Kevin Dykema invites us to rethink productive struggle as more than a math education buzzword. Instead of rescuing students with steps and answers, he shows how teachers can create the conditions for students to reason, grapple, and make sense of mathematics.

In this episode, Kevin shares practical ways to make struggle productive, including building positive math identity, creating a supportive classroom community, planning better tasks, anticipating student thinking, and asking questions that rescue thinking instead of answers.

You’ll hear classroom-ready examples involving mental math, integers, fractions, exponents, quadratics, and task design. Kevin also reminds us that reflection matters, both for students and teachers, because struggle becomes powerful when learners can see how far their thinking has come.

CONTACT / RESOURCES

Kevin Dykema

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