Jugaad meets Productive Failure

Dr Manu Kapur introduces the concept of Productive Failure, highlighting the significance of allowing students to struggle before providing direct instruction to enhance their learning. He emphasises the need for teachers to shift their mindset, akin to how medical professionals adopt new treatments, by integrating the latest educational research into their practices. To illustrate his points, Dr Kapur uses analogies, such as seeds and fertilisation, to show how productive failure prepares the mind for improved learning outcomes. He also underlines the importance of designing tasks that accommodate varying levels of prior knowledge and motivation, viewing these factors as interactions between the individual and the task design, rather than as fixed traits.

At the end of his book, Dr Kapur has a chapter titled "Jugaad Meets Productive Failure," he connects his Indian experiences with the concept of productive failure. An idea of productive failure focuses on how teachers can help students overcome the fear of failure and judgment. Dr Kapur clarifies that productive failure differs from failure in high-stakes settings and is intended to facilitate deep learning when the stakes are low, ultimately reducing the likelihood of failure when it matters most.