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Imagine you're in the middle of your class, and you've just asked students to do a short reading and answer some questions. You notice one of your students (let's call her Maya) look at the question and furrow her brow. You see this and, wanting to be helpful, you walk over and start explaining what the question means. Maya is listening, but you can see she's not fully grasping it, so you go on to show her where she can find the answer in the text and tell her what she could write.

Now, let's pause for a moment. As teachers, it's our instinct to jump in and rescue students when we see them struggling. We want to make sure they understand and succeed, right? But here's the thing: sometimes, our well-intentioned help isn't always the best solution. When we swoop in too quickly to provide answers, we take away the opportunity for students to engage in productive struggle.

Productive struggle is a concept that refers to the process by which learners engage with challenging tasks or concepts, experiencing difficulty and frustration, but ultimately persevering and making progress towards understanding or solving the problem at hand. It involves grappling with complex problems, making mistakes, and encountering setbacks, but it's through this struggle that deep learning occurs. When students are struggling and we intervene too soon, we short-circuit that process. Instead of building resilience and problem-solving skills, students become reliant on us for answers, instead of learning and developing the skills they need to become more independent learners. But, this doesn't mean that we just let students struggle throughout the entire lesson or to the point of frustration, either! Below are some strategies and tools that you can use to engage students in productive struggle.

(To learn more, you can read this ASCD article by Barbara Blackburn about the "sweet spot" of productive struggle and/or this Edutopia article about the neuroscience behind productive struggle. In addition, here is a video on why productive struggle is important and another video on how productive struggle fires up the brain.)

Strategies/Tips

🧠 Ask Metacognitive Questions 🧠

If students are struggling and ask for help, try to resist the temptation to tell them the answer immediately. Instead, first try to engage them in some metacognitive questioning that will help guide them to the answer. For example, you might say:

"How did you decide to approach this problem?"
"Tell me what strategies you've tried so far." -OR- "Explain to me what you're thinking so far."
"What strategies have you used in similar situations before?"
"What do you already know about this topic or problem that could help you?"
"What are some possible approaches you could take to solve/answer this question?"
"What resources could we use to help us solve this problem/answer this question?"
"Have you encountered an obstacle like this before? How did you overcome it?"
"What if we started someplace else?" -OR- "How about we start from here instead?"

🌱 Nurture a Growth Mindset 🌱

Growth mindset is the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through effort, perseverance, and learning from mistakes, rather than being fixed traits. Try to cultivate a growth mindset in your classroom, not only through your words, but also by what you put in the physical environment. For example, to show that you value perseverance, resilience, and creativity, you might:

Acknowledge when you see students persevere through a challenge
Set the stage with an attitude that no effort is wasted
Encourage exploration
Display work that demonstrates creative problem solving, not only top scores
Foster a non-competitive learning environment and one in which collaboration is valued

🛣️ Facilitation Roadmap 🛣️

Need more guidance about what to do when students are working independently? You can use our "Facilitation Roadmap" to help you know what to do based on what you are observing. See the screenshot to the right and/or download the document here. (Use your MyQPortal link to sign in and access it.)

Building Students' Stamina

According to Merriam Webster, stamina is "the bodily or mental capacity to sustain a prolonged stressful effort or activity," or "the moral or emotional strength to continue with a difficult process, effort, etc." Stamina is so important for students in school because, the more stamina they have, the more they will be able to learn. It helps students reach their full potential! So are some things we can do to help build students' stamina?

Use Analogies - Have students think about successful athletes and make the comparison to those athletes' training and academic stamina. The best sports players and Olympians didn't become the best overnight. They did with intentional practice and training, and they did it with consistency. Ask students which athletes they know and admire, then find a video or an interview where the person talks about their training, persistence, and how it wasn't always easy, but it paid off! Be sure to talk to students about the "why" and how building their stamina will help them in the future (outside of just school).

Start with Small Goals - You can use the athlete comparison here too. People don't wake up one morning and run a good marathon. Marathon runners, or anybody who is trying to making running a practice, start small. Many beginner "Couch to 5K" programs begin with small intervals of running alternated with walking. Eventually, the length of running time gets larger, and the length of the walking declines and then eventually goes away entirely. For example, a typical progression is 1 min run/1 min walk, 2 min run/1 min walk, 3 min run/1 min walk, 4 min run/1 min walk, 5 min run/1min walk, 3 min run/30 sec walk, 4 min run/30 sec walk, 5 min run/30 sec walk, etc. This method makes the task mentally easier because it breaks the task into smaller and more manageable chunks.

You can try this same method with students! Begin with a small goal. If the goal, for example, is to get students to read for sustained periods of time, begin with setting small goals - set the goal of 5 min of sustained reading and set a timer. Once students have accomplished this, increase the goal appropriately. You might try 8 min next, then 10. Note that each student is different and will have different levels of stamina, so you may want to set different goals with each student. Setting and achieving multiple small goals and seeing their progress will not only help students feel more confident, but it will also increase their stamina and motivation to try for the next challenge!

Teach Self-Awareness and Refocusing Skills - Teach students to recognize when they are getting off task and what they can do to reset and refocus. You might use something like a Focus Card to help students build awareness of their level of focus and to also help them visually see how they are doing. You can also help them craft a plan for what they will do if they do get distracted or realize they are not focused. (See our If, Then Implementation Plans.) For example, if the goal is to build stamina in writing, some strategies you might teach students so they can reset are breathing and stretching exercises, or closing their eyes and repeating a mantra.

Have Students Reflect - Build in time for students to reflect on what is working well and what is challenging about sustaining focus and attention. This could be an individual reflection that students keep in a journal or share with you during a 1:1 or small group conversation. It could also be something that you do as a whole class as a benchmark discussion. Have students name what gets in their way, and also have them share strategies with each other. That will also help to build a strong classroom community, in which students work together to overcome challenges.

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