Using Productive Struggle and Productive Failure Purposefully: Optimizing Challenge in the Classroom

Introduction

The words “struggle” and “failure” often carry negative connotations and can be difficult topics for both instructors and students to discuss (Rawle et al., 2026). Faculty work hard to ensure learners are successful, and students invest significant time, effort, and resources to achieve the academic goals they have set for themselves. However, a growing body of research suggests that allowing students to grapple with challenging problems (and even fail to solve them!) can create powerful learning opportunities for students to engage deeply with concepts and reconsider initial ideas (Emberley et al., 2026; Rawle et al., 2026; Young et al., 2024).

Productive struggle and productive failure offer two distinct yet related pedagogical approaches to learning through challenge. The major difference between the two approaches relates to timing. In productive failure, students make an initial attempt to solve a problem before the instructor provides a formal explanation. For productive struggle, students persist on a demanding task and receive appropriately timed support throughout the process. Students work through difficulty via carefully calibrated prompts, examples, tools, or peer dialogue.

Struggle becomes productive when it helps students move closer to independently achieving a learning goal or objective.

However, neither approach guarantees learning, and neither is appropriate in every context. Both require intentional design, clear expectations, low-stakes conditions, and responsive instructional support.

This blog post distinguishes between the two methods and discusses practical considerations for using either method or, when appropriate, combining elements of both to promote meaningful engagement without making students bear unnecessary risk.

Equity Matters: Considerations for Incorporating Productive Struggle and Productive Failure into the Classroom

Understanding the distinction between productive struggle and productive failure is only part of the challenge of successfully implementing them. Instructors must also recognize that students do not experience struggle and failure in the same way. Although both strategies can create meaningful learning experiences, not all students are equally well-positioned to benefit from them. The stakes of struggle and failure may be significantly higher for students with historically marginalized identities or those from underrepresented groups in higher education (Feigenbaum, 2021). Some students, particularly those who have experienced marginalization or exclusion in academic settings, may interpret difficulty as evidence that they don’t belong, thereby reinforcing erroneous yet deeply rooted feelings of inadequacy. Further, students from diverse backgrounds may resist such problem-solving approaches if they have been exposed only to highly structured, direct instruction. In general, few students understand that mistakes are a normal part of the learning process.

It’s important for instructors to recognize that not all struggle or failure is productive.

Productive struggle and productive failure are not the same as exposing students to avoidable risk. Kapur & Bielaczyc (2012) explain that faculty must strike a delicate balance between challenging and supporting students by creating learning environments where students feel safe to learn rather than discouraged. In this context, “failure” should refer to a low-stakes initial attempt that produces an incomplete or incorrect solution, not poor performance on a high-stakes exam, failure of a course, or an outcome that threatens academic standing. Instructors should make the purpose of learning activities that involve productive struggle or productive failure explicit, ensuring students have the support they need to meet learning goals and objectives. When students are stuck without a viable next step, confused about expectations, or repeatedly unsuccessful due to barriers unrelated to the learning goal, instructors should step in to provide assistance. Such intentional instruction can create learning experiences that minimize unnecessary barriers while ensuring all students have equitable opportunities to engage in rigorous academic coursework (Brooks & McGurk, 2022).

Designing Challenge: Attempt, Support, Revision, and Reflection

The outline below provides one possible framework for designing a learning sequence that engages productive struggle and productive failure. It illustrates one way an instructor might invite a low-stakes initial attempt, respond with targeted support, and create time for revision. In other contexts, instructors may use productive struggle during guided practice without beginning with a productive-failure activity. Teaching techniques from the K. Patricia Cross Academy are provided for each step, offering a general format for engaging in productive struggle, productive failure, or elements of both, with intentional instructional design determining whether it functions as productive struggle or productive failure.

1. Provide Students with a Low-Stakes, Appropriately Challenging Task

For a productive-failure design, begin by inviting students to attempt a complex problem or project before providing a formal explanation. For productive struggle, instructors may instead introduce a challenging task after initial instruction and provide support as students work. The task should be challenging enough that most students won’t be able to solve it immediately, inviting multiple approaches and revealing students’ current thinking. The problem should also be authentic and discipline-specific, moving beyond simple recall questions. Challenging, low-stakes learning opportunities are created by clearly explaining that students should expect uncertainty and view mistakes as valuable learning opportunities. For formative learning exercises and other types of low-stakes learning activities, consider weighting engagement more heavily than correctness.

