Teaching through Problem Solving

Teaching through problem solving accomodate to the diversity of different learners; as in problem solving, students are given opportunities to do the "talking" and teacher would only share relevant informations, as long as the tasks still remain problematic for the students.

Problem solving allows children to "make sense" of their own understanding through thinking. I strongly believe, when students reach this stage of understanding, they will have a solid understanding on the concepts taught. 

Myself and group members have chosen the topic on Pictograph, to introduce a new method of collected data or information into a Pictograph. The sculpture which is located at the Singapore Art Museum is the targetted object.

Fig.1. The Sculpture

 This activity requires the children to do a shape hunting activity in which they are to identify what types of shapes are there on the sculpture. After identifying the types of shapes, they have to count how many shapes are there for each type. The challenge for this task is to count the number of spheres. If you take a closer look on the sculpture picture above, there is one sphere which most of the part is covered by other spheres; therefore, it is a little difficult to identify that particular sphere. Furthermore the spheres are arranged in circular motion. 

Polya described four steps in problem-solving process:

1. Understanding the problem

2. Devising a plan

3. Carrying out the plan

4. Looking back

In the Pictograph task above, the students will not be told strategies on counting the spheres. However, they will be given instructions (only if they are not able to spot the hidden sphere after making a few attempts),such as, "Please take a closer look on the sculpture, can you spot whether there is another sphere inside.?"
Therefore, students will be able to identify the problems of the task on their own. Once they are able to derive to the first step on their own, they will be able to proceed to the next three steps with teacher as facilitator.