When developing any curriculum, educators’ ultimate goal is to create a structure that imparts knowledge children can apply situationally to solve problems. However, regardless of the area of study, problem-solving skills are the common denominator for constructively dealing with any challenge in life, including outside of academics.
According to learning resource provider Very Special Tales, “Problem-solving is present in everyday situations and across all fields: business, science, personal life, and education. There is not one single aspect in our lives where we don’t need to apply our problem-solving skills.” So, what are the best ways to instill these skills in students?
There are many ways that teachers can purposefully develop curricula with lessons for problem-solving baked into their class structure and learning strategies. The more students practice these skills in a classroom, the more prepared they are to apply them in real-life situations. These practices can also begin at a young age, with the skills scaling up with students as they grow older.
In the Northern Kentucky University (NKU) online Education Specialist (Ed.S.) in Teaching and Leading – Curriculum & Instruction program, graduates learn the best practices for designing and implementing curricula that equip students for success inside and outside the classroom.
Building Blocks for Solving Problems
Let’s look at a few of the most basic and essential problem-solving elements and strategies:
- Break the whole into simpler parts: Attempting to tackle a complex problem all at once can be overwhelming and unconstructive, so understanding how to break it down into smaller pieces is essential.
- Recognize patterns: When students recognize recurring or highly structured items and how they direct our attention, they can more quickly determine how to interpret the information and act on it more efficiently.
- Focus on relevant information: The ability to parse through a larger piece of information featuring different concepts and identify which items are relevant to understanding key ideas is critical.
- Use current information to understand the past: Students should be able to extrapolate concepts and use information from one context to understand ideas in another.
With an understanding of useful problem-solving techniques, educators can focus on catering their approaches to the students’ unique needs.
Classroom Applications and Opportunities
Educators teach their students these skills in ways that vary greatly depending on their age or maturity levels. The problem-solving skills timeline from Big Life Journal illustrates those differences. At younger ages, students learn to process and deal with problems. Lessons are focused more on students’ ability to be comfortable with difficulty, failure and the search for a solution. These lessons lay the groundwork for higher-level problem-solving capacities.
Activities to practice with younger ages include “emotional coaching,” or helping children identify and process emotions. These interactions progress to higher-level thinking processes that focus on diagnosing the problem and its causes and brainstorming solutions. Students eventually learn the best methods to deconstruct and process problems.
As students get older, the scaffolding for these lessons becomes less rigid. They must do more independent thinking. The focus shifts to open-ended questions and analysis as students learn to consider all dimensions of a problem and its potential effects before arriving at a solution.
Many activities are available to students of all ages to build problem-solving skills, including collecting solutions from students as a group or brainstorming alternative endings to a story — truth or fiction. These activities expand students’ thinking by challenging existing narratives or presenting potential outcomes. Students must consider an issue and decide whether a response would be appropriate. Additionally, Edutopia notes how gaming and design activities, in particular, help students build problem-solving and conflict resolution skills.
Advancing Curriculum Skills
Incorporating problem-solving practices into the curriculum is not always easy, particularly as educators often receive new information about the different ways students learn. The NKU online Ed.S. in Teaching and Leading – Curriculum & Instruction program deepens graduates’ understanding of the best ways to introduce problem-solving skills into curriculum and instructional design and strategies.
Program coursework also includes a look at teaching strategies and the factors that impact learning, providing graduates with a look at key concepts and characteristics of learning designs and teaching methods. As a result, graduates will be prepared to create curricula that can effectively instill these fundamental skills.
Learn more about NKU’s online Education Specialist in Teaching and Leading – Curriculum & Instruction program.
