Do you instinctively want to help students when they’re struggling? What if some level of struggle was necessary for learning? Brain-based learning researchers have discovered a sweet spot for learning called “productive struggle.” Here’s why and how it works.

Productive Struggle: 4 Neuroscience-Based Strategies to Optimize Learning

by Patty Freedman

In this month’s newsletter we deepdive into the concept and tell you more about how you can use the productive struggle and emotional intelligence (EQ) skills to enhance student learning. Keep reading for EQ research and resources you can use for you, your faculty and students.

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What’s in this edition:

🔴 Thinking About: What is Productive Struggle?

🟡 Research says: Productive struggle boosts brain based learning

🟢 Try it Yourself: 4 Tips for teachers to practice productive struggle

🔵 Mark your calendar: Events for educators – will you join us?

🔴 Thinking About: What’s Productive Struggle?

Have you thought about optimal learning conditions? How hard or easy should a task be? How much should students struggle? Researchers and educators have been experimenting with this calibration and have identified a sweet spot called “productive struggle.”

Productive struggle is a state of engagement where a learner works through a problem or completes a task; specifically it’s a balance between the right level of challenge that is not overwhelming. Good educators know that struggle is something to be embraced, it’s where learning takes place. Great educators want students to get comfortable with being a little uncomfortable in order to build success.

“The answer isn’t taking away challenge, it’s giving [students] more tools to deal with challenge,” explains Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University and an expert on constructive learning mind-sets.

Productive struggle changes brains – increasing myelin (white matter in the brain!) that increases connectivity and processing speed.

“Learning is not about turning on a light. Instead, it’s about constructing better and faster roads. Smart brains are efficient brains, and that efficiency comes from myelinating brain wires through repeated practice with specific feedback. Although it makes learning feel more difficult, it’s a difficulty that pays off in the long run.”
-Dr Rishi Sriram, professor of Education at Baylor.

What does a “productive struggle” lesson look like? A NYT article suggests that productive struggle, “works best when certain principles are followed: The problems must be devised to be intuitive, challenging but not impossible, and have multiple solutions; students should work in pairs or small groups; and the class should understand that getting a ‘right’ answer isn’t the goal, and that deeper learning is.”

To me the productive struggle learning process pretty closely describes elements from Six Seconds’ teaching and learning philosophy:

• Using feelings as part of the thinking process
• Finding the “just right” level of challenge
• Designing tasks where multiple solutions are possible
• Working with others to find solutions
• Centering learning on the journey not the destination

Have a look at the Six Seconds Change Map for even more connections to “productive struggle”:

The Change Map follows learners as they Engage on a new topic or idea. They bring excitement and curiosity to the problem. But the struggle of trying something new, of not having the solution can bring up feelings of frustration and fear. The next part of learning, Activate happens when students try experimenting with solutions, collaborating with others and testing out ideas. It requires courage and perseverance to deepen this learning. This is the “productive struggle” phase where myelin is building.The final stage of learning, Reflect is necessary for long term storage of the knowledge or experience. Feelings like curiosity, wonder, and satisfaction are present as learners get ready to take on the next challenge.

Integrating emotions into the learning process is essential to brain development. Emotions are where learning begins and and often where it ends. In an interview with NYT  Dr Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, associate professor of education, psychology and neuroscience at USC says, “It is literally neurobiologically impossible to think deeply about things that you don’t care about.” Read more from Dr Immordino-Yang in conversation with Joshua Freedman.

Let’s embrace the struggle and use emotions to optimize learning environments for all our students.

🟡 RESEARCH SAYS: Productive struggle boosts brain based learning

What’s the research behind “Productive Struggle?” A study published in Trends in Neuroscience (2017) discusses how myelination needs specific elements to develop. Exposing children to challenges causes “a child to continuously adapt to his or her surroundings in a social, physical and experiential manner.” The researchers found that in experimental models, children in productive struggle settings, “supported brain health by increasing the volume and length of myelinated fibers, the volume of myelin sheaths and by boosting total brain volume.”

Why is myelination important?

As children grow their brains develop in complexity and speed. Imagine a child’s brain is like an open field and a new skill or idea is a path through it. As that path gets more worn (with practice or use), it eventually becomes a wider, well trodden route and eventually over time, it becomes a road well traveled. In the process of connecting neural pathways, brain cells (axons) get coated with myelin (a fatty substance that wraps around the axon of a neuron increasing the efficiency of brain signals.) This process called myelination develops during childhood and adolescence and is well studied in animals and humans.

Did you know, a well-myelinated brain signal travels over 100 times faster than an unmyelinated brain signal? 

The researchers identify key elements in an active learning classroom or home to develop myelination. “Positive, rich, and stimulating physical and emotional environments support myelination, whereas negative influences can inhibit myelination: Newness, challenge, exercise, diet, and love… without these five essentials, an organism may lose the ability to carry out basic motor and cognitive functions.”

🟢 TRY IT YOURSELF: 4 Tips for teachers to practice productive struggle

Here’s 4 learning strategies to try with your students to practice productive struggle: (adapted from edutopia)

Practice retrieval: Priming students before doing the task helps them build the connections by flexing their retrieval skills. Ask kids to practice answering problems or performing skills before reteaching lessons. You could say, “Let’s talk about how you are going to XYZ,” or, “What are three things to know about XYZ?”

Interleaving: Think of this as “cross training” for learning. If you want to get better running time, incorporating different types of exercise into a routine can help balance and strengthen all muscle groups and lead to improved performance. By mixing up practice (interleaving) students might work through a 30-question multiplication worksheet at a relatively quick pace. But when you mix up different combinations of concepts including word problems or other tasks to slow their thinking down and build new connections, deeper learning happens.

Spacing: Did you know our learning brain can get tired? Research shows spreading out practice evenly over time is one of the most helpful techniques for deepening learning. The brain can absorb only so much information at a time, students need frequent, shorter sessions than from longer ones.

Mindfulness: Getting ready for learning with mindfulness techniques is similar to stretching before running a race. To get learners brain’s in peak learning mode use breathing, visualizing and centering techniques. Research shows that regular mindfulness sessions can stimulate the production of myelin, increasing connectivity within the brain. Mindfulness supports both academic and emotional wellbeing. Let’s make more time for it everyday!

🔵 MARK YOUR CALENDAR: Events for educators – will you join us?

Free online events EQ Café “Unwinding Anxiety” about shifting from reaction to response – multiple dates

Emotional intelligence mini-workshops online – multiple dates

SEL for Educator Wellbeing certificate program in partnership with Antioch University, online – multiple dates

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