September 18, 2025 • 28 mins
In this episode of The Innovation Show, Aidan McCullen welcomes back Manu Kapur, author of Productive Failure, to explore the science of learning through failure.
We uncover the Basic Knowledge Fallacy, debate Direct Instruction vs. Discovery Learning, and introduce the Four A’s of Learning (Activation, Awareness, Affect, Assembly). Manu also explains why variability, struggle, and pretesting drive deeper learning, adaptability, and long-term success.
Whether you’re an educator, business leader, coach, or lifelong learner, this conversation will transform the way you think about learning and growth.
⏱️ Episode Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction and Sponsor Message
00:33 – Welcoming the Guest: Manu Kapur
01:01 – Understanding the Basic Knowledge Fallacy
05:07 – Direct Instruction vs. Discovery Learning
08:08 – The Science Behind Productive Failure
14:01 – The Importance of Variability in Learning
21:14 – Pretesting and the Role of Struggle in Learning
26:43 – Final Thoughts and Cognitive Reflection Test
🔑 Key Takeaways:
-
Why the path to learning is as important as the knowledge itself
-
The strengths and limits of direct instruction and discovery learning
-
How the Four A’s of Productive Failure create lasting understanding
-
Why variability and desirable difficulties improve adaptability
-
How struggle, pretesting, and impasses unlock deeper insights
📘 Resources:
📺 Watch more episodes of The Innovation Show: The Innovation Show on YouTube
🌐 Learn more about Manu Kapur: www.manukapur.com
📘 Get Manu’s book Productive Failure: https://amzn.to/3KrdV1Q
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The Inside Learning Podcast is broughtto you by the Learnovate centre.
Learnovate research explores the powerof learning to unlock human potential.
Find out more about learnovate researchon the science of learning and the
future of work@learnovatecentre.org.
People often ask me how I came upwith the idea of productive failure,
the notion that we could somehowintentionally design for failure
(00:23):
and bootstrap it for deep learning.
After all, many people have talked aboutthe value of learning from failure.
These accounts, however,are largely reactive.
They talk about learning fromfailure after it happens.
The idea of productivefailure is to be proactive.
That is, if failure isso powerful for learning.
Then we should not wait for it to happen.
(00:43):
We should intentionallydesign for deep learning.
an excerpt from today's book, productiveFailure, and we are joined by the
author of that book, Manu Kapur.
You are very welcome to the show.
a pleasure to be here.
It's great to have you on Inside Learning.
I wanted first.
Throw it out there.
You've done a Copernicus on the wholemodel of learning here, so let's tell our
(01:08):
audience it came from and what it's about.
Yes, as you said, you know, we're so usedto when you're about to learn something
new, the default model, which is quiteintuitive, is direct instruction.
So you don't know something, let metell you, let me explain it to you.
Let me, you know, teach youexactly what it is and how to solve
problems and so on and so forth.
(01:29):
It turns out over yearsof research that model.
Was not leading to deep understanding andthe ability to apply to novel contexts.
And as a doctoral student, I wastrying to figure out why is it
that, , something so intuitive?
If you don't know, let me just tellyou, why does good telling good
lectures, , lead to poor results?
(01:51):
And over time I startedto understand the problem.
The problem is not that we learn poorlyfrom bad lectures, it's actually we
learn poorly from even very good ones.
And once you get that epiphany,you start to question the
starting point of all instruction.
That is, if you're about teach something,you teach someone something new is
the starting point, the telling.
(02:13):
Or should it be something else?
And that's where I turned it on its headis that if telling the correct thing
doesn't work as well, then perhaps weshould start with something, like failure.
What if we could intentionally designactivities for people when they're
about to learn something new in a waythat these activities are challenging
yet intuitive, but they're designedin a way that they won't be able
(02:36):
to get to the correct answer, noris that the expectation anyways.
Right.
And once they've done that once, oncethey've tried a number of ways to solve
the problem or the activity, if theinstruction then comes and consolidates
and builds on that, then you turn thatinitial failure into something productive.
So it inverts the learningsequence where you go from tell
(02:59):
first and then solve problems to.
Solve carefully design problemsthat are designed for you to fail,
and then you try to understand theconcepts underlying those problems,
and that's how you learn deeply.
I mentioned the Ptolemy vs Copernicuskind of model, which is really the
traditional direct instruction model,and very respectful of that in the book.
(03:23):
You're not saying we're idiotsto do this or anything like that.
You're actually just going Theresearch, the current research shows
that that model often fails whendelivered by even brilliant teachers.
And that's the paradox.
You can be a brilliant teacher, but thatdoes not lead to brilliant teaching.
Yeah, because part of the,it's not nothing to do with the
(03:43):
brilliance of the teacher or thedomain expertise of the teacher.
The basic idea is that anovice should be able to see.
What, an expert is seeing.
So if an expert can explain what he seesin the, beautiful content, but that does
not mean the novice sees the same things.
And so really the first job ofteaching then is not necessarily to
(04:07):
show what an expert, sees, but toprepare the novice to see those things.
And I think failure doesa very good job at that.
