Researchers at Rutgers University have found that giving students the opportunity to struggle with challenging mathematics problems dramatically improves student achievement and performance on classroom assessment and high stakes test scores. Roberta Schorr, associate professor in Rutgers University at Newark's Urban Education Department found that student talents and capabilities tend to go unnoticed unless they are effectively challenged in a nurturing environment. When faced with a challenging task, although students may feel frustrated at first, after the experience, they report feeling satisfaction and pride which tends to lend itself to an increased amount of student effort and a stronger willingness to achieve. This translate directly into higher student performance in the content areas of mathematics.
Classroom Connection:
To incorporate the Rutgers method of group learning, have students organize themselves into problem-solving groups after attempting to solve a difficult word problem. Each student is responsible for explaining how he/she arrived at the answer. The other students in the group give constructive criticism about the pros and cons of each approach, and finally the groups then decide which method was best and present it to the class. Students will realize that they have members on their team that may have knowledge to share of a method to solve the problem in an easier way while building their confidence by having the opportunity to share their knowledge of the content area.
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