Full transcript of “Productive Failure | Manu Kapur | TEDxLugano”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:12 Failure happens. We make mistakes, we fail. And it really sucks when we do. But we all know failure can be a very good teacher. When it happens. So my question to you is this. If failure is such a good teacher, why do we wait for it to happen? Why don't we intentionally design for it? What if designing for failure could be the locus of powerful learning? What if we could design failure in ways that are actually productive for learning? And now what if I told you that we now understand and know how to do exactly that?
0:58 And we understand the science behind it as well. And I'm going to share a bit of that with you. But first, I want to take I want to take you back in time to your teenage years, if you remember. We're going to talk about teenage years. And we can't talk about teenage years if we don't talk about our first love. So indulge me, please. Close your eyes. All of you, close your eyes now. Imagine and picture your first love. Go on. Picture first love. Got it? Okay. You can now open your eyes. Now I don't know about your first love, but my first love was absolutely stunning.
1:45 Would you would you like to see? Thank you for that enthusiasm. You asked for it. Yeah, it's weird. My first love was football. You see, as a teenager, all I wanted to do was play football. Play professional football. And I trained and I trained really hard for it. And I think back about the training days, the training philosophy, one thing stands out. We always used to train all the way to the limit and then we'll push some more. So you do your strength training, endurance training until your arms and your legs and your body buckles and you can't go on. And then you push some more.
2:30 It's as if you were taking your body to the limit and then you learn to push some more. Why would you want to do that? Because good things happen on the other side of failure. It was on the other side of failure that both mental and physical strength are optimized. It was on the other side of failure that the mind and the body can work together, they get coupled to optimize growth and performance. And if you think about matches, tough matches, ones that really go right down to the end, to the wire, how do you decide who who wins and who loses? It's actually how you deal with the other side of failure. Unfortunately for me, my
3:16 footballing dreams ended with an injury and that was it. Which brings me to my 20s. And my 20s are a classic case in depression and failure. So after football, I finished up engineering school and I wasn't particularly good at it. Then I had a startup which failed spectacularly. And then I joined a consulting firm which I absolutely hated. And then out of the blue, a teaching assignment, an opportunity to teach presented itself. I said, "Okay. Other than football, for some weird reason, I could always do math. I don't know why." So I thought, "Okay, I'll teach math." So I took the took up the position, I became a teacher to teach high school children or high school kids
4:01 or high school students mathematics. So as a teacher, my teaching philosophy was also relatively straightforward. I just thought, "Okay, if I could engage my students, if I could explain to them clearly, as clearly as possible, if I could show them step by step exactly what to do, when to do, how to do it, that they would just get it." If only. Many of them just would not get it. They would not see what I was trying to show them. So I would do it all over again. Explain step by step. And still, many won't see it. So I, for the life of me, just couldn't understand why why weren't my students seeing what I was so desperately and hopefully clearly trying to show them. As you can imagine, teaching didn't work out.
4:47 And I was touching 30s. I had tried football, I had tried engineering, I had tried a startup, I had consulting and teaching. I had literally failed at everything that I tried in the real world. And what do you do then? I did what any sane, rational person would do. I became an academic. A cognitive scientist, a learning scientist. And as a learning scientist, I wanted to investigate my failure as a teacher. Why weren't my students seeing what I was trying to show them? It was so clear. So I want to do a thought experiment here. Imagine you're in a movie.
5:34 Now imagine the movie is really entertaining, very engaging, you're at the edge of your seat. Next imagine the person who's sitting next to you is an acclaimed director. Someone who's an expert at making movies, good movies. You watch the movie, you come out and I ask you a very simple question. Did you see the same movie as the director? And you say, "Manu, what kind of stupid question is that? Yes, of course I saw the same movie." But did you? Did you see what the director saw? If you think about it, chances are you'd say no. Because even though you were watching the same movie, the director would see things that you won't even think about, let alone actually see them. And that's what decades of research in
6:20 experts versus novices actually says that. Experts, given the same perceptual stimuli, see very different things from novices. Novices tend to be lost in superficial features, surface features of the phenomena. Experts tend to see deep structure, critical features. Because seeing is not simply a perceptual exercise. It's a cognitive one. And that was my aha moment. That's when I realized what I'd done wrong as a teacher. I had assumed in my so-called engaging lectures that my students were seeing the same thing I was seeing. I realized
7:05 the first job of a teaching of a teacher is actually not to teach. The first job of a teacher is to prepare the novice to see and then show them. So showing what you have as an expert is really important. Of course, no arguments there. But preparing the novice to first see what you want them to see and then showing it is even more important. That begs the question, okay, so how do we prepare novices to see? As it is in sport, it is in learning. Nothing prepares you to see better than failure. So let me make it concrete. Imagine all of you are trying to learn a new math concept.
7:52 And imagine I am your math teacher, unfortunately. What should I do? Should I first teach you the concept, explain it to you, and then get you to solve problems? You know, instruction first, then problem solving. Or should I give you problems to solve first and then give you instruction or teach you the concept? So the first method is called direct instruction. It's very simple. You don't know the concept, I'll teach you. I'll show you, I'll explain to you what what the concept is and I'll give you problems to solve. It's a method you and I are used to, we we grew up with it and it's still the most dominant method of instruction around the world. Direct instruction.