Let's get into some of the studies hereearly to bring them forward for people
who may drop off from their attentionspans the idea of failure generation.
So this is really what you've focused on,is to create safe environments to fail.
(04:32):
And then measure the resultson of those generated failures.
That's right.
So, I mean this, it's a very wellestablished, effect in the learning
sciences and the psychological sciences.
It's the, I've, I call itthe failed generation effect.
And the idea is simple.
You know, a trivial example or a toyexample I often give is, when we go
(04:52):
to parties, for example, or networkingevents, the standard default mode is,
if I meet you, I'll say, hi, I'm Manu,and, you will say, hi, I'm maiden.
When in fact the failed generationstudies or the effects that I should just
walk up to you and just randomly guessyour name and say, Hey, are you Mark?
And then you say, oh, no, I'm Aiden.
(05:13):
So see, , I made an error., I'm mostlikely to make an error, guessing a random
name of a person that I've never met.
Then I get corrected because you tell mewhat your real name is and if you do the
same to me, then, having generated thefailed response, followed by a correction
of that failure actually leads to a bettermemory of the name, in the long term.
(05:36):
So I'm more likely to rememberthat I met Aidan at a network.
If I'd guessed your name first andthen be corrected as opposed to Aiden
just telling me, Hey, I'm Aiden.
So that's the idea that failure reallyleaves another path to the knowledge or to
the memory that you're trying to retrieve.
And retrieval failure actuallyhelps, it's a learning event that
actually helps strengthens the memory,provided there's a correction to it.
(06:00):
for those who are maybe cynicalor skeptical, the results are
incredible that you've had.
And let's tell the peopleabout a, the studies, 'cause it
was hard to to find subjects.
But then after that, theresults have been astounding.
When you want to do studies in productivefailure and you go to schools of
participants and then you say, well,I'm gonna Desi, I'm gonna design
(06:21):
activities for you where you will notbe able to get to the correct answer.
And all of this is very intentionalbecause believe me, you will learn deeper.
You don't get the best buy in immediately.
But luckily, , we got some schools,we got one school on board, and, , and
then we worked with the teacher,a math teacher, and we designed a
simple experiment where the teachertaught the same concept, you know,
(06:42):
to students, , in two different ways.
One was using productive failure where,you do the problem solving designed
for you to generate, but not be ableto get to the correct answer, followed
by the teacher, you know, consolidatingand teaching the concepts proper.
All instruction where the teacherwent straight into the, to the
teaching of the concept and thengot students to solve that problem,
(07:05):
that required those concepts.
Okay.
And we found that, when you look at basic.
Procedural fluency, likebasic foundational knowledge.
Are you able to rememberthe formula or the CRM?
Are you able to, given what you learned,are you able to solve problems using that?
Both methods are very good, , and highlyefficient and building high levels of,
basic knowledge, foundation knowledge.
(07:27):
But the differences start to arise in,whether students actually understood.
What they were doing, they understoodwhy the formula, the theorem worked
the way they, the way it did.
So the understanding levels weresignificantly better in productive
failure students, and then yourability to transfer, which is, which
means that the new information orthe new knowledge is assembled in
(07:47):
ways that are flexible and adaptable.
We find the productive failure studentswere even more significantly better than.
Direct instruction students.
So that's how it all started,and that, and you never, , do
anything with one study.
But as over time, one studybecame two, two became five
more schools came on board.
, We started conducting controlledexperiments as well in the labs.
(08:11):
Body of evidence started to form.
And then the wider scientificcommunity started to look at and,
start to reproduce, replicatethe findings, and over time.
There was, hundreds of experimentaleffects that when we aggregated and
analyzed, we found that, there's avery strong and robust effect in favor
of productive failure over directinstruction, and if the productive failure
(08:35):
model is well designed and well enactedor well carried out, , then the learning
effect of productive failure can be up tothree times that of direct instruction.
So, that is not a small effector an incremental thing.
It's a really major, breakthrough.
I was struck reading your book, howthe depth of research you've done.
Who did it as a doctorate student, youdid it 'cause you were hyper interested,
(08:57):
but also you were training before tobe a professional and football player.
So you had that discipline or that
Mm-hmm.
you just found a new place, a new field
Yeah.
apply it on.
Yeah.
I wanted to share with our audiencethe four A's, this is really the
researcher, this science behind productive
Hmm.
Yeah, so those, the four A's behindproductive failure are basically
(09:18):
the umbrella set of, mechanisms asto why productive failure works.
So the four A stand for activation,awareness, affect, and assembly.
So activation is the idea thatif I want to teach you something
new, if I can activate relevant.
Prior knowledge.
Knowledge that you already have.
(09:38):
It may not be the formal knowledge,but it could be intuitive knowledge,
informal ways of thinking andreasoning, which often go inactivated.
If I can activate knowledge thatis relevant to the thing you're
about to learn, and the wider thisrelevant knowledge activation,
the easier it becomes for you toprocess the new information and
(09:58):
the easier it becomes for you to.
Integrate that informationinto your current knowledge.
So activation is key.
