Problem Solving: Teaching and Learning Strategies.
How do you go about teaching problem solving skills? How do you teach pupils the thinking skills necessary to solve mathematical problems in contexts that are unfamiliar to them? These are difficult questions. I’ll declare upfront that I don’t have the answers to them fully. Nonetheless I have been researching and formulating possible approaches. This post shares with you where I am at.
Teaching Through Problem-solving flows through four phases as students 1. Grasp the problem, 2. Try to solve the problem independently, 3. Present and discuss their work (selected strategies), and 4. Summarize and reflect. Click on the arrows below to find out what students and teachers do during each phase and to see video examples.
The Teaching and Assessing of Mathematical Problem Solving. Research Agenda for Mathematics Education Series. Volume 3. Charles, Randall I., Ed.; Silver, Edward A., Ed. This document contains overviews of current research, insights from teachers and tutors, and considerations of such issues as metacognition, choice of operations, and the testing of problem-solving skills. Papers include: (1.
Mathematical problems have traditionally been a part of the mathematics curriculum, it has been only comparatively recently that problem solving has come to be regarded as an important medium for.
Teaching methods of solving mathematical problems. Problem solving is one of the main indicators of the level of mathematical development, development of educational material. Child from the first days of school meets the challenge. If you carefully analyze the content of, you will see that it mostly consists of conceptualizing solutions to different kinds of tasks. It is therefore school.
Woods’ problem-solving model. Define the problem. The system. Have students identify the system under study (e.g., a metal bridge subject to certain forces) by interpreting the information provided in the problem statement. Drawing a diagram is a great way to do this. Known(s) and concepts. List what is known about the problem, and identify the knowledge needed to understand (and eventually.
The mathematician George Polya captured the problem solving principles and strategies he used in his discipline in the book How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method(Princeton University Press, 1957). The book includes a summary of Polya’s problem solving heuristic as well as advice on the teaching of problem solving.