Questioning and Teaching Strategies That Promote Students Sticking With Rigorous 

Math Tasks and Engaging in Critical Thinking. 

DSD Elementary Summer Institute 2017

Celeste Harding & Piia Pehap

Learning Goals 

Understand the purpose of productive struggle in the

mathematics classroom and how to support it.

Learn how to question effectively to support productive

struggle in the mathematics classroom.

Learn effective teacher moves that support student

perseverance.

Shopping Trip Task. 

What are the

teachers doing?

What are the

students doing?

Which teacher  was more effective and why? 

Principals to Action, NCTM

Resource for you to use throughout the school year

Principals to Action, NCTM

Can Struggling Be Good for Students? 

“Teachers worry a lot about students who struggle. We

hate to see frustration, insecurity, and impatience on a

student’ face. But as we now know, constructively

struggling with challenging problems can help a student

learn mathematics, as long as we provide the structure

and support that will allow that struggle to progress

toward understanding, meaning, thinking, and learning; in

other words, to engage in productive struggle.” (pg 22)

How we withhold Struggling? 

Lack of wait time

Who’s doing the talking?

Seeing the solutions rather than the process.

Seeing the solution as the goals rather than the process as the vehicle for learning.

By showing and explaining a concept or a rule, such as diving fraction in a step-by-step, manner before giving a task.

Machine gun questioning… no wait time.

Interrupting student thinking (rushing)

Slowing down instruction… to show how to solve before they even try on their own

Rushing through materials to cover content

Having too many problem to solve rather than ONE good task

Rushing to practice when students aren’t ready

How we withhold Struggling? 

“However, when we show students exactly how to solve a certain type of problem, we deny them the opportunity to think in advance how they might approach it. Thus, we may end up keeping them from struggling- but we also prevent them from learning how to preserver through a difficult problem to concept. “ pg 24

Embrace Mistakes

What does this

really mean?

“ Being willing to make a mistake also contributes to students’ willingness to productively struggle through what may at first seem difficult to them” pg. 26

The wrong kind of struggle.

How can we recognize

unproductive struggle?

What is the best way to help

students engaged in

unproductive struggle?

“It’s a mistake to think that we can use the same tool, strategy, or program to help every student stuck in unproductive struggle.” pg 27

Now you try…

Leo the Rabbit is climbing up a

flight of 10 steps. Leo can only

hop up 1 or 2 steps each time

he hops. He never hops down,

only up. How many different

ways can Leo hop up the flight

of 10 steps? Provide evidence to

justify your thinking.

3 minutes

Opportunities for the right 

kind of struggle. 

What strategies did we use

to support productive

struggle?

Strategies that support 

productive struggle

1. Setting explicit learning goals

2. Monitoring our feedback

3. Emphasizing the problem solving process

4. Baiting the hook

5. Expected End

6. Writing what you know

“ In short, if we think of struggling as an instructional priority, rather than an indicator of a

lack of smarts, we can help all students become proficient mathematical thinkers.” (pg 28)

References: 

Making Sense of Math. How to Help Every Student

Become a Mathematical Thinking and Problem Solver

Cathy Seeley

Principles to Actions. Ensuring Mathematical Success

for All. NCTM publications.

The 8 x 8 Project