DR. SUSAN L. STANSBERRY
Professor of Learning, Design, and Technology, Oklahoma State University
Problem Solving
You should have a solid idea of what your problem is by this point.
Metaphors
Metaphors equate one concept to another concept that is unlike the first concept.
Example: Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food.
Based on the attributes of a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food, what meaning would you assign to the word "memory"? Maybe: it's hard to understand, it can be a little scary, it doesn't make sense -- holding onto things that aren't valuable and throwing away necessary things . . .
When you're working on a problem, it is often extremely helpful to equate it with an unlike concept to force yourself to think of it differently. Think of a challenge you have right now at work (I've got preparing an accreditation report in mind) now think of something you would never consider to be like this challenge (I'm thinking vacation). Now, let's use the attributes listing skills we gained previously and begin working on a new metaphor. Here's my example:
Attributes of a vacation:
Destination: beach, mountains, city
Travel: plane, car, cruise ship
Activities: total relaxation, extreme sightseeing, mix of work and fun
Companions: friends, spouse, spouse & kids
Souvenirs: t-shirt, Christmas tree ornament, a bottle of beach sand
Packing: very light, over pack, medium
(Your attributes will be different depending on what you are choosing as a metaphor. Please choose something meaningful to you! I had picked this one because I was desperately in need of a vacation while struggling through completing a University-wide accreditation report.)
Now put it together:
Writing an accreditation report is a vacation! It only rolls around every few years, so it's not something I "get" to do all the time. Our destination is achieving national accreditation, and there's no reason we won't have a smooth landing into that destination. It's such fun to travel with other people! Much more interesting than taking a solo trip. I have great travel companions on my journey, and we always mix some fun in with our work. We need to remember to only pack what we need into the report. There's no sense in overpacking with things that we don't need. Keep it simple and light.
New thoughts:
This metaphor didn't give me any great new insights, but it did brighten my attitude, and changing perspectives often moves you forward quickly in problem solving. I did have the thought that it might be fun to make t-shirts for the team working on accreditation that had some cheesy vacation theme . . . "My college got national accreditation and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" - maybe not. The point is, though, to open your thinking, helping to alleviate those frames that you're so used to looking through.
Imaging
Doodling has been shown to greatly improve ones focus. Take a blank sheet of paper, think hard about all aspects of your problem, and doodle away. See what happens. It may help you see the problem from a different perspective.
Abstracting
Abstracting is the process of subordinating the particular to the general. I may specifically shoot a worn, leather basketball, but the abstraction is just a ball. We can recognize abstractions all around us: Picasso's style of painting, e.e. cummings' poetry, or even the icons at the top of the browser window in front of you! The reason abstracting is such an important skill lies in building understanding. Even the simplest textbooks present abstractions of the most complex, genius ideas from thinkers like Galieleo, Newton, Darwin Pasteur, Mendel, Curie, etc. This scaffolds students' learning -- from the simple abstraction to the more complex reality.
"Knowing what abstracting is and why it is so important, though, is only half the problem. The other half is learning how to find the simple concepts hiding among complex expressions" (Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstien, 2000, p. 78). In being a teacher of technology, I constantly find the need to employ abstractions in helping others understand computing problems. I'll never forget my Mom's "lightbulb" coming on when I explained the abstractions of icons: the letter for e-mail, the manila folder for file folders, etc. (I'll bet some of you have had that conversation as well!)
Activity: Consider your problem. Simplify it into an abstraction.
Forming Patterns
Patterns are everywhere: from stripes on a zebra to the swirls on your fingertips to the cadence of speech that forms your dialect. These are all naturally forming patterns. We often create out own patterns in order to better understand information or concepts. Have you ever used a pneumonic device to help you recall memorized information? Recognizing existing patters and then forming your own new patterns are important steps in problem solving.
Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstein (2000) suggest that rather than having students memorize the periodic table of elements, they should be challenge to devise their own schema for representing elements. Similarly, they suggest geometry students be encouraged to invent their own ways of proving theorems. "Making patterns for oneself is a lot more fun than memorizing -- and a lot more valuable. Teasing apart one pattern and composing another requires real understanding of the basic elements of phenomena and processes" (Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstein, 2000, p. 135).
In the previous Problem Finding section, you were challenged to recognize patterns in the object, issue, or topic you were observing. Now it's time to form a new pattern. Look back at the existing patterns in the problem you recognized, and make a new list of the patterns you would like to see (ones that might possibly lead to a solution).