When you go straight into telling, you'renot really activating as well, you're
just leaving the learner to try to makesense of the information as it is coming
in, which creates a very heavy load.
So by deliberately activating, usinga failure based protocol, you are,
(10:22):
setting up, you're preparing thelearner to actually, be able to process
the new information when it comes in.
So that's activation.
What activation does, especially inproductive failure, is when a novice
tries one thing and it doesn't work,tries another and doesn't work.
Third thing, fourth thing, fifth,and all of those solutions do
(10:42):
not lead to correct answers.
You get an awareness, you buildan awareness that there's a gap
between what I know and what Ican do versus what I don't know.
And there's this gap and there's justthis awareness of a gap as itself, as
a very strong mechanism, for learning.
It prepares you, it primes you tothen receive instruction later on.
(11:06):
So you've got the knowledge activated andyou're aware that there's a gap between
what you know and what you need to know.
That sets up The affect.
And affect is the idea that once youknow you've tried a number of things
and that didn't work, and you'reaware that there's a gap, you want to
psychologically, basically, as humanbeings, we wanna bridge that gap.
So there's an interest to findout what the correct solution is.
(11:27):
There is a motivation to understandwhy I got, I didn't get it right,
and the teacher or the experthas the correct explanation.
The contrast, I want to examine thecontrast, what the orientation, you
know, uh, towards the material thatyou're about to learn is one of,
okay, I really want to understand it.
Uh, so that's, those are thepositive aspects of, uh, affect.
(11:50):
But there's also the.
You know, the negative emotionsthat come into play, you can get
frustrated that, oh, I tried a numberof things and each time it doesn't
work or doesn't work optimally.
This can be frustrating.
Um, you know, and I can, I can feelnegative emotions in the process as well.
And so we've analyzed that and.
We found that not all positiveemotions correlate positively
(12:12):
with learning outcomes.
Neither do all negative emotions correlatenegatively with learning outcomes.
Sometimes a little bit of frustration,a little bit of negative emotions when
you try something and it doesn't workas long as that is the expectation.
As long as that is a safe space withinyou experiencing these things, these
(12:32):
can be actually, uh, good for learning.
They have positive effects on learning.
So affect is big.
Sort of umbrella within which you haveinterests, uh, motivation, engagement,
uh, frustration, negative emotions.
All of this bundled into one.
But as you can see, if you do thiswell, effectively, you get really highly
(12:53):
charged and you're ready, uh, to learn.
So your knowledge is activated.
You're aware what?
There's a gap, and you areprimed in an affective charge.
Take, you take all of these threeand at this time if an expert or a
teacher comes and assembles it, right?
That's the fourth A, um, comparesand contrast what you did with
(13:16):
versus how to do it properly.
It's in that contrast, it's in thatassembly that you then put it all together
and it finally starts to make sense.
And he said, oh, I get it now.
And that get it now is thedeep understanding that comes,
uh, as a result of this.
Yeah, and that's, that's whatmakes productive failure click.
(13:37):
Amazing.
And just to share, you're, you're activelypursuing this, you actively have this in
place, you're in Singapore, and also I wasjust struck, I, I hear that Singapore is.
Streets ahead of many countrieswith their education system and
the fact that they're, they'rewelcoming this and they're bringing
it into curricula is quite amazing.
(14:01):
Yeah, so look, Singapore's alwayshad a keen sense, um, uh, about
science and what the sciencesays, uh, about human learning.
And they've, uh, actively had science.
They've actually given science a good seatto the table when it comes to designing
educational policies and it all, and thatshows in the, you know, the performance of
(14:22):
the education system, the philosophy, theethos, and productive failure is another.
One of those Singapore madein Singapore inventions.
Um, that, that, I mean, Singaporemaths is already a very strong, uh,
sort of mathematical curriculum.
Uh, and to supercharge it withproductive failure that gives it
(14:42):
just that extra amp, so to speak.
And as I said, once there are resultsand once there are once, once a learning
method or a pedagogy shows traction.
With evidence, um, and there is uptake.
I think the, the Singapore, uh,education system takes it up and the
policy supports that and well, it's notsurprising that the system does very well.
(15:07):
And you mentioned assembly there,and I was thinking to myself, how,
how does many of the audience of thisshow are educators, trainers, leaders?
How can they create.
A safe experiment to assemble a safeexperiment for failure experiences
to see this for themselves.
How?
How maybe some low hangingfruit that they can use.
(15:30):
Yeah, so I think there are multiplelayers within which this has to be done.
I mean, first you've gotta set.
The right cul.
You've gotta, you know, set the rightmindsets, the expectations, and the
culture because people, when you, whenyou give them a challenging activity or
when you, when you give them a challengingtask, something that is new, something
that they're not, uh, ready for yet.
(15:51):
You know, they come inwith a lot of anxiety.
They come in with the expectationthat if I'm not able to solve
this correctly, I'm a failure.
Maybe this is not it.
I will be judged, I'll be evaluatedpoorly, and so on and so forth.
That's the default mindset, whetheryou're in school or in organizations.
