How Teachers Can Facilitate Problem Solving Development

The preschool years which are the ages between 2 ½ years to five years old is an exciting time for children. It is during this time that they use all of the development learned during the infant and toddler stage to actively explore and engage in school. Preschoolers learn how to make their own choices, develop socially, and explore their environments. Parents and caregivers still play an important role in helping children during this time take initiative and explore their environments. Adult’s behaviors, attitudes, and styles of thinking contribute to preschooler’s

This section focuses on the standard, “Children demonstrate strategies for reasoning and problem solving” (Early Childhood Iowa, 2012, p. 99). Through this standard, a child will: show interest in and find a variety of solutions to questions, tasks, or problems; recognize and solve problems through active exploration, including trial and error, and through interactions and discussions with peers and adults; share ideas or make suggestions of how to solve a problem presented by another person. Adults must support these benchmarks by providing opportunities for each child to try new ways of using materials, creating a safe environment with developmentally appropriate materials that offer an appropriate amount of stimulation and choice for each child to explore and play with, allowing each child time to process experiences and information, talking through problems with children to model problem-solving, holding class meetings to discuss issues that may occur and have the children brainstorm solutions, and choosing appropriate materials that promote creativity, self-expression, number, and emerging literacy skills (Early Childhood Iowa,

Social skills - By playing independently of adults, children have the chance to practise their social skills. They might squabble or raise their voices at times, but most children from 3 years or so are able to work things out themselves. Learning to take turns and cooperate helps children’s social skills.

Cognitive Development refers to the construction of the thought process that includes problem solving, remembering and the ability to make decisions, from childhood up to the adulthood stage. Cognitive/Intellectual Development is the ability to learn, reason, and analyze the fact that a process begins from infancy and progresses as the individual (Educational Psychology). Cognitive Development contains events that are logical, like thinking and remembering. Some factors remain the same throughout many of the theories on cognitive development. All theorists agree that people go through specific steps and/or

Metacognition is a complex notion that encompasses numerous mental processes in all areas of life. It is often simplistically described as “thinking about thinking.” However, there is no commonly recognized definition of metacognition. In his article “The Power of Reflection”, Stephen Fleming, a well-respected cognitive neuroscientist, agrees with the definition of metacognition given by John Flavell in 1970 as “our ability to evaluate our own thinking” (2). Fleming also accepts Flavell’s proposition that metacognition is “key to educational success”; indeed, the development of metacognitive thinking is vital in learning processes (1). Metacognition is a teachable concept, and has been proven to be crucial in education.

A second strength of the sociocultural perspective is the emphasis on the role of adults in childhood cognitive development through guided participation. Vygotsky introduced the idea that children learn in a zone of proximal development. Meaning the distance between what an individual can do alone and what they can do with guidance and assistance from a capable member of society (Mcleod, 2010). Any skills outside the zone would be already mastered or still too difficult to attempt alone. “To Vygotsky, learning in collaboration with more knowledgeable companions drives cognitive development (Sigelman).” This is true throughout the world. Children in many cultures learn from a teacher, from family members, and many others. In other cultures, children learn skills from relatives, members of their village or tribe, or from other skilled members in their group. This perspective satisfies the need to recognize the role of adults in

The interaction a preschooler has with the surrounding environment, whether it be physical or social, has a significant impact on the child’s development. Ramani (2012), had taken a look at playful environment versus a structured environment to see which one benefited children more when it came to social interaction and joint problem solving. The interaction shown in the experiment showed that a playful environment benefits children more because they are free to communicate and interact with other children, they were more observant of their environment, would imitate more to get their point across, and were overall more positive. Denham, Bassett, Zisser, and Wyatt (2014) evaluated the child’s engagement with the surrounding physical and social environment, along with taking a look at the ways social-emotional learning can predict how academically ready the children are.

