Problem Solving in the Classroom

This past week in EDBE 8F83 we finished the class with an 'Skyscraper' activity involving plastic cubes and a paper grid. At the beginning of the activity I know I was very confused and I think my classmates felt similar. The instructions were quick and vague and caused a lot of confusing as we started the activity. Instead of checking out, my group started to problem solve to see if we could figure out how the activity worked on our own. After a lot of discussion we to the conclusion that instead of counting the "levels" of each tower, we needed to count the amount of towers in each row.

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We would have never come to this conclusion on our own if we had been given explicit instructions from the beginning if the activity. It was beneficial for us to use our problem solving skills to figure it out on our own. And once we were able to understand the rules of the activity, we were able to complete the activity on our own.

In my own learning throughout high school and university I always found that when I had to discover something on my own, or with guidance from the teacher, I was always able to understand it better. This was because I came to the conclusion or answer my own way. This may be a silly example but I will always remember it. In grade four I asked my teacher how to spell the word awesome. Instead of simply giving me the proper spelling, she told me to look it up in the dictionary. And growing up I never forgot how to spell that word.

I would love to see something similar when I start running my own classroom. Instead of giving my students the answers, I want to be able to guide them to the answer. I really think that it is important for students to use self-discovery in the classroom. This makes their learning more meaningful. As Amy Lin explains in her TEDx Talk Thinking Math-ishly, it is important to probe students with meaningful questions in order to make their learning more valuable.