A coaching story about building productive struggle in math one small teacher move at a time, and what happened when teachers led the change.
The Best Part Was Who Gave the Update
This past week, Beth and I visited one of our school partners. We had first been there in September for their launch, when we spent a full day with their math task force defining a collective vision and objective, observing classrooms, and planning their first-quarter key result and action steps. This visit was a chance to check in on that key result and plan forward into the second quarter.
Around the table were the curriculum coordinators, the site administrator, the site coach, and two teachers. What stood out to me most wasn't the update itself. It was who gave it. The teachers took the lead in sharing the wins, and they were genuinely excited about what was happening in their classrooms.
Key Takeaways
Productive struggle in math grows when teachers give students independent think time on a task before showing them a method, then respond to a stuck student with one purposeful question instead of the steps. Leaders make that shift stick by keeping the goal small, letting teachers lead, and building support structures around it.
- Pick one small part of the lesson to change (here, the Try It).
- Let teachers experience the task as learners before asking them to teach it.
- Set a modest, realistic quarterly key result.
- Practice the small moves: assessing and advancing questions.
- Build support: grade-level meetings around student work, plus observing, co-teaching, and modeling.
What We Saw in September: Little Room for Productive Struggle
To understand why that mattered, it helps to go back to what we noticed during our first visit.
How the Try-Discuss-Connect Framework Is Designed to Work
The school uses i-Ready Classroom Mathematics, and its Develop sessions follow a Try-Discuss-Connect framework (Curriculum Associates, 2024a). The Try It comes first. Students make sense of the problem together, often through a language routine like Three Reads or Notice and Wonder, and then get individual think time to solve it with whatever tools, models, or strategies make sense to them.
The curriculum is clear about the teacher's role in that moment: circulate, notice the representations students are using, and resist the temptation to explain or show them how to approach the problem. It even reminds teachers that it's okay if not every student reaches a solution yet.
Then, in Discuss It, students share their thinking with a partner while the teacher selects and sequences strategies for a whole-class conversation, and in Connect It, the class links those strategies to the model in the lesson. That's where the teacher elicits evidence of student thinking, one of NCTM's (2014) Effective Mathematics Teaching Practices, and connects it to the day's learning.
What Was Happening Instead
That's not what we saw. In many classrooms, teachers were walking students through the Try It step by step, and students were following along. It wasn't even "I do, we do, you do." It was mostly "we do," with everyone working through the problem together while the teacher led the way. Without that independent think time, there was very little student thinking for the Discuss It and Connect It to build on. It's a good reminder that using a high-quality math curriculum isn't the same as landing the lesson.
Why the Gap Mattered: The Team's Vision
That gap mattered because of the vision this team had written together:
Students own their mathematical thinking and act as mathematicians by talking, reasoning, and problem-solving with peers, taking risks, and persisting through challenge with curiosity. Teachers facilitate this ownership through questioning, responsive instruction, and space for students to lead.
The team saw the Try It as a small, specific place where they could start living that vision. If students were going to own their thinking, this was the moment in the lesson built for it.
Teachers Didn't Just Share the Work, They Replicated It
The first-quarter key result was modest on purpose. By October, teachers would describe how a shift in facilitating the Try It had affected students' productive disposition: their risk-taking, confidence, perseverance, and curiosity. (If your team is writing its own, here's how to write math key results that actually tell you something.) To get there, the task force members took what we had done together in September back to their colleagues.
Letting Colleagues Experience the Task First
What impressed me was how they did it. They didn't just tell their staff about the task force meeting. They wanted their colleagues to experience it the same way they had.
So they led the staff through a student-centered task taken directly from their own curriculum, and gave teachers the chance to work through it the way students would, with time to think, struggle a little, and make sense of the problem before anyone showed them a method. Afterward, teachers reflected on how the Try It could benefit students' mathematical disposition.
Then teachers went back to their classrooms and tried it.
A Productive Struggle Example from One Classroom
One of the teachers at our table described what happened when he recently gave a Try It without walking his students through it. Some students knew exactly what to do and used the strategies from the unit. Others weren't ready for that strategy yet, but instead of waiting to be told, they asked if they could grab manipulatives or draw a picture.
He was thrilled. Even if every student hadn't mastered the strategy he was hoping for, he saw far less resistance, far fewer students waiting for him to show them the steps, and much more initiative. One small shift was already changing how his students approached the math.
Not sure where your own team's small shift should be? The free Math Improvement Plan Assessment takes about 12 minutes and gives you a custom report on your math program's greatest area of need.
Awareness Is the First Step, Not the Last
With the first-quarter key result achieved, the conversation turned to what comes next. The team had created awareness that the Try It was an opportunity to shift practice. Now the question was how to build capacity, and what support structures teachers would need to keep going.
What struck me was where the teachers took the conversation. They weren't asking for a new initiative or a bigger plan. They were focused on the small moves.
The Small Move: Assessing and Advancing Questions
If the teacher's role during the Try It is to facilitate, then the hardest part is what happens when a student gets stuck. The instinct is to step in and show them how.
A facilitator does something different. They ask a purposeful question, often an assessing question to understand what the student is thinking or an advancing question to help them take the next step, and then they walk away and let the student keep working. Margaret Smith and Mary Kay Stein (2018) describe this kind of questioning as a central part of monitoring student work during a task in 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions. (Peg Smith dug into the coaching side of this work with us in our podcast episode on coaching the 5 Practices.) The curriculum's own guidance points the same way, encouraging teachers to ask questions that keep students thinking about the quantities and relationships in the problem rather than telling them whether their approach is right.
Rehearsing the Nudge Before Using It
The teachers wanted to practice exactly that. They asked us to imagine a task we'd done together that morning as if their students were working on it.