When supporting children that need more challenge, it is important to focus on asking them questions that allow them to think about a topic on a deeper level. When working with T, it was evident he knew what was being asked of him on this worksheet. I know I challenged him because he really had to think about what I was asking him, and give him a nudge in the right direction. According to Reys, Lindquist, Lambdin, and Smith (2015), “People who are good problem solvers are generally good at thinking about their own thinking—that is, they are good at metacognition. As a teacher, I need to remember to find ways to allow my students to think about their thinking in order to challenge them. I need to scaffold my students into asking themselves their own questions after they complete a problem.

Not all children comprehend things at the same level, that’s why it is so important to teach them basic skills young so later on throughout life certain tasks will not be so hard for them. Children can also gain life skills just by doing simple things such as working puzzles. While working the puzzles children gain problem solving skills as they try and fit the pieces together and figure out what goes where, it also develops a sense of persistance.(How to Support Children’s approach to learning?). Children need to learn the basic skill of problem solving because it is needed for tasks throughout life whether it is a math problem or real life problems. Persistence is needed in many situations where the child may want to

Young children learn and grow everyday. Especially, young children, the ages three years to five years old, learn important skills while they play with friends and interact with their teachers. Janice J. Beaty (2014) states that for young children, “play is their way of learning” (p. 167) Thus, teachers need to observe children while they play and assess the development of the child because “Knowing the development of a young child helps a teacher to plan the curriculum, to set up activities for individuals, or to ask for special help when necessary” (Beaty, 2014, p. 3).

Mr. Stepien stated that the reason he has the students formulate questions and writes them on the board is to help the students see the process. He stated the as profesionals we often skip the chart making because we've already developed a pattarn of calling in our minds the important questions we want to consider. He then stated if you watch a really good expert problem solver at work it almost looks invisbale,that thinking process. However, if you watch a good problme solver who gets stuck, you can almost see thier brain go back and say what did I miss. This metacognition thinking about the way they're thinking, has really gotta be devloped in kids. The chart process is a great way for kids to give explicit attention to what thier brain ought

The study featured collaborative patterns of 7- year old expert learner joined with 5 – year old novice learners compared to 5 – year old novice planners and same age 5- year old experts on completing delivery task that involved sequence strategies. The ultimate task was to devise a plan to deliver goods to from one start site to a delivery site using only one trip with restrictions put in place. Some restrictions included low gas preventing multiple trips than intended and one way streets. Each task involved sequencing and delivering five items to locations in a village drawn on a board. Some groups of children were allowed to collaborate with one another to devise a plan to deliver the items and some were not. All-encompassing the variety of groups (same aged novice and expert and differing ages of novice and expert). The children were placed in non-disruptive environments where researchers coded when children engaged in observational learning which includes amount of time novice observed experts ,physical intervention directiveness and suggestions and positive

Children need to interact and work cooperatively with other children and adults to effectively learn.

Children rely heavily on the input of their surrounding environments to develop these skills further (Eileen Allen & Marotz, 2003). The communication strategy used by children over the first year of life is predominately non-verbal before development progresses to include verbal communication (Rodnick & Wood, 1973). McDevitt and Ormrod (2010) suggest social emotional, physical and cognitive development is facilitated by the experiences children have in their “family, school and community” (p. 5). This raises the idea that the level of communicative development may differ greatly between children depending on experiential exposure. Rodnick and Wood (1973) expand on this further suggesting children will actually develop a level of grammatical and language understanding which is essential to communication, long before they commence schooling. In research conducted by Rodnick and Wood (1973) it was noted in their findings that the children subject to their research demonstrated a lower level of communication than expected at around the age of seven and suggest it may be due to environmental factors. This then draws some attention to the educator and their ability to teach a developing child not only the importance of communication, but also the skills of appropriate and effective communication.

It is important to teach or at least try to teach students problem solving related to math. Problem solving plays a big part in the math process. Teaching problem solving is beneficial to students because helps the students find solutions when struggling. It helps math to be more interesting and less stressful. Students see math with less negative reaction and more hope. Problem solving helps and improves student’s ability to think, solve, and find solutions. It is important for students to have the ability to have problem solving skills and this is what it teaches the students. Ultimately, problem solving helps students focus increase and learn what works best for them.