1.) How does this fit what I have learned so far? The problem solving strategies discussed in chapter 11; Analogy, Means-Ends, and hill climbing heuristic offer further insight to how we process incoming stimuli - problems or tasks in this case - and then utilize our schemas to address those problems. Whether is is through analogy, when we employ a solution from past experiences, or means-ends, when we chunk problems or tasks into smaller pieces to solve that eventually lead to our goal. or hill climbing, when selecting an approach that appears to lead to our end goal.
Also relating to previous chapters was the information discussing bottom up and top down processing and the roles they play in problem solving. Matlin presents mental set (trying the same solution from previous problems, when another approach may be more efficient) and functional fixedness (giving up on trying to find new ways to improve your abilities to respond) as having an over active top down processing and closing ones self of to alternative solutions.
2.) What is unclear? I don't feel there is anything I am unclear about. The book provided clear understandings and examples. The Savery and Duffy article helped put the strategies from the text into a linear model for designing curricula.
3.) When would I use this? I would use this information when developing lesson plans. Specifically the information in the Savery and Duffy article. Regarding the Matlin text, I think educating students on different problem solving strategies is very useful. helping them identify different approaches is a life skill they can apply in and out of the classroom.
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I too enjoyed the article by Savery and Duffy. It reminded me of the laboratory school that John Dewey started in Chicago in 1896. He was very innovative for his time. He told his wife in 1894 that:"There is an image of a school growing up in my mind all the time; a school where some actual and literal constructive activity shall be the centre and source of the whole thing, and from which the work should be always growing out in two directions — one the social bearings of that constructive industry, the other the contact with nature which supplies it with its materials. I can see, theoretically, how the carpentry, etc., in building a model house shall be the centre of a social training on the one side and a scientific on the other, all held within the grasp of a positive concrete physical habit of eye and hand" (Dewey, 1894).
ReplyDeleteIf you get time, Google - University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. It is very interesting reading.
I think realizing the differing problem solving strategies is very important so that we do not leave out possible ways to help students that don't necessarily think like us. It is very important to try to present how to solve a particular problem in differing ways. Different students, different ways of thinking!
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