That's the default mindsetthat most people would come in.
(16:11):
Very rarely would be something different.
So first job of a leader or ateacher or a manager who's trying
to use productive failure is to.
Redesign this set of expectations,you know, and, and be very clear
that, okay, now, uh, I'm gonnagive you a challenging task.
It's well beyond your current capabilitiesand skillset, but look, it doesn't
(16:32):
matter if you're not able to get tothe correct or the ideal solution.
I want to see how you approach it.
Um, what kinds of ideas you generate.
How do you work with others?
Um, you know, uh, because that's.
You, you'll be in the growth zone.
So I'm not gonna be evaluatingyou for correctness or how, uh,
(16:53):
how uh, successfully you solved,solved the problem or the task.
I'm going to see how you can worktogether and, uh, generate multiple
ideas and solutions, even if theydon't work, uh, work out, because
that's the whole goal of the exercise.
So I think creating those safe spacesthat where when people are taking on.
(17:14):
Challenges or tasks that arebeyond this current skill sets
that there is going to be struggle.
There's going to be failure and furthernorming that, that that is actually
a good thing for learning and growth.
I think that sets up people in avery different way then they can
start to approach the same task.
With a different set of expectations.
(17:35):
And of course, this change doesn'thappen by, by saying this once, you
know, you have to keep emphasizingthe same message again and again until
people really start to believe thatthat is how it is and perhaps you
need to model it yourself as well.
So there's a lot of effort that growsinto, , a sustained effort, I would say,
that goes into designing these culturesthat are very supportive of productive
(18:00):
failure types of training and learning.
One of the things that I found myselfon a personal level was when I prepare
for interviews, I do deep research.
I think it's so helpful for me thatI prepare with questions in mind.
It helps me to know that I'm gonnabe interviewing the author, read
that, so I prepare with that in mind.
(18:21):
When I was reading your book, I wasstruck by that, that it's not just
getting, giving them the questionsbefore the exam or before the test.
It's actually giving themthe the questions before
they've even seen the content.
That's kind of the retrievalpractice, effect as well, a
failed generation effect as well.
Back to that one.
(18:41):
And that's the idea that yes.
. Even before you learn the content,if I give you, and people will think
that why, what's the point of giving?
Giving you questions beforeyou even seen the content?
And the idea is that yes, you maynot be able to solve or answer
any of it, but just knowingthe questions help you orient.
Yourself towards the text orthe video, whatever instruction
(19:01):
you're going to receive.
It just primes you to payattention to certain things.
It gives you selection, mechanismsto hone in on, oh, actually this part
is important because here, there,there was a question about that.
So in that sense, yes, even if you failto answer a set of questions prior to
learning something, it still helps you.
(19:22):
Pay attention to critical aspectsduring the learning event.
And if you had one last pieceof advice for say, even adult
learning, and by the way, I.
Book is so useful for adult learnerson a personal level as well because
it teaches you lots of models.
It gives you huge view of the importanceof inte, inte intellectual humility as
(19:47):
Oh,
that you don't fall intothe Dunning Kruger effect
well.
anything thinking that youknow a lot of knowledge because
the first thing you learn.
When you read a book likethis is how little you do
Hmm.
but for say somebody designing afacilitation of some sort with adult
learners, perhaps they're doing acorporate workshop, would be a good way
to prime to use those four as in a waybefore the session even takes place?
(20:12):
Yeah.
So I mean, it goes into the designof the tasks and the activities.
In the book I talk about how do youdesign, so if you, if you are, you know,
in an environment where you're teachingfacilitation skills and teams and so
on and so forth, so how do you design.
Activities or tasks that arechallenging enough for your employees
who are about to learn this skill.
So there are a set of design principlesthat I talk about in the book that
(20:35):
the task itself has to have certainfeatures, and the more those features
are present, the more likely it'll bea task that will work very well as a
productive failure activity or a task.
Right?
So that's, that's one.
, Second, I, I also talk in the book about, how do you yourself facilitate somebody.
Going through that task, how do you getpeople to, explain what they're doing?
(20:58):
How do you get people to challenge orhack their own explanation, so to speak?
Hack their own thinking, so to speak,using counterfactual reasoning.
Which is really powerful.
So I talk about the interaction schemesthat you could put in place that
are especially useful for productivefailure and and the final part is,
like I said earlier, you've got to,you, you've got to set the right social
(21:21):
surroundings, the right context, theright mindset and expectations so that
people go into the activity that you'redesigned for them knowing very well.
That success is not the criteriahere, but trying many things and
trying to see, trying to exploreand see how many things they could
generate and learn from, because thatwill prepare them for the learning.
(21:42):
I think that's the idea, and once theygo in with that expectation and mindset,
you're more likely to get more out of it.
Wonderful.
And I'd have to recommend reading thebook to really get a grasp of that.
There is so much, you had my head goingdown so many different rabbit holes
following up on studies, the amountof research you share as well is just
(22:04):
fascinating and really, really accessible.
You do a great job ofmaking this accessible.
So I know, and I know that's difficult,but, you do prepare us as the learner
before for receiving this content as well.
