Week 10 Reflections

I did my reflection for this week before I knew about the changes, so I am going to post my reflection in the old format. Next week I will change to the new format.

Week 10 Reflection Questions
1. How can I summarize this reading in a few sentences?
I will have to say that I got caught up in trying to solve the problems in the demonstrations in this chapter on problem solving. In order to problem solve, you must be able to figure out which information is important and then represent it. Symbols, matrices, diagrams and visual images were four of the most effective methods to represent the information in a problem.
After you represent the problem, you need to solve the problem. Several strategies were discussed – algorithms, heuristics (hill-climbing heuristic, means-end heuristic), computer simulations, and analogies.
There are several factors that influence problem solving – expertise, mental set, functional fixedness, stereotype threat, and insight vs. noninsight problems.
Creativity was also touched upon. Creativity is considered an area of problem solving and requires finding solutions that are novel, high quality and useful. People can be intrinsically or extrinsically motivated in their creativity. Also some find that incubation helps to reignite creativity.
2. How does it fit into what I have learned already in this course?
At the beginning of the chapter, the author talked about the interrelatedness of the cognitive processes. To do problem solving, you must also have attention, memory and decision making. Problem-solving also involves a lot of top-down processing.
3. What am I still not clear on?
I know this sounds silly, but top-down and bottom-up processing continually come up in the chapters and I still don’t think I truly understand those two processes.
4. How would apply this to my own teaching/work?
Problem solving is a skill that we want all children to have and yet it seems so elusive to them. As teachers we want them to become expert problem solvers, so if I follow what the book says, I will need to build up their knowledge base about problem solving, represent problems in different ways, teach a multitude of problem solving strategies, and help them to become better at monitoring their problem solving progress.
5. What proof does the author offer that makes me believe this is valid? Do I believe it? Why?
The one thing that I have noticed in this chapter (and it may have occurred in a lot of other chapters, but I wasn’t paying attention) is that much of the research is more than 5 years old. This makes me wonder how reliable it is since Mr. Martinez wanted all of our articles to support our workshop to be from the last five years. Mr. Martinez talked about “classic research”, which I am assuming is older in date, but what is the difference?
6. Why is this important? What does it help improve or explain or predict?
Problem solving is a big topic at the elementary schools and it is an area where children really struggle. Problem solving is used in so many subjects and so many areas of our lives that it is a very important skill to attain. I guess it is comforting (and discouraging at the same time) to know that it takes at least 10 years of intense practice to gain expertise in a specific area. That makes me think, that in second and third grade, the children will not be expert problem solvers, but I should not be discouraged because hopefully by middle school the kids will master it.
7. When would I actually use this – under what kind of circumstances and for what kind of students?
I guess I have never really connected creativity and problem solving together, but it makes perfect sense the way the author describes it. My students love art and are very creative in that respect. My kids hate problem solving and moan every time that we do it. I am wondering if there is a way I can tap into their creativity and combine art and problem solving. For example (and I know this isn’t the greatest example but I will need more time to think of great examples) I can give four children one picture and tell them that they have to reproduce it. Stipulations would be that they all have to work on the picture at the same time, they can only turn in one copy. Hopefully they would come up with cut the picture in four pieces, reproduce that piece, and then put the pieces back together to make a whole. OR make a picture for me and you can’t use your pencils, your markers, your crayons, your scissors or your paint. Hopefully they would come up with tearing colored paper and gluing it down on white paper, or gluing down objects, or etching a picture with a stick, etc….
8. Are there other ways to accomplish the same thing that are faster, cheaper, and/or better?
I do not think problem solving is something that can be done fast or cheap. I think it is a life long process and some adults still haven’t attained it.