Learning From Productive Failure with Manu Kapur | SXSW EDU 2025 Rewind

Imparting knowledge, deepening understanding and exploring how we learn is integral to the focus of SXSW EDU, this year and every year. So much so, that “Teaching & Learning” remains a consistently popular track that resonates across the community year over year. The learning journey takes many turns, and it wouldn’t be complete without the lessons it offers through failure.

Manu Kapur, Director of the Singapore-ETH Centre and Professor for Learning Sciences and Higher Education at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, took to the Featured stage at SXSW EDU 2025 to share his groundbreaking work with the theory of productive failure and how it has been revolutionizing how we teach and learn.

What is the Job of Teaching?

Manu sets up the theory by first examining what it is that teachers set out to do. Drawing from his own experience as a math teacher, he explores the difference in perception and understanding between experts and novices and how those differences drive the learning process. Ultimately, the main problems of learning that we are looking to solve are seeing, understanding, and knowledge transfer.

Generation is Key

By identifying perception, understanding, and transfer as key to deep learning, we begin to explore how learners problem solve and engage cognitively. Manu shares that “a certain amount of ambiguity and uncertainty is very powerful for learning” as they encourage creativity and idea generation. He demonstrates that passive information acquisition is not as powerful for memory as constructing the solution yourself, and that a failed generation is even more powerful, as being corrected, and thus learning from the failure, is more memorable.

Learning Through Productive Failure

In the years since Manu pioneered the theory of productive failure with math instruction, the concept has been trialed in 160 experimental comparisons across subjects and fields. The theory has proven that when compared to direct instruction (instruction followed by problem solving), productive failure (problem solving followed by instruction) leads to higher conceptual understanding and knowledge transfer among learners. Ultimately, if you want to reduce failure when it matters, you must design for failure early on.

To learn more about Manu’s work and how to design your work productive failure problems, watch the full Featured session below:

Watch SXSW EDU 2025 On-Demand Content

Take a look back at SXSW EDU 2025 and relive exciting Keynotes, Featured Sessions, and more, now available to watch on our official YouTube channel, plus listen to hundreds of audio recordings in the schedule.

Stay tuned for more information about registration and participation opportunities for SXSW EDU 2026 coming later this summer.

Photo by Amanda Stronza