Manu.
So where's the best placefor people to find out more?
You have a website for the book.
You have your own website.
Where is, where
You can Google Manu Kapur andthat will probably lead you
(22:25):
to my website, manu Kapur.com.
Or Productive Failure.
The book is on productive failure.com.
It's also available on Amazon.
You can view my TED Talksand of course, my work sites.
So yeah, I'm easy to find.
Author of Productive FailureUnlocking Deeper Learning Through
the Science of Failing Manu Kapur.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you.
(22:46):
It was a pleasure.
Thanks for joining us on Inside Learning.
Inside Learning is brought to you by theLearnovate centre in Trinity College.
Dublin Learnovate is funded byEnterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland.
Visit learnovate centre.org to find outmore about our research on the science
of learning and the future of work.
The Inside Learning Podcast is broughtto you by the Learnovate centre.
Learnovate research explores the powerof learning to unlock human potential.
Find out more about learnovate researchon the science of learning and the
future of work@learnovatecentre.org.
People often ask me how I came upwith the idea of productive failure,
the notion that we could somehowintentionally design for failure
(00:23):
and bootstrap it for deep learning.
After all, many people have talked aboutthe value of learning from failure.
These accounts, however,are largely reactive.
They talk about learning fromfailure after it happens.
The idea of productivefailure is to be proactive.
That is, if failure isso powerful for learning.
Then we should not wait for it to happen.
(00:43):
We should intentionallydesign for deep learning.
an excerpt from today's book, productiveFailure, and we are joined by the
author of that book, Manu Kapur.
You are very welcome to the show.
a pleasure to be here.
It's great to have you on Inside Learning.
I wanted first.
Throw it out there.
You've done a Copernicus on the wholemodel of learning here, so let's tell our
(01:08):
audience it came from and what it's about.
Yes, as you said, you know, we're so usedto when you're about to learn something
new, the default model, which is quiteintuitive, is direct instruction.
So you don't know something, let metell you, let me explain it to you.
Let me, you know, teach youexactly what it is and how to solve
problems and so on and so forth.
(01:29):
It turns out over yearsof research that model.
Was not leading to deep understanding andthe ability to apply to novel contexts.
And as a doctoral student, I wastrying to figure out why is it
that, , something so intuitive?
If you don't know, let me just tellyou, why does good telling good
lectures, , lead to poor results?
(01:51):
And over time I startedto understand the problem.
The problem is not that we learn poorlyfrom bad lectures, it's actually we
learn poorly from even very good ones.
And once you get that epiphany,you start to question the
starting point of all instruction.
That is, if you're about teach something,you teach someone something new is
the starting point, the telling.
(02:13):
Or should it be something else?
And that's where I turned it on its headis that if telling the correct thing
doesn't work as well, then perhaps weshould start with something, like failure.
What if we could intentionally designactivities for people when they're
about to learn something new in a waythat these activities are challenging
yet intuitive, but they're designedin a way that they won't be able
(02:36):
to get to the correct answer, noris that the expectation anyways.
Right.
And once they've done that once, oncethey've tried a number of ways to solve
the problem or the activity, if theinstruction then comes and consolidates
and builds on that, then you turn thatinitial failure into something productive.
So it inverts the learningsequence where you go from tell
(02:59):
first and then solve problems to.
Solve carefully design problemsthat are designed for you to fail,
and then you try to understand theconcepts underlying those problems,
and that's how you learn deeply.
I mentioned the Ptolemy vs Copernicuskind of model, which is really the
traditional direct instruction model,and very respectful of that in the book.
(03:23):
You're not saying we're idiotsto do this or anything like that.
You're actually just going Theresearch, the current research shows
that that model often fails whendelivered by even brilliant teachers.
And that's the paradox.
You can be a brilliant teacher, but thatdoes not lead to brilliant teaching.
Yeah, because part of the,it's not nothing to do with the
(03:43):
brilliance of the teacher or thedomain expertise of the teacher.
The basic idea is that anovice should be able to see.
What, an expert is seeing.
So if an expert can explain what he seesin the, beautiful content, but that does
not mean the novice sees the same things.
And so really the first job ofteaching then is not necessarily to
(04:07):
show what an expert, sees, but toprepare the novice to see those things.
And I think failure doesa very good job at that.
Let's get into some of the studies hereearly to bring them forward for people
who may drop off from their attentionspans the idea of failure generation.
So this is really what you've focused on,is to create safe environments to fail.
(04:32):
And then measure the resultson of those generated failures.
That's right.
So, I mean this, it's a very wellestablished, effect in the learning
sciences and the psychological sciences.
It's the, I've, I call itthe failed generation effect.
And the idea is simple.
You know, a trivial example or a toyexample I often give is, when we go
(04:52):
to parties, for example, or networkingevents, the standard default mode is,
if I meet you, I'll say, hi, I'm Manu,and, you will say, hi, I'm maiden.
When in fact the failed generationstudies or the effects that I should just
walk up to you and just randomly guessyour name and say, Hey, are you Mark?
And then you say, oh, no, I'm Aiden.
