96. Unlocking the Power of Productive Struggle: How to Transform Student Apathy into Active Learning with Special Guest Mona Iehl

The Resilient Teacher Podcast

If you've ever faced the challenge of staring at blank faces of your uninterested and disengaged students, you know how hard it is to spark their curiosity. Actually getting them to take action is a struggle in and of itself, but what if I told you there's a transformative approach that could flip the switch from apathy to engagement? That’s exactly what we're diving into in today’s episode, where we explore the game-changing strategy of teaching productive struggle.

This isn’t just about getting students to just pay attention; it’s about empowering them to embrace the challenges of learning head-on. But how, you ask? How do we transform struggle into a force for engagement? How do we make our classrooms a place where mistakes are not just tolerated but celebrated as stepping stones to learning? That's exactly what my special guest, Mona Iehl from Mona Math, and I discuss today - what exactly productive struggle is, how it helps to bridge the gap between apathy & action, and practical steps that we can take to weave productive struggle into the fabric of our teaching, regardless of what subject we teach.

Mona is a former math avoider, teacher & instructional coach in Chicago. Her passion for math came when she discovered how to engage every student in a subject she, too, disliked. Through intentionally changing her math class to help students BE mathematicians using a student centered approach math came alive for Mona and her students. Now Mona collaboratively coaches teachers in building a math culture through rigorous student centered math instruction. You can listen to Mona every Monday on her podcast, Honest Math Chat.

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