Problem-Solving

Print PDF

Because high-ability students have both cognitive and affective characteristics that distinguish them from the regular population of students, problem-solving activities that are purposefully designed to provide a high level of challenge can be seen as a way to provide new learning experiences for them. Problem solving gives these students the opportunity to experience authentic, hands-on learning tied to a subject or idea that is important to them. It involves both creative and critical thinking skills that are not only important for high-ability students but also engaging and exciting for them.

Problem solving is most successful if students know and understand the rudimentary thinking skills they will use in the problem-solving process. The first skill, brainstorming, occurs throughout the process.

Brainstorming, first popularized by Alex Parnes in the 1950’s, involves generating a list of creative solutions or ideas to problems. The idea is to come up with:

  1. as many solutions as possible (fluency)
  2. responses that are varied (flexibility)
  3. ideas that are original (originality)
  4. and, and ideas that might possibly be related to someone else’s ideas or solutions and that is a refining of that idea (elaboration).

There are four basic rules in brainstorming (Osborn, 1963) intended to reduce social inhibitions among team members, stimulate idea generation, and increase overall creativity:

  1. No criticism: Criticism of ideas is discouraged during the brainstorming session as the purpose is to generate varied and unusual ideals and to extending or add to these ideas. Objective Criticism is welcomed but is reserved for the evaluation stage of the process.  This helps students feel comfortable during the brainstorming process
  2. Encourage unusual ideas: Unusual ideas are encouraged, as what may seem a “wacky” or “weird” idea may also end up being an idea that, with a few modifications could be the best ideas suggested.
  3. Quantity Wanted: The greater the number of ideas generated, the greater the chance of producing a new and effective solution to the problem.
  4. Combine and improve ideas: Not only are a variety of ideals wanted, but also it is important to encourage the students to combine or add to previous suggestions to make them better.

Brainstorming is used in the problem-solving process whenever there are multiple “right” answers to a question or issue.

A suggested comment a teacher might make is: “What are the many possible answers, or ways we can solve this?”

When brainstorming, it important to share with the students that the task you are doing is called “brainstorming”.  Providing them with the basic ideas about brainstorming (fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration) along with the rules about brainstorming sets the stage for the beginnings of successful problem solving.

For example, when discussing the problem of nuclear waste and its effects on the environment, students could use their brainstorming skills to generate a list of the problems nuclear waste creates in a given environment. It would be important to TELL the students to think of as many ideas as they can think of, to vary the types of answers they come up with, to think of as many original ideas as possible and also that it’s ok to elaborate on a solution or idea someone else thought about or that has been mentioned previously.

A suggested comment the teacher might make is: “We are brainstorming.”  This is an important strategy people use when they are solving problems.


A second goal or process is metacognition. As students progress through the problem-solving process, you want them to “think about their thinking” and to use what they have learned previously to make decisions in the next step of the process. Steven Shannon, in the Institute for Learning Styles Journal states, “In the metacognition process the students do the planning, thinking, and working.  The teacher guides their planning, thinking, and working by asking probing metacognitive questions.  The result of this strategy is that students learn skills to become both independent learners and team players in problem-solving, decision making and life long learning situations.” (Shannon, 2008)

For more ideas about metacognition see:

http://academic.pgcc.edu/~wpeirce/MCCCTR/metacognition.htm

http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/students/learning/lr1metn.htm

http://education.calumet.purdue.edu/vockell/edPsybook/Edpsy7/edpsy7_meta.htm