Helping Your Students Become Problem Solvers

Helping Your Students Become Problem Solvers!

In order to become a problem solver, our students need to experience productive struggle and practice using what they know to persevere in solving a problem. What do we mean by productive struggle? Productive struggle is when a student is actually struggling with a problem or task; it's not easy for them! They should have some skills and tools to pull from in order to allow some success, but this task is not practice, this is an application of what they have already learned. We can go into productive struggle more on a later date! 

This will help us build problem solvers by addressing one of our Standards of Mathematical Practices: 

Standard of Mathematical Practice #1 - Make sense of Problems and Persevere in Solving them.

One way to do just this, is by taking the well known gradual release model, "I Do, We do, You do" and making a small tweak! 

"YOU Do, We Do, I Do" 

Warm-up: Always be sure that the students have the background knowledge and the skills necessary to apply to a new situation. If you aren't sure, start with a warm-up that can activate their prior knowledge and remind them what they already know that can help them. Get those math brains going! 

You Do: Provide the students with a problem they have never seen before that asks them to apply what they already know in a brand new situation. Choosing and crafting the right problem is key here as you don't want to cause frustration. Students should know just enough to be able to struggle through and feel that proud feeling of accomplishment at the end! If you notice some students reaching a point of frustration, have some prompts in mind that can frame their thinking and move them forward in the problem without causing them to shut down. But, do your best to NOT show them or tell them how to solve. 

Debrief: Have students either share with a partner and/or share as a whole class to discuss strategies and how some students overcame certain challenges. Highlight interesting thinking, regardless of if it led the student in the right direction. Sometimes letting students explain their thinking and realize an error in logic on their own can be very powerful to that student as well as the whole group! 

We Do (students): Ask students to complete a similar problem or a different problem with a partner. Allow students independent work time first to try to apply what they just learned from the debrief, and then call students together to compare their work and the strategies they used. 

We Do (whole class): The "We Do" portion can be considered "we" as in partners or "we" as in whole class. It depends on what you think your students need. If students are struggling, you could pose a problem to the group and have them help you solve problem as a class in order to keep the task on track. 

Debrief: Similar to above

I Do: Now, take all the great thinking that the students shared and synthesize it into something concrete. If there is a specific algorithm or solution method you wanted to highlight, then connect it back to the student or students who shared those ideas. Some of the students in the class may not be totally clear at this point, they may have some ideas of how to solve the problem, but it's not solid. So, the teacher's purpose for modeling is to solidify understanding and clarify the steps that the students may have already discovered on their own! 

Problem Solving Vs. Explicit Instruction

When to Use Problem Solving: (You Do, We Do, I Do)

- The students have skills that can be applied to a new situation. 

- It's more about the thinking and not as much about the strategy being used. 

- There are multiple strategies that could be used to solve a problem. 

When to Use Explicit Instruction: (I Do, We Do, You Do)

- Students do not have the background knowledge to be successful. 

- You want to model your thought process in order for students to follow a similar thought process. 

- You want to model a process that students are struggling with. 

- Students must utilize a specific strategy that is brand new to them. 

So, next time you're sitting down to plan a lesson, ask yourself if this is an opportunity to let the students practice being problem solvers!