Learning to Solve Problems
An Instructional Design Guide
Chapter One
What Is Problem Solving?
Learning in the everyday world, where people live and work, is
omnipresent and essential to survival, let alone progress. In homes, businesses,
organizations, and societies in every culture, learning is driven by problems
that need solving. How do I pay for a new car? Which schools should
my children attend? How do we design a new marketing campaign to address
a target market? How do we make peace with our enemies? What's wrong
with the compressor? How do we raise funds to support municipal services?
Modern life in nearly every context presents a deluge of problems that
demand solutions. Although many trainers avoid using the word problem
because it implies acquiescence and insolubility (a problem with problem
solving is that problem has many meanings), intellectually that is what they
get paid to do. Designing training is an archetype of design problem solving.
And most of these problems that people face in their everyday lives are ill
structured. They are not the well-structured problems that students at every
level of schooling, from kindergarten through graduate school, attempt to
solve ... read full excerpt from Learning to Solve Problems: An Instructional Design Guide ebook