- If a student couldn't get started, what would our small move be?
- What nudge would get them unstuck without telling them exactly what to do?
Those are the moves they want to model for their colleagues, so everyone can see what facilitation looks like while students work through the Try It on their own.
The Plan for Quarter Two: Sharing Student Strategies and Teacher Moves
The second-quarter key result builds directly on that. By the end of December, every teacher will attend a grade-level meeting and share one student strategy from a Try It, along with the teacher move they used to nudge that student forward.
Grade-Level Meetings Built Around Student Work
The action steps are small and concrete. In November, teachers will bring samples of student work from a Try It to their grade-level meeting. Task force members will lead the discussion, looking at:
- what strategies students used,
- what similarities and differences they see,
- what nudges helped students get to a solution,
- what other nudges could have worked, and
- how the strategies connect to the new ones being introduced in the unit.
It's the same kind of student-work cycle we describe in designing PLCs that actually move the needle on math learning.
Using 100 Questions That Promote Mathematical Discourse
The team will also share a resource from their curriculum, 100 Questions That Promote Mathematical Discourse (Curriculum Associates, 2024b), which groups questions by purpose, such as helping students persevere, reason mathematically, and rely on themselves to decide whether something is correct. For a student who can't get started, it offers exactly the kind of small move teachers were practicing:
- How did you begin to think about this problem?
- What have you tried?
- Can you draw a picture or make a model to show that?
By December, teachers will bring in the Try It of a student they nudged and share what they said and what happened as a result.
Observing, Co-Teaching, and Modeling the Try It
The work won't live only in grade-level meetings, either. Leadership is building a schedule for task force members to observe, co-teach, or model a Try It in colleagues' classrooms, so teachers can see these moves in action and get support as they try them.
Why Keeping It Small Worked for Productive Struggle in Math
The biggest win for this site was that they kept it small. When they set their first-quarter key result, they made it realistic, and they did the same for the second quarter.
That was a deliberate choice. This is an elementary school where math isn't the only priority this year. Teachers are also being asked to make changes in writing and in how they support multilingual learners. Being honest about how much change is possible at once is what made the math goal achievable. One part of the lesson, one shift in the teacher's role, and one question to ask when a student gets stuck. (It's the same principle behind focusing a math improvement plan on one or two real priorities.)
The other thing that made it work was who was in the room. The excitement and leadership came from the teachers, and it was surrounded by support from the administrator, the coach, and the curriculum coordinators. The right people were at the table.
When we gave the team time to prepare for the second quarter, they got to work right away, emailing their colleagues and planning the protocol for the next grade-level meeting. It all felt manageable. This small shift in the Try It had become a door the team could open, leading to more student thinking and bringing them closer to the vision they wrote together.
Your Next Step
If your own team is trying to change instructional practice and isn't sure where to start, the free Math Improvement Plan Assessment is a quick way to find a small, high-impact place to begin.
Frequently Asked Questions About Building a Professional Learning Community
What is productive struggle in math?
Productive struggle in math is the work students do to make sense of a problem before anyone shows them a method. NCTM's Principles to Actions lists "support productive struggle in learning mathematics" as one of eight effective teaching practices. In a Try It, that means independent think time while the teacher circulates and notices instead of explaining.
Why is productive struggle important in math?
Productive struggle is where student thinking comes from. When teachers walked students through every step, there was little thinking for the class discussion to build on. When one teacher stepped back, students reached for manipulatives or drawings, fewer waited to be shown the steps, and he saw much more initiative, even before everyone mastered the strategy.
How do you support productive struggle when a student is stuck?
Ask one purposeful question, then walk away and let the student keep working. Questions like "What have you tried?" or "Can you draw a picture or make a model to show that?" nudge students forward without telling them what to do. The goal is to keep them thinking about the quantities and relationships in the problem.
What are assessing and advancing questions in math?
Assessing questions help a teacher understand what a student is currently thinking about a task. Advancing questions help the student take the next step toward the lesson's goal. Smith and Stein (2018) describe this kind of questioning as a central part of monitoring student work, and it's the small move these teachers chose to practice together.
What does productive struggle look like in the classroom?
In one elementary classroom, it looked like a teacher giving the Try It without walking students through it. Some students used the unit's strategies right away. Others weren't ready for that strategy, so they asked to grab manipulatives or draw a picture. Fewer students waited for the steps, and he saw far less resistance.
How can math leaders help teachers shift toward productive struggle?
Start small and let teachers lead. This school focused on one part of the lesson, set a modest quarterly key result, and had task force teachers lead colleagues through a curriculum task as learners. Then it added supports: grade-level meetings around student work, a question resource, and time to observe, co-teach, or model.
References
Curriculum Associates. (2024a). i-Ready Classroom Mathematics: Try-Discuss-Connect framework, grade 1. Curriculum Associates. (Link note: Curriculum Associates has no standalone public Try-Discuss-Connect page; this links to the program overview page that describes the framework.)
Curriculum Associates. (2024b). 100 questions that promote mathematical discourse [Teacher tool]. Curriculum Associates.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2014). Principles to actions: Ensuring mathematical success for all. NCTM.
Smith, M. S., & Stein, M. K. (2018). 5 practices for orchestrating productive mathematics discussions (2nd ed.). NCTM; Corwin.
About the Author
Yvette Lehman is Chief Academic Officer at Make Math Moments, where she coaches state, district, and school math teams through their improvement work and co-hosts the Making Math Moments That Matter podcast with Jon Orr. Yvette struggled with math as a student, and visual models changed how she saw it. That experience drives her focus on conceptual understanding and elementary progressions.
