicity, income, and gender) manifest in lower expectations (Fennema et al., 1990; Rojas & Liou, 2017). Further, supporting productive struggle in learning requires a shift in understanding what it means to do STEM subjects in schools. For years, the dominant perspective of STEM teaching and learning in the US positions students as passive recipients of information provided or demonstrated by the teacher; those who do not catch on quickly are labeled as not being able to do STEM (Louie, 2017).

Results of research have demonstrated that teachers’ past experiences as learners can influence how they interpret, make sense of, and implement reform practices in their own teaching (e.g., Drake, 2006). Teachers, and often parents, tend to cling to dominant, traditional teaching approaches, similar to what they likely experienced as learners, out of fear that moving away from these practices would hurt student learning (Barkatsas & Malone, 2005; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), 2014). In addition, the notion of “productive struggle” is relatively new in the K-12 teaching vernacular. Therefore, it is not widely known or understood. Without a clear understanding of what it means, it would be difficult for teachers to implement a practice of supporting it in learning. Therefore, before teachers can take up this practice effectively, they must understand what it means and what it looks like in learning.

Methods

The goal of our professional development program was to expose middle-grade teachers to an integrated approach to teaching mathematics and science that was grounded in engineering design principles. To evaluate progress toward this goal, we collected and analyzed data throughout the project, using the results to modify professional development experiences to best support participant learning. At the end of the 3 years, we conducted participant interviews to capture reflections on their experiences throughout the program. As we read through the interviews, we noted the prevalence of productive struggle language in participants’ reflections. This was intriguing and prompted additional exploration of this phenomena through two questions: (1) How did participants experience/understand productive struggle in learning during the professional development experience? And (2) how did the design of our professional development approach influence these understandings/experiences?

Study Context

Each year of our 3-year program, participants attended a 2-week summer professional development experience. They also participated in 4 follow-up days and classroom observations and support activities throughout the year. Yearly activities and tasks were themed around science and literacy foci and grade appropriate mathematics standards. The project was designed for teachers to participate in the program multiple years.

Participants

Teacher participants in the professional development program taught in four rural counties with large proportions (41–67%) of low-income students, less than 80% highly qualified teachers in mathematics or science, and below average mathematics and science standardized test scores. In the first year, we had 23 teachers. Each following year, additional teachers joined the project, resulting in a total of 32 teachers in the project. Participants in this study are eight teachers who participated in our professional development program for the entire 3 years. These participants taught in six different schools (grades 6–8; ages 11–14), had 1 to 26 years teaching experience when the project began, and taught science (n = 5), mathematics (n = 1), or both science and mathematics courses (n = 2). All participants held at least a bachelor’s degree. See Table 1 for demographic information for each participant.

Table 1.

Participant demographic information

Participant Years of experience (at the start of the project) Highest degree Subjects taught
Beth 1 Bachelors (education related) Math; science
Christopher 1 Bachelors (not education related) Science; SPED
Colleen 17 Masters (not education related) Science
Jennifer 7 Bachelors (education related) Math; science
Kate 26 Bachelors (education related) Math
Michelle 8 Masters (education related) Science
Susan 11 Bachelors (education related) Science
Tammy 1 Bachelors (education related) Science
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Professional Development Approach

We define teacher learning as “changes in knowledge, changes in practice, and changes in dispositions or beliefs that could plausibly influence knowledge or practice” (Goldsmith et al., 2014 p. 7). To facilitate learning of complex knowledge and skills such as integrated STEM instruction, design-based learning, and effective teaching practices, professional development experiences must authentically engage teacher-participants with these ideas as learners while simultaneously supporting them to develop knowledge of how to facilitate these practices and ideas as teachers. We drew on cognitive apprenticeship (Brown et al., 1989; Collins et al, 1989; Collins & Kapur, 2014) and situated learning to design our approach.