(05:13):
So see, , I made an error., I'm mostlikely to make an error, guessing a random
name of a person that I've never met.
Then I get corrected because you tell mewhat your real name is and if you do the
same to me, then, having generated thefailed response, followed by a correction
of that failure actually leads to a bettermemory of the name, in the long term.
(05:36):
So I'm more likely to rememberthat I met Aidan at a network.
If I'd guessed your name first andthen be corrected as opposed to Aiden
just telling me, Hey, I'm Aiden.
So that's the idea that failure reallyleaves another path to the knowledge or to
the memory that you're trying to retrieve.
And retrieval failure actuallyhelps, it's a learning event that
actually helps strengthens the memory,provided there's a correction to it.
(06:00):
for those who are maybe cynicalor skeptical, the results are
incredible that you've had.
And let's tell the peopleabout a, the studies, 'cause it
was hard to to find subjects.
But then after that, theresults have been astounding.
When you want to do studies in productivefailure and you go to schools of
participants and then you say, well,I'm gonna Desi, I'm gonna design
(06:21):
activities for you where you will notbe able to get to the correct answer.
And all of this is very intentionalbecause believe me, you will learn deeper.
You don't get the best buy in immediately.
But luckily, , we got some schools,we got one school on board, and, , and
then we worked with the teacher,a math teacher, and we designed a
simple experiment where the teachertaught the same concept, you know,
(06:42):
to students, , in two different ways.
One was using productive failure where,you do the problem solving designed
for you to generate, but not be ableto get to the correct answer, followed
by the teacher, you know, consolidatingand teaching the concepts proper.
All instruction where the teacherwent straight into the, to the
teaching of the concept and thengot students to solve that problem,
(07:05):
that required those concepts.
Okay.
And we found that, when you look at basic.
Procedural fluency, likebasic foundational knowledge.
Are you able to rememberthe formula or the CRM?
Are you able to, given what you learned,are you able to solve problems using that?
Both methods are very good, , and highlyefficient and building high levels of,
basic knowledge, foundation knowledge.
(07:27):
But the differences start to arise in,whether students actually understood.
What they were doing, they understoodwhy the formula, the theorem worked
the way they, the way it did.
So the understanding levels weresignificantly better in productive
failure students, and then yourability to transfer, which is, which
means that the new information orthe new knowledge is assembled in
(07:47):
ways that are flexible and adaptable.
We find the productive failure studentswere even more significantly better than.
Direct instruction students.
So that's how it all started,and that, and you never, , do
anything with one study.
But as over time, one studybecame two, two became five
more schools came on board.
, We started conducting controlledexperiments as well in the labs.
(08:11):
Body of evidence started to form.
And then the wider scientificcommunity started to look at and,
start to reproduce, replicatethe findings, and over time.
There was, hundreds of experimentaleffects that when we aggregated and
analyzed, we found that, there's avery strong and robust effect in favor
of productive failure over directinstruction, and if the productive failure
(08:35):
model is well designed and well enactedor well carried out, , then the learning
effect of productive failure can be up tothree times that of direct instruction.
So, that is not a small effector an incremental thing.
It's a really major, breakthrough.
I was struck reading your book, howthe depth of research you've done.
Who did it as a doctorate student, youdid it 'cause you were hyper interested,
(08:57):
but also you were training before tobe a professional and football player.
So you had that discipline or that
Mm-hmm.
you just found a new place, a new field
Yeah.
apply it on.
Yeah.
I wanted to share with our audiencethe four A's, this is really the
researcher, this science behind productive
Hmm.
Yeah, so those, the four A's behindproductive failure are basically
(09:18):
the umbrella set of, mechanisms asto why productive failure works.
So the four A stand for activation,awareness, affect, and assembly.
So activation is the idea thatif I want to teach you something
new, if I can activate relevant.
Prior knowledge.
Knowledge that you already have.
(09:38):
It may not be the formal knowledge,but it could be intuitive knowledge,
informal ways of thinking andreasoning, which often go inactivated.
If I can activate knowledge thatis relevant to the thing you're
about to learn, and the wider thisrelevant knowledge activation,
the easier it becomes for you toprocess the new information and
(09:58):
the easier it becomes for you to.
Integrate that informationinto your current knowledge.
So activation is key.
When you go straight into telling, you'renot really activating as well, you're
just leaving the learner to try to makesense of the information as it is coming
in, which creates a very heavy load.
So by deliberately activating, usinga failure based protocol, you are,
(10:22):
setting up, you're preparing thelearner to actually, be able to process
the new information when it comes in.
So that's activation.
What activation does, especially inproductive failure, is when a novice
tries one thing and it doesn't work,tries another and doesn't work.
Third thing, fourth thing, fifth,and all of those solutions do
(10:42):
not lead to correct answers.
You get an awareness, you buildan awareness that there's a gap
between what I know and what Ican do versus what I don't know.
And there's this gap and there's justthis awareness of a gap as itself, as
a very strong mechanism, for learning.
It prepares you, it primes you tothen receive instruction later on.
