Maybe Teachers need to Struggle First

 

In Chapter 5 of Rigor by Design, Not Choice, Karin Hess discusses the importance of rigorous performance-based assessments (PBAs). The chapter is filled with powerful and practical advice for teachers who want to integrate authentic assessments into their classroom.  Talking about the need to “push students out of their comfort zone,” (Hess 2023, p. 96), Hess indicates that these assessments include:

1.       Open-ended contexts

2.       Productive challenge (or productive struggle).

3.       An opportunity for students to uncover thinking

4.       Authentic opportunities for students to authentically  perform and share the tasks

5.       Asking students to “stretch” their thinking.

6.       Using that “stretch thinking” to develop transfer.

7.       Using that “stretch thinking” to spark reflective and metacognitive thinking.

 

Hess spends time talking about the continuum of engagement and complexity, which I found extremely important. There is room for less complex tasks with high content engagement, such as to check for understanding and “laying the groundwork for problem solving” (Hess, 2023, p. 98).  Some tasks may be complex (such as identifying a theme or main ideas), but low engagement with content. Teachers have to support students in engaging with these difficult tasks. I think this is key because students can learn to see the value of those tasks if the strategies that prepare them for the tasks that are engineered to engage with the content. Obviously, some tasks are not complex and  the content is not that engaging, so teachers need to help bring that content alive or help students see how this work will connect to a larger, more engaging task. Finally, teachers need to offer students opportunities to complete complex tasks with complex content.  Hess suggests that teachers need opportunities to share their learning at various levels before coming to the highest rigor, but these PBAs will “ensure every student has a greater opportunity to learn,” (Hess, 2023, p. 99).

The key words I kept hearing from Hess is “productive struggle.” I truly appreciate the importance of this struggle, but I also recognize that for teachers, this is challenging to really and purposefully make room for such struggle in the classroom. In their article “Teachers as Designers: Inviting Teachers into Productive Struggle,” Trinter and Hughes (2021) discuss the use of teacher design teams which effectively bring teachers teams together for the purposes of curriculum development and design. While this is something that can be a very transformative practice, it is also true that teachers may lack capacity for design because most of their training has focused on instruction. Therefore, teachers may need support as they engage in curriculum work as problem solving, placing “teachers in a problem solving situation in which the solution and related strategies are within reach,” (Trinter & Hughes, 2021).

Traditionally, we have left teachers to design curriculum or supplement purchased programs with too little support, which has led to the kind of lower-level tasks observed in The Opportunity Myth, as I discussed in my week 1 blog. By introducing a model for team design that allows for student productive struggle by teachers engaging with that same struggle as curriculum designers, teachers may be oriented to make honest observations about the existing curriculum and consider collectively what barriers may exist to introducing rigor within their classrooms. With facilitation and guidance, teachers can become clearer in their teaching expectations through the design team discourse.

What matters is that if teachers come to a clear understanding of the end goal, they can then identify the ways engage students in tasks that move across the continuum of engagement and complexity, allowing students multiple ways to access the content and build skills. If teachers see the way these tasks can move toward a clear end goal, they are better positioned to support productive struggles of their own students.

In short, teachers may need to experience productive struggle before being able to design for it.

Our traditional ways of holding teachers accountable to curriculum often shortcuts their own productive struggle because either: 1) the end goal comes from beyond them, such as from a curriculum program) or 2) there is no opportunity for them to grapple with these challenges so they merely push through.In the end, Trinter & Hughes clarified one idea: to be able to purposefully engage students in the rigorous tasks that Hess outlines within her book, teachers as curriculum designers need to be given structures, supports and guidance that prepares them to teach to such outcomes. Embedded and ongoing support will build teacher capacity and enable them to value the process of learning and student struggle because they have a clearer understanding of the end game for their students.

The kind of tasks that Hess offers as PBA require teachers to move beyond coverage of content. While Hess offers really practical advice for teachers designing complex tasks, I am cognizant of the fact that it takes more than changing assessment tasks or designing rubrics (though her advice on rubrics is truly excellent). Coming to these tasks requires a backward design approach that leverages the learning in ways that prepares all students for the tasks at hand. Therefore, the productive struggle is managed and offset by skill and content mastery needed to help them move from struggle to productivity.

 Hess, K. (2023). Rigor by Design, Not Chance. ASCD. 

Trinter, C.P. & Hughes, H.E. (2021). Teachers as curriculum deisgners: Inviting teachers into the productive struggle. Research in Middle Level Education 44 (30), 1-16. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19404476.2021.1878417

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