As students struggle over a mathematical task, teachers can often hear some
students utter, “I don’t get it” or “I don’tknow what to do.” Some may even proclaim,“I know the answer, I just don’t know how to explain it.” The kind of struggle referred to here is described by Hiebert and Grouws (2007) in this way: “Students expend effort in order to make sense of mathematics, to figure something out that is not immediately apparent”. Studies suggest that struggling to make sense of mathematics is a necessary component of learning mathematics with understanding. In the NCTM publication Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All (2014), the writing team identified the support of productive struggle in learning mathematics as one of the eight important teaching practices and I believe that to be so true.

This chart comes from the publication and makes alot of sense to me:

Before I watched the videos and learned about productive struggle, I thought that any kind of struggle was not good and I think the reason I felt this way was because of how horrible my math teacher was- it was a LONG time ago and I don't think he would have been allowed to do to us what he did then, now. He made me hate math and whenever I think of my worst struggle in HS, I always think of him. I wish I had a teacher who practiced productive struggling, I still despise math, but maybe that would have been different if this practice was used. I also believe I will follow this chart when helping my youngest with her homework this year. It seems that it is always a stressful time in our house for all of us and this just may help teach her it is okay to struggle and that is how she will continue to learn.

Reference:

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). 2014. Principles
to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All. Reston, VA: NCTM.