Productive Struggle, Persistence, and Perseverance (CoRD)

Lucas Foster, Northeastern State University
Susan Kirk, Tulsa Community College
Karl Kruczek, Northeastern State University
Heather Lester, Connors State College

Learning mathematics can be a struggle. Sometimes, a student will experience multiple failures before enjoying a success. The idea of productive struggle is that the student persists throughout the process with creativity and determination until a solution presents itself. When students face problems that they don’t know how to solve right away, math educators do not want them to stop trying, but to continue with effort and think creatively to achieve a solution. If productive struggle is a central part of the learning environment, student success can be more evident and prevalent in math classrooms.
In this study, investigators introduce the REACT framework, clarify how the framework reinforces the learning pillars of the Math Inquiry Project, and explore the effect that productive struggle has on student learning in an entry level college mathematics course.

The REACT framework:

Read: The student must read the problem, comprehend its intent, and discern the result that is being sought.

Explore: The student must disassemble the problem and investigate the different strategies which may be used to solve it.

Attempt: The student must give active effort to solve the problem using any of the explored strategies.

Critique: The student must evaluate the strategy employed in solving the problem.

Teach: The student must explain the solution and the reasoning behind it.

A detailed analysis of the REACT Framework and it’s implementation in the resources of this module.

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0