8:37 The second method is not so straightforward. If you don't know the concepts yet, what's the point in me asking you to solve problems that require the very concept that you don't know yet? Chances are you will fail. You won't be able to solve those problems. So why should I make you fail? That's evil. Unless there is an efficacy to that failure. And unless, and here's the important point, I can design, intentionally design that failure to be productive for learning, from instruction afterward. And that's what productive failure is. So, which method would you choose? Direct instruction
9:22 or productive failure? Which method would you like to be in? To the parents in the room, which one would you like your child to be in? You see, 15 years ago, when I was asking, beginning to ask these questions, the prevailing science, theory, wisdom were dead against productive failure. So how do you choose? As a scientist, we run experiments, we run all sorts of experiments, controlled experiments, randomized experiments, quasi experiments, classroom based experiments. What did we find? When you look at basic knowledge development, there is absolutely no difference between productive failure and direct instruction. Both methods are very good at developing
10:08 basic knowledge. And by basic knowledge, I mean this is the kind of knowledge that gets tested on exams and standardized tests. Important stuff, but basic knowledge. But when you start to probe whether students understand what they know and whether they can transfer what they know to solve novel problems, that's when productive failure starts to outperform significantly direct instruction students. And the effects are very strong. To put it practically, if you were learning by a productive failure, it would seem as though you were performing one or two academic years ahead of direct instruction. Think about that. That's a huge effect. What's even more amazing?
10:55 We found out that the more students fail, the more solutions they produce that do not work, the more they're prepared to learn and the more they learn. That's amazing. Failure directly influences learning. And now you may say, Manu, are you are you the only one who's finding this? Should we believe you? Are there others who find similar things? And that's a very important question for science. You see, the way science works is this. If I have a novel finding, the scientific community doesn't go say, "Hey, great job, Manu. Well done. We believe you. Yay." They say, "Hold on a minute. Calm down. We don't believe you. We want to replicate what you do." Actually, they do more than that.
11:42 They actually want to disprove you. Cuz do you know what the logic of replication is? It is not a pursuit of truth. It's actually a pursuit of failure. Let me make this clear. If I have a novel finding, if your repeated attempts to fail my work or disprove my work actually fail, then there is something to my work. And that's exactly what happened. Productive failure over the last 10, 15 years has been replicated, extended, reproduced across the globe. We still have some territory to cover. But the real message is that the findings are really robust.
12:28 And I know, if you're trying to learn something new, and I I I catch myself as well. If you're trying to learn something new, it's very easy to take the path of least resistance. If you know it, just tell me. But we are learning that making learning easy does not necessarily ease learning. And in productive failure shows that actually making initial learning harder, more challenging, difficult, where learners struggle and even fail, actually prepares them to see and learn from instruction later on. Why? Why does productive failure work that way? Well, because good things happen on the other side of failure.
13:14 It's on the other side of failure is what creates what I call four A conditions of deep learning. Activation, awareness, affect, and assembly. Activation. So, we all build new knowledge based on prior knowledge. But you can't build on prior knowledge if you don't activate it. So, failure does a really good job at activating your prior knowledge. You solve problems, you try to do whatever you can, it activates your knowledge. And then it gives you awareness of what you know, but also an awareness of what you do not. You find the limit of your knowledge. And if you have the right mindset, failure creates a positive affect. You're then motivated and interested to bridge that gap.
14:00 So, you've got your knowledge activated. You know what you know, you know what you don't know. You have the awareness and then the motivation and the affect to bridge that gap. And I imagine if at this time, at this point in time, an expert or a teacher comes in and then explains to you, works with you, builds knowledge, and puts it all together. Assembles the whole thing for you. That's where powerful learning takes place. That's what deep learning is about. And that's what productive failure is is about. Let me bring it home with another thought experiment. Imagine this time you're not teenagers, you're kids who love to play with toys. Okay? So, you're younger now, you're kids.
14:45 Well, some of you have kids and others have friends and family who have kids and you know, some of us, quite frankly, behave like kids. So, let's let's just imagine we're all kids who love to play with toys. Now, suppose I would have split you down this middle to two groups. Group one and then group two. To group one, I come and say, "Hey, kids. Here's a toy. Would you like to play with it?" And they're the enthusiastic lot. All right, if you want, here you go. Play with this toy. Play as you like. Enjoy. And then I observe. I observe how you play with that toy.
15:31 And then group two. Hey kids. Here's a toy. Would you like to play with it? Much better. Learn, you guys. But wait. You must first watch me play with it. I'll show you how to play with it. Watch and learn. So, I show you how to play with it. Okay? Got it? Now you can play with it. Play as you like. Enjoy. Now imagine if I asked you two questions. If I observe all these kids, first question, which group do you think would be more inventive, more creative in playing with the toy? Group one? Group two? Thank you. Now you're participating. You finally got the memo, huh? Right. Next question. What do you think happens
16:17 in school? Have I made my point? You see, we've got to start thinking about knowledge, concepts, ideas. These are not physical toys, obviously, but these are mental toys, conceptual toys. And part of deep learning, inventiveness creativity actually comes from playing with these toys. Tinkering with them, connecting them, exploring them, failing and flailing. If you want to learn deeply, you've got to be able to explore. You've got to tinker and explore and fail and flail. Why? Because good things happen on the other side of failure. Look, this is not an opinion.
17:02 And it's certainly not a motivational speech. This is science. And the message is very, very clear. If you don't learn to fail, you will fail to learn. Thank you.