The list below provides examples from the K. Patricia Cross Academy’s Techniques Video Library of the types of activities instructors might initially assign:

• Case Studies
  • With Case Studies, student teams review a real-life problem scenario in depth. Team members apply course concepts to identify and evaluate alternative approaches to solving the problem. They can support productive failure if students analyze a complex case before they receive the relevant framework. They can later revisit their analysis after instruction is provided.
• Group Grid
  • In Group Grid, group members are given information and asked to place it in the blank cells of a grid according to category rubrics, which helps them clarify conceptual categories and develop sorting skills before receiving formal instruction.
• Triple Jump
  • A Triple-Jump is a three-step technique that requires students to think through and attempt to solve a real-world problem. This technique can support productive failure or productive struggle if students complete it before they receive instruction.

2. Delay Direct Answers, Not Support

Challenge is incorporated into the learning sequence by allowing students to wrestle with complicated ideas and concepts. For productive failure, students make an initial attempt before formal explanation. For productive struggle, students work through difficulty with carefully calibrated prompts, examples, tools, or peer dialogue. Instructors may offer guided questions or hints to give students the time and space they need to process the information themselves. Instructors can reduce frustration without eliminating challenges by encouraging peer collaboration and multiple approaches to problem-solving.

These examples from the K. Patricia Cross Academy’s Techniques Video Library offer strategies for encouraging learners to use resources outside of their instructor to problem solve:

• Think-Pair-Share
  • In a Think-Pair-Share, the instructor poses a question, gives students a few minutes to think about a response, and then asks students to share their ideas with a partner. This technique can support productive struggle when the prompt is demanding, students have sufficient think time, and the instructor uses responses to provide a next-step prompt rather than immediately supplying the answer.
• Jigsaw
  • In Jigsaw, students work in small groups to develop knowledge about a given topic before teaching what they have learned to another group. While the instructor monitors progress, direct instruction isn’t provided at this stage of the learning process. Jigsaw can support productive struggle when students have an appropriately challenging information gap, access to the resources they need, and instructor prompts that help them synthesize instead of merely exchange information.

3. Provide Timely Instruction and Necessary Feedback by Monitoring and Intervening Responsively

When engaging productive struggle or productive failure, instructors should withhold a full solution only when students still have a productive next step to take. For example, after students work on a project or problem for a predetermined period, instructors provide guided instruction by explaining underlying concepts and comparing different problem-solving approaches. They highlight common stumbling points and model expert thinking by connecting incorrect solutions to correct reasoning. They may also provide written discursive feedback when necessary.

In some learning designs, an initial low-stakes attempt may be followed by guided practice, feedback, and revision. This sequence can incorporate elements of both productive failure and productive struggle, but both approaches don’t need to occur at once. The instruction provided may feel more meaningful to learners because they have experienced the limitations of their knowledge base.

4. Encourage Students to Revise and Reflect Through Debriefing, Providing Instruction, and Supporting Revision

To come full circle, instructors encourage learners to reflect on what they’ve learned about their thought processes and revise their work accordingly. Focus shifts to comparing strategies, identifying assumptions, explaining why certain approaches did or did not work, and giving students an opportunity to revise.

The following learning activities from the K. Patricia Cross Academy’s Techniques Video Library may provide opportunities for students to examine both successful and unsuccessful approaches to problem solving:

• Post-Test Analysis
  • A Post-Test Analysis is a two-stage process divided into several steps designed to help students develop greater awareness of their test-preparation and test-taking skills. It requires students to examine unsuccessful approaches before revising their understanding.
• What? So What? Now What? Journals
  • In What? So What? Now What? Journals, students reflect on their recent course-related activities as they respond to each prompt in a journal entry.
• Think-Aloud-Pair Problem Solving
  • In Think-Aloud-Pair Problem Solving (or TAPPS for short), students take turns solving problems aloud while a peer listens and provides feedback. This activity makes revision visible as students collaborate to discuss effective and ineffective problem-solving strategies.

When instructors use productive failure, productive struggle, or selected elements of both as part of a larger learning process, students may have opportunities to grow academically and develop personally (Roberts, 2024).

Conclusion

Challenge is not inherently beneficial, and failure is not inherently productive. Rawle et al. (2026) note, “failure has the potential to be a crucial and meaningful part of the learning process, especially when it is viewed as a routine, shared, normative, and essential part of the learning experience.”  Its value in the classroom depends on how instructors design a learning task, communicate its purpose, monitor students’ experiences, and provide timely opportunities for feedback and revision. When the challenge remains low-stakes and accessible, students are better able to understand how the process may have helped them meet their learning goals. When thoughtfully implemented, productive struggle and productive failure may help students examine their thinking and develop a more robust understanding.

Instructors can successfully incorporate this perspective into their teaching philosophies by designing supportive learning environments that center on curiosity and engagement, rather than on performance alone. This approach encourages students to view struggle and failure as normal and productive parts of the learning process.