Cognitive apprenticeship uses learning activities that highlight relevant skills and knowledge and provide learners opportunities for “practice in applying these methods in diverse settings” (Collins & Kapur, 2014, p. 134). Collins and Kapur (2014) articulated four dimensions of a cognitive apprenticeship framework: content, method, sequence, and sociology. Content includes knowledge related to a specific discipline that is useful to solve problems. Teaching methods in a cognitive apprenticeship model include modeling, coaching, scaffolding, articulation, reflection, and exploration. Sequencing increases the complexity of tasks and skills with a goal of generalizing knowledge and skills for use in multiple contexts. Finally, sociology of learning emphasizes learning with and from others in environments that reflect those in which learners will use the knowledge and skills.

We also drew on a situated perspective of learning in our approach which foregrounds the connection between learning and the context in which in occurs. Brown et al. (1989) argued that separating or ignoring the relationship between learning and context limits the usefulness and power of the knowledge developed. Giving an example of knowledge as a tool, they argued individuals can acquire a tool, know what it is and what it might be used for, but still not be able to functionally use it in appropriate contexts. When learners have the opportunity to use a tool in an authentic context, they develop more nuanced, deeper knowledge of it.

Integrated Mathematics, Science, and Literacy Through Engineering Design

Engineering is a particular emphasis in recent national science standards (Czerniak, 2007). Research on the use of the engineering design process in STEM education has found positive impact on student learning outcomes such as thinking skills, content knowledge, and attitudes toward and interest in STEM (Hafiz & Ayop, 2019). Design thinking is associated with skills such as the ability to “tolerate ambiguity,” engage in systems thinking, make decisions, work on a team, and communicate thinking and results (Dym et al., 2005). We centered the design process in our approach to support teachers to develop a pedagogical approach that could help their students develop these key skills as well as increase students’ knowledge of and attitude toward STEM.

The design process we utilized included several stages: empathize (understanding the person or people who will use the process or product); define (clarifying the problem); ideate (generating potential solutions); prototype (building inexpensive scale models of possible solutions); test (collecting data and comparing to criteria identified in define stage); and communicate (communicating to others and receiving feedback for redesign) (Brown & Wyatt, 2010; Kelley & Kelley, 2013). The arrows in Fig. 1 highlight the dynamic and iterative nature of the design process. Each circle indicates a category of action and then reflection about whether what was learned through that action warrants continued activity in the current stage, or moving to another stage to the left or to the right. Cycling to the left to redefine, redesign, and retest is a critically important part of the process.

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

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Design process integrated with modeling and content standards. Source: Curtis et al. (2023). Reprinted with permission from Teachers College Press via fair use guidelines. Created with Microsoft Word

Mathematical modeling was central in this process. Mathematical modeling involves mathematizing real-world, authentic problems that may not initially appear “mathematical”; using mathematics to explain, predict, and/or analyze real-world events; and using knowledge and creativity to make choices, assumptions, and decisions to find the most appropriate solution (Cirillo et al., 2016). Mathematical modeling was a key tool during the ideate-prototype-test stages of the design process as learners determined significant variables, determined how to quantify them, created mathematical models to represent the situation, and then analyzed them to choose among alternative designs.

Middle-grade mathematics standards and disciplinary practices (as discussed in the Common Core Standards for Mathematics, NGA & CCSSO, N. G. A. C. for B. P. and C. of C. S. S. O., 2010) were integrated with science and engineering content standards, disciplinary practices, and systems/system models–focused crosscutting concepts (as discussed in the NGSS Lead States, 2013). The intent was to support participants to use the knowledge from the professional development experience to develop and implement design-based learning tasks for their classrooms.

Teaching Practices

Throughout the professional development experience, we introduced participants to the teaching practices suggested in the mathematics and science education literature. Teachers read about each of the practices (see Huinker & Bill, 2017) and the group engaged in activities to illustrate how the practice might be implemented in a middle-grade classroom. Supporting students in productive struggle in learning was among the practices we explored and many participants expressed unfamiliarity with this practice and concept prior to this experience. We also drew on aspects of complex instruction in our approach (Lotan, 2003). One was particularly relevant: implementing group-worthy tasks. Group-worthy tasks are those that, by design, require a group of learners with diverse strengths to work toward solutions. They do not necessarily have one “ideal” solution path; rather, they allow for multiple entry points and may result in multiple valid solutions. Group-worthy tasks engage learners with significant STEM content and include structures to support both individual and group learning.

