CHARACTERIZING HOW EXPERT ALGEBRA TEACHERS PROMOTE PRODUCTIVE STRUGGLE

While frameworks for analyzing teacher actions have been developed, little research describes how expert teachers promote productive struggle in their classrooms In this paper, we report findings from using a productive struggle framework and a cognitive demand framework to characterize how nine National Board Certified algebra teachers promoted productive struggle in a lesson After analyzing videos of their lessons, we found these teachers, whom we label as expert teachers, used a high-cognitive demand task and gave responses that promoted students’ productive struggle, often maintaining the high-cognitive demand of the task This analysis provides mathematics teacher educators and leaders concrete evidence of how expert algebra teachers promote productive struggle in the classroom We also discuss implications useful for educators and administrators who decide on algebra curricula and professional development, including tailored information for how teachers can respond to student struggle in ways that promote the high cognitive demand of algebra tasks.