Prior studies suggest that struggling to make sense of mathematics is a necessary component of learning mathematics with understanding. Little research exists, however, on what the struggles look like for middle school students and how they can be productive. This exploratory case study, which used episodes as units of analysis, examined 186 episodes of struggles in middle school students as they engaged in tasks focused on proportional reasoning. The study developed a classification structure for student struggles and teacher responses with descriptions of the kinds of student struggle and kinds of teacher responses that occurred. The study also identified and characterized ways in which teaching supported the struggles productively. Interaction resolutions were viewed through the lens of (a) how the cognitive demand of the task was maintained, (b) how student struggle was addressed and (c) how student thinking was supported. A Productive Struggle Framework was developed to capture the episodes of struggle episodes from initiation, to interaction and to resolution. Data included transcripts from 39 class session videotapes, teacher and student interviews and field notes. Participants were 327 6th-and 7th-grade students and their six teachers from three middle schools located in mid-size Texas cities. This study suggests the productive role student struggle can play in supporting ''doing mathematics'' and its implications on student learning with understanding. Teachers and instructional designers can use this framework as a tool to integrate student struggle into tasks and instructional practices rather than avoid or prevent struggle.

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Early exposure to engineering and mathematics career opportunities has been indicated to influence students' decisions regarding their academic majors and career goals. This study utilized mixed methods to analyze how changes in middle school students' affective characteristics might be linked to their future career decision-making, following participation in an integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics summer camp. As part of the summer camp, rising sixth-through eighth-grade students attended a weeklong learning experience based on a specific engineering context. Each grade level cohort participated with their same grade peers in a 36-hour, 6-day event focused on sparking their interest in engineering careers and developing their content knowledge in select science and mathematics content areas. Pre-post testing was conducted with 65 students of diverse backgrounds in grades six through eight to measure their self-reported engineering-related self-efficacy, knowledge of engineering careers, and motivation to pursue future engineering classes and careers. In addition, interviews were conducted to examine any changes in middle school camp participants' affective characteristics of motivation, self-efficacy, and self-determination.

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