Houston We Have A Problem (Solving Approach)

Over the past two weeks in AEE 412, #psuaged22 has been learning about the Problem Solving Approach. For those who have not heard of the Problem Solving Approach before, it is a teaching technique used to engage students by giving them a problem to learn through rather than presenting them with information to learn from. This technique utilizes the steps below to guide student learning.

1. 
   Experiencing a provocative situation.
2. Defining the problem.
3. Seeking data and information.
4. Formulating possible solutions.
5. Testing proposed solutions.
6. Evaluating the results.

What's Your Problem?

When teaching our Problem Solving Approaches in lab, we were asked to focus on helping our students to answer the questions, "Why is this important?" and "What do you need to know to solve the problem?". The activity I developed was for a Reproduction unit in an Animal Science course. I began my lesson with the epitome of interest approaches for high school students (and most adults if we're being completely honest); pictures of baby animals. After writing down one word that described each picture, we went back through the pictures and wrote down where they came from. After having a discussion on how offspring are a product of reproduction, we transitioned into thinking about different methods of livestock reproduction. I then presented my students with the question, "What method of breeding livestock is best?". From here we developed a list of things we needed to know to pose a solution to this problem.

The After Words

The Stance of a (Sort of) Confident Educator

Implementing the Problem Solving Approach helped me to see some of the the Principles of Interest in action since the student's were initially engaged with interesting pictures and felt invested in the lesson as they were solving the problem they were presented with and determining the direction of their learning. From this lesson, I learned that I am a student centered teacher in more ways than one. When the students were able to discuss amongst themselves, I felt much more comfortable directing their conversation than I do when I am presenting information from a slide. Whereas I was nervous and slightly flustered during the first half of the lesson, the second half felt much more natural as I let the students direct their learning and guided them towards the topic that I would be teaching on in the second half of the lesson. While Student Teaching, I hope to develop more pressing, relevant problems that the students can work on to become invested in the material and motivated to follow through with the solution. Beyond Student Teaching, I hope to utilize one Problem Solving Approach at the beginning and end of some of my units so that students can direct their learning towards real-world problems and apply what they have learned to feel a sense of academic accomplishment. Are you an agricultural educator checking out this blog? I would love to see a few of your Problem Solving Approach ideas in the comments below! 

'Taylor'ed with love,