"Mazher’s (2019) concept of constructive versus destructive stress provides
a set of nuanced filters to determine students’ initial approaches to skills
and content. Mazher states that constructive stress leads to self-determination
and generates a sense of interest or excitement; destructive stress elicits
feelings of defeat and being overwhelmed (2019, p. 53-54). Each student has
their contexts and limits for constructive and destructive stress. For example,
a poster group project on the Harlem Renaissance will produce layers of stress.
The extraverted student-leader and jazz aficionado may experience constructive
stress while the English language learner feels destructive stress; the
performance on the poster project may not actually be measuring students’
abilities to research, write, etc. but instead students’ reactions to their
kind of stress."