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Scoop.it!
"We all know that confusion doesn't feel good. Because it seems like an obstacle to learning, we try to arrange educational experiences and training sessions so that learners will encounter as little confusion as possible. But as is so often the case when it comes to learning, our intuitions here are exactly wrong." 
Audrey's comment,
February 19, 2013 3:00 PM
This idea is very Piagetian: An example of confusion would be disequilibrium. It is at this point that you will begin to master something which you found difficult, or was confused about. So at the point of confusion or disequlibrium you must distance yourself from the problem and return to it later. Your brain will have absorbed the material and worked it out. You are now at the stage of equilibrium.
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So creating confusion is good? Why? It turns out that "brain is a pattern-recognition machine." It wants to find connections between "related events or artifacts." To do this we must allow our brain to experience "that confused, confounded feeling...—for two reasons."
For the first reason ask yourself is there only one way to solve a problem, or should one "explore a wide variety of potential explanations"? The second reason is that if we feel confused, not sure of the answer, we are more driven to figure it out.
So how can we do this? There are three ways that researchers have "induced confusion" and each is listed with an explanation. The three ways:
* Expose yourself to confusing materials.
* Withhold the answers from yourself.
* Test yourself before you learn.
This post provides some great ideas on why confusion is good. You will also find a link to the three research studies mentioned in the article.