(11:06):
So you've got the knowledge activated andyou're aware that there's a gap between
what you know and what you need to know.
That sets up The affect.
And affect is the idea that once youknow you've tried a number of things
and that didn't work, and you'reaware that there's a gap, you want to
psychologically, basically, as humanbeings, we wanna bridge that gap.
So there's an interest to findout what the correct solution is.
(11:27):
There is a motivation to understandwhy I got, I didn't get it right,
and the teacher or the experthas the correct explanation.
The contrast, I want to examine thecontrast, what the orientation, you
know, uh, towards the material thatyou're about to learn is one of,
okay, I really want to understand it.
Uh, so that's, those are thepositive aspects of, uh, affect.
(11:50):
But there's also the.
You know, the negative emotionsthat come into play, you can get
frustrated that, oh, I tried a numberof things and each time it doesn't
work or doesn't work optimally.
This can be frustrating.
Um, you know, and I can, I can feelnegative emotions in the process as well.
And so we've analyzed that and.
We found that not all positiveemotions correlate positively
(12:12):
with learning outcomes.
Neither do all negative emotions correlatenegatively with learning outcomes.
Sometimes a little bit of frustration,a little bit of negative emotions when
you try something and it doesn't workas long as that is the expectation.
As long as that is a safe space withinyou experiencing these things, these
(12:32):
can be actually, uh, good for learning.
They have positive effects on learning.
So affect is big.
Sort of umbrella within which you haveinterests, uh, motivation, engagement,
uh, frustration, negative emotions.
All of this bundled into one.
But as you can see, if you do thiswell, effectively, you get really highly
(12:53):
charged and you're ready, uh, to learn.
So your knowledge is activated.
You're aware what?
There's a gap, and you areprimed in an affective charge.
Take, you take all of these threeand at this time if an expert or a
teacher comes and assembles it, right?
That's the fourth A, um, comparesand contrast what you did with
(13:16):
versus how to do it properly.
It's in that contrast, it's in thatassembly that you then put it all together
and it finally starts to make sense.
And he said, oh, I get it now.
And that get it now is thedeep understanding that comes,
uh, as a result of this.
Yeah, and that's, that's whatmakes productive failure click.
(13:37):
Amazing.
And just to share, you're, you're activelypursuing this, you actively have this in
place, you're in Singapore, and also I wasjust struck, I, I hear that Singapore is.
Streets ahead of many countrieswith their education system and
the fact that they're, they'rewelcoming this and they're bringing
it into curricula is quite amazing.
(14:01):
Yeah, so look, Singapore's alwayshad a keen sense, um, uh, about
science and what the sciencesays, uh, about human learning.
And they've, uh, actively had science.
They've actually given science a good seatto the table when it comes to designing
educational policies and it all, and thatshows in the, you know, the performance of
(14:22):
the education system, the philosophy, theethos, and productive failure is another.
One of those Singapore madein Singapore inventions.
Um, that, that, I mean, Singaporemaths is already a very strong, uh,
sort of mathematical curriculum.
Uh, and to supercharge it withproductive failure that gives it
(14:42):
just that extra amp, so to speak.
And as I said, once there are resultsand once there are once, once a learning
method or a pedagogy shows traction.
With evidence, um, and there is uptake.
I think the, the Singapore, uh,education system takes it up and the
policy supports that and well, it's notsurprising that the system does very well.
(15:07):
And you mentioned assembly there,and I was thinking to myself, how,
how does many of the audience of thisshow are educators, trainers, leaders?
How can they create.
A safe experiment to assemble a safeexperiment for failure experiences
to see this for themselves.
How?
How maybe some low hangingfruit that they can use.
(15:30):
Yeah, so I think there are multiplelayers within which this has to be done.
I mean, first you've gotta set.
The right cul.
You've gotta, you know, set the rightmindsets, the expectations, and the
culture because people, when you, whenyou give them a challenging activity or
when you, when you give them a challengingtask, something that is new, something
that they're not, uh, ready for yet.
(15:51):
You know, they come inwith a lot of anxiety.
They come in with the expectationthat if I'm not able to solve
this correctly, I'm a failure.
Maybe this is not it.
I will be judged, I'll be evaluatedpoorly, and so on and so forth.
That's the default mindset, whetheryou're in school or in organizations.
That's the default mindsetthat most people would come in.
(16:11):
Very rarely would be something different.
So first job of a leader or ateacher or a manager who's trying
to use productive failure is to.
Redesign this set of expectations,you know, and, and be very clear
that, okay, now, uh, I'm gonnagive you a challenging task.
It's well beyond your current capabilitiesand skillset, but look, it doesn't
(16:32):
matter if you're not able to get tothe correct or the ideal solution.
I want to see how you approach it.
Um, what kinds of ideas you generate.
How do you work with others?
Um, you know, uh, because that's.
You, you'll be in the growth zone.
So I'm not gonna be evaluatingyou for correctness or how, uh,
(16:53):
how uh, successfully you solved,solved the problem or the task.
I'm going to see how you can worktogether and, uh, generate multiple
ideas and solutions, even if theydon't work, uh, work out, because
that's the whole goal of the exercise.