Engaging Teacher Participants as Learners

Drawing on cognitive apprenticeship and situated learning perspectives, we engaged teachers as learners in our professional development. There were two layers to their learning: (1) understanding engineering design–based learning and effective teaching practices as learners and (2) understanding how to draw on effective teaching practices for teaching integrated STEM content and disciplinary practices through engineering design–based learning. We purposefully selected or crafted group-worthy design-based STEM tasks for participants to work on in their inter-disciplinary teams. Teams also worked together to develop design-based STEM lessons for students. Throughout, we modeled the use of effective teaching practices. We coached participants as they completed tasks themselves and as they designed instruction for their students. Attending to the zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Vygostsky, 1978), we scaffolded learning by providing supports and targeted instruction in a “just in time” approach. Further, we engaged participants in articulation and reflection of both their solutions to their tasks and the design, implementation, and assessment of their student lessons.

An Example Task

In an early project experience, participant groups designed and built a paper roller coaster where a marble should take 45 s to traverse the track. We first introduced the design process, highlighting important components of the design cycle. We then placed teachers in inter-disciplinary groups and introduced the task and design constraints. After building and testing their initial design, many found that their marble took much less than 45 s to traverse the track. To initiate their redesign, teachers tested the time it took for the marble to traverse specific components of the roller coaster and then used mathematical modeling to predict the total time for their coaster. They then used the model to revise their design. This led to a literacy assignment to write an instruction manual describing how to build the redesigned coaster. Groups exchanged manuals and built each other’s coaster from that instruction manual. Following, groups observed and discussed results, reflecting on what was clear and what was not in the manual instructions. They then revised their manuals to make additional clarifications.

Observations during the coaster project and results of content knowledge tests revealed some knowledge gaps for teachers. Teachers were not clear about how the marble’s mass influenced travel on the track, confusing how potential energy, kinetic energy, force, and speed differentiate. Learning of integrated mathematics and science content was a key to our approach. Therefore, we created design modules intended to help teachers develop more robust understandings of these concepts. Teachers first individually completed web-based versions. They then completed modules a second time in groups during professional development meetings where peers and content experts provided scaffolding, as needed. They discussed how to adapt portions of modules to mathematics and science content standards for middle-grade students. Finally, teachers applied their knowledge of both content and design-based tasks by creating and implementing a roller coaster design lesson for their own classrooms.

Data Sources and Analysis

We conducted individual interviews during each year of implementation to elicit participants’ understandings of specific aspects of the professional development approach, how they saw those pieces working together, and how the experience influenced their practice. This paper focuses on analysis of year 3 interviews. Participants were asked questions such as the following: What does engineering design mean to you? Where can it be applied? How has your understanding of engineering changed? How do the ideas we have explored fit together? How has the experience influenced you? In addition, after being introduced to and exploring the teaching practice of engaging students in productive struggle in learning, we noticed our participants used language related to productive struggle more often as they engaged in and reflected on project activities. Therefore, we included additional questions: Have you experienced productive struggle in the project? How? What made the struggle productive? Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed.

The small scope of the study (eight participants) was intentional. The phenomenon of interest was participants’ understanding of and experience with productive struggle in this professional development context. Therefore, we wanted to capture the perspectives of participants who had engaged with opportunities to learn over the entire 3 years of the project.

We drew on narrative and content analysis approaches (Patton, 2014) in our analyses. We first read interview transcripts as a whole to understand the entirety of the data. Next, we reread the transcripts using deductive coding based on key features of our professional design approach: integrated STEM, design, teacher as learner, collaboration, teaching practices, and interaction of components. We looked for instances in the data when participants discussed/described their experiences with and understanding of these features. This first reading provided a basis for understanding participants’ experiences with the overall professional development experience.

