Structured Problem Solving Strategies

Teachers often hear students complain that they "don't know where to begin" when they are expected to solve what seem to be straightforward problems. Obviously, they are NOT straightforward to the students for reasons that we are now beginning to understand.

Experts in a subject area are able to process large amounts of information because it is familiar enough to "chunk" into units that can be handled a few at a time. "Water freezes at zero degrees Celsius" is one simple concept to a science teacher, but a collection of several new terms and concepts to a student and an incomprehensible jumble of words to a small child. It is no wonder, then, that students are easily overwhelmed by what seem to be a few simple steps that have been repeatedly drilled in class. Students may protest that they were "never taught that," when in reality they were simply unable to integrate the information with other learning or even acknowledge it at the time it was presented.

Structured problem-solving strategies provide novices with mechanisms to receive and retrieve new information without over-taxing the capacity of their short-term memories. A strategy that has proven successful in teaching students to solve chemistry problems is the Explicit Method that includes the following six steps:

1. Write what information is GIVEN, either symbolically or in narrative.

2. Write what is being ASKED.

3. RECALL any information from past learning that may prove useful and write it down.

4. Make a PLAN to solve the problem. Flow-chart symbolism is useful here.

5. SOLVE the problem using mathematics. This step also includes checking the accuracy of the mathematics.

6. Re-read the problem and CHECK the steps you used to solve it.

Novice problem solvers are very inefficient. They tend to write down trivial steps and include much irrelevant information. A study showed that the structured method gave the best results with average or below-average students, especially on UNANNOUNCED tests where memorized procedures had faded. As students became more skilled, they became more efficient, wrote down less, and eventually could resist using the strategy, as do most expert solvers. This efficiency is an indication that these students can already "chunk" the entire process and can reproduce the solution without any assistance.