Champions of\u00a0low-structure pedagogy<\/strong> believe that students learn best as they build (that is, “construct”) their own mental models by discovery, trial, and error. This “team” — often mislabeled as “progressive” — typically favors a student-centered classroom, inquiry or discovery pedagogies, a skills-based curriculum, and so forth.<\/p>\n To be clear,\u00a0every sentence in these two paragraphs invites LOTS of disagreement and debate. But they’ll serve as a useful starting place.<\/p>\n Now, proponents of both high- and low-structure pedagogy want students to THINK HARD. (No surprise there. As Dan Willingham has written, “memory is the residue of thought.”)<\/p>\n BUT — here’s the big reveal — each team has a different name<\/strong> for the right kind of hard thinking.<\/p>\n As best I can tell:<\/p>\n Team high-structure <\/strong>promotes “desirable difficulties<\/em>,” like spacing, interleaving, retrieval practice, and generative learning strategies.<\/p>\n Team low-structure<\/strong> promotes “productive struggle<\/em>,” as students wrestle to construct their own understanding through inquiry, discovery, and so forth.<\/p>\n These phrases — which seem like synonyms outside the high vs. low debate — serve as team jerseys for thinkers engaged in the debate.<\/p>\n So, high-structure champions don’t think much of “productive struggle” because that phrase signifies open-ended project pedagogies.<\/p>\n Low-structure champions don’t like “desirable difficulties” because they suggest an excessive level of teacherly control.<\/p>\n In this way, rough synonyms turn into markers of strong disagreement.<\/p>\n This paradox — “synonyms signal strong disagreement” — in turn highlights an important part of this debate.<\/p>\n Champions of both high-structure and low-structure pedagogy want students to THINK HARD.<\/p>\nRenaming the Rose<\/h2>\n
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