To answer the first research question, we each engaged in a line-by-line reading of a select set of interviews, coding for evidence of participants’ discussions related to productive struggle. Here we used inductive codes drawn from participants’ words to authentically capture how they understood/experienced productive struggle (Saldaña, 2013). We discussed and refined the codes generated from this initial dataset to develop a coding scheme used by two of the authors to independently code the remaining interviews. The whole group met regularly to compare coding, resolve areas of discrepancy, and discuss any additional codes that emerged from the data. These discussions resulted in a final code list related to productive struggle including the following themes and codes: shared experience (collaboration, building knowledge together); comfort with ambiguity/unknown (discomfort to comfort, perseverance, result in learning); teacher growth (understanding self, change in practice); and changing perspectives (STEM, teaching and students). Table 2 provides the full coding scheme with example data.

Table 2.

Coding scheme for understanding of productive struggle

Main code Sub-code Example Professional development feature
Shared experience Collaboration Building knowledge “we did it again with our groups here, then everybody kind of had their own ideas, and we kind of put all our thoughts together and it made a lot more sense to me.” Collaboration Multi-disciplinary
Comfort with ambiguity/unknown Discomfort to comfort Persevering Impasse resulting in learning “just the idea of I didn’t get it this time but I’m going to, I know what I need to fix now and continue…”
“You get a sense of accomplishment and…you learn from it.”		 Sustained Design process
Teacher growth Understanding self Changes in practice “it made me internalize…what I need to work on and what my weaknesses are and how I can make those changes inside my classroom and even outside my classroom.”
“not to limit myself and not to limit my students”		 Teacher as learner
Changing perspectives Broader perspective of STEM
Broader perspective of teaching and students		 “I’ve seen it in my classroom but I’ve seen it more since I’ve been implementing more of the engineering design activities with my students and I feel like they like that productive struggle” Teacher as learner Design
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To answer the second research question, the first author combined all data from both analyses in one coding matrix and read across all data, looking for connections between participants’ description of their understanding/experience of productive struggle, and how participants used the language of productive struggle as they described features of the professional development approach and referenced professional development features as they described their understandings of and experiences with productive struggle.

Results

Participants frequently referred to the construct of productive struggle to describe their experiences in the professional development activities. They highlighted features of our professional development design that influenced their understanding of productive struggle. In particular, they noted that experiencing design-based activities as learners and working closely with colleagues supported their understanding of what it means to productively struggle. We elaborate on these findings in the sections that follow.

Participants’ Experiences with and Understanding of Productive Struggle

A recurring theme in participants’ discussions of productive struggle was the importance of sharing the experience with others. Participants highlighted the importance of working together to build knowledge, pointing out that opportunities to collaborate on tasks facilitated knowledge development that would not have been possible if they had been working in isolation. Beth noted, “when you are working together you struggle and then the productive part is, ‘Okay let’s all four of us take four brains and try to figure out this one problem. Okay now we found a solution and we fixed it’.” Christopher also noted the role group effort played in his understanding of productive struggle:

… the productive struggle would be a lot more of a struggle instead of productive if you didn’t have groups…but the group work is [not] going to be effective if it’s not a group-worthy task, as we call it, which means it has to be something that one person can’t take charge and just do for the whole group. It has to be something that everybody can have access to but not one person can get it.

Here, he distinguished between “struggle” and “productive struggle” and credited group work as what delineated the two.

Another theme emerging from participants’ discussions relating to productive struggle was an increased tolerance for ambiguity or the unknown. They described the process of continually examining possible solution paths, evaluating progress, devising a plan for improvement, and trying again to reach the desired outcome. They discussed embracing struggle in order to “get to what you want your outcome to be” (Beth) and learning to push themselves “outside [their] comfort zone” (Jennifer). Kate recognized that, initially, her first instinct upon not being able to find an immediate solution was “to think, oh this is impossible, can’t be done.” However, she realized that engaging in the process of persevering, making changes to her strategies, and trying again would eventually pay off and “you learn from it.”

At first, participants had to grapple with feelings of discomfort at not knowing. Susan noted that initially, “there was a lot of trepidation,” but as the project continued and participants grew more comfortable with the approach and with each other, they became comfortable with immediately not knowing or having the answer. Michelle echoed these ideas, noting that initially she did not have a clear understanding of the big picture and “that ambiguity was difficult for me to, I guess you know, absorb and deal with and it took time.” She put trust in herself and her colleagues and, eventually, became more comfortable with not knowing, with ambiguity, and with struggle. Overcoming the discomfort of not knowing was not a quick process for participants. It required working over a sustained period time with a community of learners who shared a common experience to work through the process. These results echoed those of Townsend et al. (2018) who found that when students struggled and persevered together, they understood that struggle was acceptable and that working together could be more efficient and result in deeper understandings.

