Problem Solving: The New Type of Thinking

Problem solving is such a useful concept that often gets overlooked. When I say problem solving I don't necessarily mean what is the answer to 2+2 but a more in depth look into the "why," "what," and "how" type questions. Agricultural Education allows for a unique perspective on problem solving, for real world situations. This week as a class we were able to discuss some "real-life" uses of problem solving in an agricultural classroom that truly put things into perspective. Problem solving has a wide array of uses in agriculture from deciding what plant would make a better cover crop to determine which animals to cull out of a herd.

To ensure an effective use of problem solving I have found that there some specific techniques that should be followed.

Scaffolding. We have already looked into why scaffolding is an important teaching technique overall but it can be equally beneficial when using problem solving in the classroom. Scaffolding can be preformed by providing students with a problem, goal, and the strategies for solving the problem. The implementation of how the problem is conducted can very depending on is the problem or goal is provided first, allowing students to use different ways of thinking.

Knowledge. The problems should be based around the students already know or knowledge you wish they obtain. It's important to make problems challenging to encourage students think and stretch knowledge they already have. However, if the problem appears to challenging the students may feel defeated. There should be a middle ground on what knowledge your students have and what you hope they achieve.

Reflection. Until developing an understanding for reflection recently, I never knew the power that it can have on a students learning. Reflection is a truly powerful teaching method to understand if the students are obtaining the material being taught. When it comes to problem solving specifically, it is important to understand why the answer was the way it was or even why students chose the answer that they did.

The list of methods for conducting problem solving can be almost endless as they must meet the needs of your students. I found this resource on effective Problem Solving to be extremely beneficial as it pertains to agricultural education.

I look forward to continuing to develop a competency for problem solving in the class room and conducting it in my future classrooms. I believe effective problem solving creates a whole new level of learning that will be extremely beneficial for students beyond the classroom.



________________________________________________________________________________________________

Phipps, L.J., Osborn, E.W., Dyer, J.E., & Ball, A.L. (2008) Handbook on agricultural education in public schools, 1st Edition. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Kirkley, J. (2003). Principles for teaching problem solving. Retrieved from


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rising Stars At Central Columbia High School

Image
Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE) are an important entity to agricultural education. As I mentioned in previous blogs a true agricultural education program is comprised of three very important components; Classroom/ laboratory instruction, FFA, and SAE. SAEs are programs created by students to explore their interests in a specific agricultural area. These programs allow for a hands, on real world experience, while developing life skills. Students can choose one of six different SAE areas to develop their program around. “An SAE is a catalyst for personal growth, career development, and responsible citizenship that leads to individual, group and societal benefits not possible through formal education alone” (“Jig Saw.”2005) SAE is truly a unique aspect of agricultural education, allowing students be creative and cultivate their own learning. Students at Central Columbia High School in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania are doing just that, developing programs that are pushing  them outs
Read more

Developing a Team

Image
Forming, Storming, Norming , and Performing , where are we at in the process of student teaching? I took some time this week to reflect on our studies this past fall. We learned about Bruce Tuckman's model and discussed how the model would look in our future classrooms. We discussed how these are the stages to making an effective team, my team may seem a little different than maybe a sports team, never the less my students, my cooperating teachers, university supervisors, and myself make a great team. As my time at Central Columbia is coming to a close here in a just a few short weeks I found it only fitting to take a look back at how far we have come over the last 13 weeks.  Forming: While we started forming long before the first day of student teaching, the majority of events took place during my first few weeks of student teaching. The first few weeks were pretty laid back, all of my students were polite and well behaved, still trying to figure out how to act arou
Read more

Bringing a New Approach to Chemistry

Image
Date: January 11, 2018 Class: Introduction to Chemistry Lesson Title: What are characteristics of light? Lesson Objectives: 1.        Define a quantum of energy, and explain how it is related to an energy change of matter. 2.        Using Planck's equation, calculate the energy of a quantum of light from the frequency or wavelength. 3.        Compare the wave and particle natures of light. Never being a huge fan of chemistry myself, I was skeptical as to how my visit to Kaitlyn Thursby’s chemistry class would go. I had already heard great things about her teaching style from various teachers and students in the building, which intrigued me to go observe her in the first place. Ms. Thursby was one of the first teachers in the building to utilize Google classroom and incorporate a some what of an inquiry based approach for her teaching method.  As the students came into class they were assigned a number, as well as a number range for what bellrin
Read more