Building mathematical micro-identities through supporting productive struggle

We designed a series of lessons that adopted supporting productive struggle practices, and explored how mathematical micro-identities emerged in the moments of productive struggle and what connections exist across micro-identities and productive struggle. We found that the low-achieving students had moments of both mathematically capable and incapable micro-identities, when offered, which reciprocally created moments of productive struggle and no struggle; and that the positions a teacher takes, between supporting productive struggle or not, directly impact the formation of micro-identities. The results suggest that supporting productive struggle strategies could be an avenue to develop mathematically capable micro-identities.