What students do when encountering failure in collaborative tasks

Preparation for future collaboration (PFC) phases and corresponding cognitive mechanisms. The PFC instructional design includes three phases as shown at the top. Arrows point to the cognitive learning mechanisms that are engaged during each phase. Note that multiple mechanisms are invoked in the first and second phases. The two instructional phases of Productive Failure (PF) are shown below the mechanisms. The first phase of PF typically involves group work, thus, invoking the first three cognitive mechanisms. By separating exploration and generation into (1) individual exploration and generation and (2) peer collaboration, as is done in the PFC design, we see a more nuanced representation of how each mechanism aligns to the different phases of learning activity. In both PFC and PF, the mechanism of knowledge assembly and consolidation occurs during direct instructio