According to Vygotsky’s theory, the productive struggle can be explained in a situation where a learner asks for assistance from another person when solving an academic problem such as a mathematical question.
The cultural and social environment propagates cognitive growth and is referred to as situated learning and cognition where the environment influences people's thinking and learning (Ormrod, 2016). Therefore, it is useful to think, learn and behave in particular social or physical contexts and thus a student can persevere when tackling a complicated mathematical task when there is assistance from a tutor (Pasquate, 2015). The contextual perspective on distributed learning suggests that sharing the cognitive load to other people or tools such as a calculator assists a student in applying various methods to determine the correct answer without which the learner would not be motivated to struggle until he attains the desired solution.
The productive struggle benefits learners as particular culturally dependent cognitive and physical tools assist by influencing the children’s approach of performing activities and thinking which results in their cognitive growth (Ormrod, 2016). Additionally, children are motivated to persevere while tackling an academic question until they attain the required solution (Ormrod, 2016). One strategy that supports productive struggle is when a teacher provides directions on the best method to use in completing a task which enhances the students' cognitive ability as they acquire skills from the tutor that aid in understanding the problem.
Proximal development is a term that refers to the difference between what a leaner cannot do that which he can do without the assistance of a person with higher cognitive ability. A challenging mathematical problem can be utilized by a teacher to determine the level of cognitive development of various students in the class (Ormrod, 2016).
References
Ormrod, J. E. (2016). Human Learning. Upper Saddle River,NJ: Pearson/Merill Prentice Hall.
Pasquate, M. (2015). Productive Struggle In Mathematics. Retrieved from Educational Develeopment Centre: http://interactivestem.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/EDC-RPC-Brief-Productive-Struggle.pdf