Participants also described experiencing growth as a result of their experiences with productive struggle. Many described gaining more confidence, greater knowledge, and additional insights of themselves as learners and teachers. Kate noted the value of struggle in learning and how the outcome was “a sense of accomplishment…it’s a good way putting productive in front of the word struggle.” Michelle described “hitting a wall” and “finding that weak spot” in her knowledge which led her to realize how experiencing and reflecting on struggle supported growth. She further noted that becoming more comfortable with struggle “kind of sparked creativity” in her teaching as she looked for ways to incorporate engineering design and mathematics in her science instruction. Susan summed up this transformation for her and her colleagues: “We’re better risk takers, I can see that now.”

Another outcome of experiencing productive struggle participants described was changing perspectives of STEM and of their teaching. Jennifer associated productive struggle with moving beyond what is familiar and broadening her “perspective of STEM and how we can incorporate it in our classroom.” Christopher realized that learning can occur even when students are not successful in finding a solution, yet also recognized that engaging students in productive struggle does not mean totally standing back from students; rather, it is making sure that “that if there’s a particular part they can’t do that they have access to it through group members or through scaffolding and then they can, at least contribute to it, and then they’ll learn from the result.” Michelle also emphasized the importance of acknowledging that struggle is part of learning while reassuring students of her support.

Over half of our participants discussed opportunities to gain new perspectives of their students’ capabilities as STEM learners. Colleen talked about this outcome, noting that she had some to understand that it was okay to allow her students to struggle. Jennifer shared that she now felt willing to “go deeper” with her students than she had in the past, knowing that the challenge and struggle would be beneficial to their learning. Further, she described allowing students to have more agency in the classroom. Rather than providing them with a set of steps and rules to follow, she now allowed them to become creators of the ideas: “letting kids have more ownership of whatever they are creating…and kind of let them discover on their own.” Christopher described a shift in his ideas of how to best support his students as a special education teacher:

I would say it’s (this professional development) kind of given me a higher set of expectations for students. How should I phrase this, a lot of people will say, oh well that student can’t do that so we’ll just let them slide. Especially in regards to special education students. I’ve kind of developed this high set of standards where they can accomplish this.

Christopher had come to realize that his students could do more than what he may have previously thought. His experiences in the professional development and his implementation of these ideas in his teaching had challenged some previous assumptions of what students could do.

Influence of Professional Development Design

Participants often cited components of the professional development design as they expressed their understanding of productive struggle. For example, as noted above, Christopher explicitly acknowledged the need for “group-worthy” tasks to create conditions for productive struggle: “but the group work is [not] going to be effective if it’s not a group-worthy task, as we call it.” Implementing group-worthy tasks was a component of our professional development approach. We intentionally implemented tasks that required the efforts of multiple people to solve and drew on knowledge from more than one discipline. Further, we deliberately assembled the groups so that they were multi-disciplinary, including participants who had expertise in mathematics, science, and special education. Thus, each group had to rely on the expertise of all to work toward a desired outcome.

The most prominent features participants associated with influencing their understanding of productive struggle were engineering design and engaging as learners. Half explicitly discussed engineering design as they articulated understandings of productive struggle. Colleen saw the two inextricably combined: “I just see them all as one, when you do the engineering design process, you’re [going] to have productive struggle.” In design activities, we provided a goal and a set of criteria with which to work and each group had to determine their own path to a solution. This open-ended nature of the tasks was key to Christopher’s understanding of productive struggle: “a lot of teachers will line out each step that you take to get to a solution, but…the engineering design…doesn’t want to use that hand holding.” Christopher continued, “we have to figure out the steps and in that part there’s struggle but it’s productive, because we either figure out steps that work or we don’t figure out the steps that work, in which case we revise until we do figure out what works.” For participants like Christopher, the process of designing, re-designing, and evaluating solutions created space for persevering through challenges.