So I think creating those safe spacesthat where when people are taking on.
(17:14):
Challenges or tasks that arebeyond this current skill sets
that there is going to be struggle.
There's going to be failure and furthernorming that, that that is actually
a good thing for learning and growth.
I think that sets up people in avery different way then they can
start to approach the same task.
With a different set of expectations.
(17:35):
And of course, this change doesn'thappen by, by saying this once, you
know, you have to keep emphasizingthe same message again and again until
people really start to believe thatthat is how it is and perhaps you
need to model it yourself as well.
So there's a lot of effort that growsinto, , a sustained effort, I would say,
that goes into designing these culturesthat are very supportive of productive
(18:00):
failure types of training and learning.
One of the things that I found myselfon a personal level was when I prepare
for interviews, I do deep research.
I think it's so helpful for me thatI prepare with questions in mind.
It helps me to know that I'm gonnabe interviewing the author, read
that, so I prepare with that in mind.
(18:21):
When I was reading your book, I wasstruck by that, that it's not just
getting, giving them the questionsbefore the exam or before the test.
It's actually giving themthe the questions before
they've even seen the content.
That's kind of the retrievalpractice, effect as well, a
failed generation effect as well.
Back to that one.
(18:41):
And that's the idea that yes.
. Even before you learn the content,if I give you, and people will think
that why, what's the point of giving?
Giving you questions beforeyou even seen the content?
And the idea is that yes, you maynot be able to solve or answer
any of it, but just knowingthe questions help you orient.
Yourself towards the text orthe video, whatever instruction
(19:01):
you're going to receive.
It just primes you to payattention to certain things.
It gives you selection, mechanismsto hone in on, oh, actually this part
is important because here, there,there was a question about that.
So in that sense, yes, even if you failto answer a set of questions prior to
learning something, it still helps you.
(19:22):
Pay attention to critical aspectsduring the learning event.
And if you had one last pieceof advice for say, even adult
learning, and by the way, I.
Book is so useful for adult learnerson a personal level as well because
it teaches you lots of models.
It gives you huge view of the importanceof inte, inte intellectual humility as
(19:47):
Oh,
that you don't fall intothe Dunning Kruger effect
well.
anything thinking that youknow a lot of knowledge because
the first thing you learn.
When you read a book likethis is how little you do
Hmm.
but for say somebody designing afacilitation of some sort with adult
learners, perhaps they're doing acorporate workshop, would be a good way
to prime to use those four as in a waybefore the session even takes place?
(20:12):
Yeah.
So I mean, it goes into the designof the tasks and the activities.
In the book I talk about how do youdesign, so if you, if you are, you know,
in an environment where you're teachingfacilitation skills and teams and so
on and so forth, so how do you design.
Activities or tasks that arechallenging enough for your employees
who are about to learn this skill.
So there are a set of design principlesthat I talk about in the book that
(20:35):
the task itself has to have certainfeatures, and the more those features
are present, the more likely it'll bea task that will work very well as a
productive failure activity or a task.
Right?
So that's, that's one.
, Second, I, I also talk in the book about, how do you yourself facilitate somebody.
Going through that task, how do you getpeople to, explain what they're doing?
(20:58):
How do you get people to challenge orhack their own explanation, so to speak?
Hack their own thinking, so to speak,using counterfactual reasoning.
Which is really powerful.
So I talk about the interaction schemesthat you could put in place that
are especially useful for productivefailure and and the final part is,
like I said earlier, you've got to,you, you've got to set the right social
(21:21):
surroundings, the right context, theright mindset and expectations so that
people go into the activity that you'redesigned for them knowing very well.
That success is not the criteriahere, but trying many things and
trying to see, trying to exploreand see how many things they could
generate and learn from, because thatwill prepare them for the learning.
(21:42):
I think that's the idea, and once theygo in with that expectation and mindset,
you're more likely to get more out of it.
Wonderful.
And I'd have to recommend reading thebook to really get a grasp of that.
There is so much, you had my head goingdown so many different rabbit holes
following up on studies, the amountof research you share as well is just
(22:04):
fascinating and really, really accessible.
You do a great job ofmaking this accessible.
So I know, and I know that's difficult,but, you do prepare us as the learner
before for receiving this content as well.
Manu.
So where's the best placefor people to find out more?
You have a website for the book.
You have your own website.
Where is, where
You can Google Manu Kapur andthat will probably lead you
(22:25):
to my website, manu Kapur.com.
Or Productive Failure.
The book is on productive failure.com.
It's also available on Amazon.
You can view my TED Talksand of course, my work sites.
So yeah, I'm easy to find.
Author of Productive FailureUnlocking Deeper Learning Through
the Science of Failing Manu Kapur.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you.
(22:46):
It was a pleasure.
Thanks for joining us on Inside Learning.
Inside Learning is brought to you by theLearnovate centre in Trinity College.
Dublin Learnovate is funded byEnterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland.
Visit learnovate centre.org to find outmore about our research on the science
of learning and the future of work.
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