Experiencing the professional development tasks as learners featured prominently in participants’ discussions about productive struggle. Jennifer credited experiencing productive struggle as a learner with expanding her view of STEM and what her students can do, learning “not to limit myself and not to limit my students.” Christopher described his new insights of students as occurring after being “in the shoes of students and in the shoes of teachers.” Michelle credited her experiences as a learner in the professional development to her understanding of how to implement this practice in her instruction. As she discussed the scaffolding she experienced, she stated, “what I experienced…I can carry it over to my students and so they felt [supported].” In line with cognitive apprenticeship, scaffolding was something we intentionally modeled as we facilitated professional development activities. Doing so at the right time is central to ensuring that learners’ struggles in learning are productive rather than futile (Townsend et al., 2018).

Our participants emphasized how experiencing productive struggle, themselves, helped them embrace struggle and realize that it is okay, and even beneficial, for their students—all of their students—to experience struggle, as well. In doing so, they realized that their students could do more than they had previously thought possible.

Discussion

In this paper, we explored how our participants understood/experienced productive struggle and how our professional development design may have influenced those understandings. The significance of this work lies in uncovering approaches to professional learning experiences that effectively support teachers to understand the meaning and value of productive struggle in order to enact a repertoire of instructional practices that effectively support their students to engage in and benefit from productive struggle in learning. Productive struggle plays a positive role in learning. Yet, many teachers may find it unfamiliar or difficult to enact. Cultural norms suggest that struggle in learning is “bad” and the teacher’s role is to remove it (Stigler & Hiebert, 2004). In our study, several participants described shifts in these perspectives. They were now open to engaging their own students in productive struggle rather than rushing to remove it. For Christopher, this was particularly significant because he was aware of the traditional, deficit views of students who received special education services which often result in lowered expectations (Fennema et al., 1990; Rojas & Liou, 2017).

For teachers to appropriately and effectively implement the practice of supporting productive struggle in instruction, they must understand what productive struggle means and how it can support learning; in other words, they must understand what it is they are trying to support during instruction. Otherwise, teachers may implement instructional features aligned to the practice without actually creating opportunities for students to productively struggle (e.g., having students work in groups but not on a task that may support new learning). Our participants were able to develop beginning, authentic understandings of productive struggle after engaging with our professional development approach. They noted the importance of engaging with others, creating a shared experience, and becoming comfortable with and working through struggle. These are features discussed in the literature of a classroom environment that supports productive struggle in learning (Engle, 2006; Franke et al., 2015; Gresfali et al., 2009; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), 2014; Warshauer, 2015).

Elements of our professional development approach influenced participants’ understandings of these features as integral to productive struggle. Particularly salient were the design process, the emphasis of group work via group-worthy tasks, and engaging teachers as learners. As a result of these experiences, participants expressed new ideas and perspectives of STEM content, of learning, of students’ capabilities, and of the teachers’ role. In the data presented, it is evident that our participants’ experiences with struggle as learners supported their developing understandings of the practice and the potential benefits of engaging their students in this practice. They were able to experience it authentically while learning something new or novel to them—integrated STEM instruction using an engineering design approach. We believe this context was important. It allowed them to develop ideas of productive struggle from actually experiencing it while learning. Rather than simply reading or hearing about productive struggle, they felt it and saw the results as they experienced productive struggle for themselves and used their understanding to develop and implement instruction for their students.

Engaging in productive struggle as learners allowed participants to give up some control as the “one who knows” or the “expert.” Participants explicitly discussed becoming comfortable with this idea and being positioned as a learner in the professional development. In turn, they were willing to give up some control in the classroom, allowing students to take control of and go deeper in their learning. These developments are of interest because, far too often, teaching has been positioned as almost formulaic or mechanical. In part, this is a result of efforts to standardize teaching stemming from notions of accountability that assume all learning moves at the same pace and can be demonstrated in the same way. Such a view removes creativity and individuality and fails to build on the strengths of all learners or teachers.

While our data suggested that the majority of our participants had begun to develop robust understandings of productive struggle, we recognize limitations. First, we realize participants’ developing understandings of productive struggle may be limited to instructional contexts specifically aligned with our professional development approach. Participants explicitly discussed productive struggle in the context of engineering design tasks. How might they transfer those ideas to other types of learning activities that may occur in STEM classrooms? For example, could they apply their understandings of the practice of supporting students in productive struggle in the context of students developing computational strategies for working with proportional reasoning situations? These are questions that should be taken up by future work.

In addition, we acknowledge the complexity of teacher learning. Opfer and Pedder (2011) noted that teacher learning is embedded in sub-systems including the individual teacher, the school setting, and the professional learning experiences in which they engage. As a result, predicting a specific outcome from any professional development experience would be challenging (Opfer & Pedder, 2011). Even so, although our participants taught in different schools located in different districts and varied in terms of years of experience, subjects taught, each moved toward developing an understanding of productive struggle that was aligned with the literature. Further, each discussed how they were beginning to notice and take up this construct in their own classrooms.

Implications

Our professional development approach provided participants with new resources and perspectives that they could draw on to recognize and facilitate opportunities to engage their students in the practice of supporting productive struggle in learning. These results suggest implications for designing professional learning experiences to support teachers’ understanding of productive struggle. First, professional learning experiences should engage teachers as learners in genuine, authentic ways. In our study, the focus of design-based integrated STEM created opportunities for participants to truly engage in learning. The approach was not familiar to them. The nature of design-based tasks leads to multiple “right” solutions. The integrated nature of the content meant that a range of expertise was needed to find a solution. As a result, the learning tasks were novel and created space for participants to experience struggle and ambiguity. Working through these challenges led to new knowledge. Without spaces for authentic learning and authentic productive struggle to occur, we believe we would not have had the same results.

Further, teachers must be able to use their knowledge in both the context of the professional learning experience and that of their classroom. We created spaces for participants to apply new ideas in their practice by designing, implementing, and reflecting on lessons. They were able to use their developing understandings of not only integrated, design-based instruction, but also productive struggle directly in their own practice. Working with teaching practices in these varied situations supported participants to develop more robust, functional knowledge of them (Collins & Kapur, 2014).

Future work should explicitly examine the interaction among specific elements of our professional design approach and the systems and sub-systems in which teacher professional learning occurs. Further, longitudinal research that followed teachers over time to understand how their conceptions of productive struggle continue to develop and how those conceptions influence their practice would be beneficial.

Finally, although teacher learning was the focus of our work, our participants shared insights into how the ideas explored in the professional development experience carried over to the classroom. Therefore, we believe the design features suggested for teacher learning experiences to support them in understanding productive struggle can be extrapolated to activities designed and implemented in classrooms. To do so, teachers must first attend to the nature of the tasks they are using in their classrooms. Several of our participants noted the importance of group-worthy tasks that required the thinking and effort of many to achieve success both in the context of their own learning and in the context of their classrooms. The open-ended nature of design activities provides a rich context for engaging students in productive struggle. Such activities do not have one prescribed solution path or even one correct solution. Rather, there are multiple ways students can successfully achieve the goal. Along the way, teachers can scaffold and support while allowing students agency to use their own ideas and knowledge to move forward. Finally, classroom tasks should engage students in struggle in a variety of contexts, not just on special days or projects. Students must experience and accept struggle as part of learning new ideas and skills. Future research exploring how these features support students to learn, which students, at what times, and in what ways would contribute to the field’s understanding of productive struggle and how to support it in the classroom.

Conclusion

Teachers continue to learn throughout their professional lives. We have, over several years, developed a set of practices that engaged teachers as learners and helped move teacher-participants away from trepidation with engineering design, integrated STEM, and struggle in learning and toward comfort with these ideas. Further, our approach has provided a forum for examining how effective teaching practices suggested in science and mathematics can combine to support integrated STEM instruction. Discussion of our approach and the related outcomes of it has potential to contribute to our understanding of effective professional development that can support teacher learning.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the West Virginia Department of Education and the Regional Education Support Agency (RESA) 3.

Footnotes

Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to protection or privacy of the participants.

Competing Interests The authors declare no competing interests.

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