Web-Based Tutorial
Introduction
Identifying
Framing
Resolving
Re-Addressing
Exercises
Evaluation
Form
Tutorial for Optimizing and Documenting
Open-Ended Problem Solving Skills
Ó January 2000, Cindy Lynch, Susan Wolcott, and Greg
Huber
Permission is granted to reproduce this
information for noncommercial purposes. Please cite this source: Lynch, C. L.,
Wolcott, S. K., & Huber, G. E. (2000, January). Tutorial
for optimizing and documenting open-ended problem solving skills [On-line].
Available: http://home.apex.net/~leehaven
Exercises
Introduction
1. Examples of
Open-Ended Problems
Identifying the Nature of a Problem and
Relevant Information
5. Beginning Your
Lists of Relevant Information
Framing an Open-Ended Problem
6. Preferences and
Assumptions
7. Analyzing
Information From Different Points of View
8. Exploring a
Problem's Complexities
Resolving an Open-Ended Problem
10. Choosing Among
Viable Options
11. Communicating
Your Conclusions
Re-Addressing an Open-Ended Problem
13. Documenting
Your Open-Ended Problem Solving Skills
Exercise 1 (see Introduction)
Examples of Open-Ended Problems
Refer back to the characteristics of open-ended
problems in the "Introduction" for this tutorial. List examples
of problems that might be open-ended:
In your formal education experience
In your current or future work
In your personal life
In your civic life
If possible, talk with someone else who is interested
in open-ended problem solving and discuss your list.
- Does
the other person agree with your reasons for thinking these are open-ended
problems?
Exercise 2 (see Introduction)
Warm-Up Essay
One way to document your problem solving
performance is to begin by writing a warm-up essay.
Look at the problems you listed in Exercise 1,
and choose one that you would like to consider in more depth. State the
open-ended problem as a question that can have more than one viable answer. (OR
write about a problem assigned to you by your instructor or supervisor).
Broad, general examples include:
- What
is the best way to manage global resources?
- How
can the information technologies be managed to optimize quality of life?
- What
is the best way to deal with poverty in the
- What
is the best way to achieve economic development in the "third
world"?
- How
can we best care for our frail elders?
- What
ethical standards should guide biomedical research?
- How
can
- How
should human rights be defined?
PART 1
Write a brief (about 2 pages, double spaced),
informal essay that states and defends your conclusions about the
open-ended problem question.
PART 2
Address questions A, B, C, and D (and the
appropriate follow-up questions) in complete sentences:
A. Do you think it is possible to know for
sure whether your conclusion is correct?
(A1) If YES, why?
OR
(A2) If NO, why not?
B. How is it possible that there are
differences of opinion about this problem?
C. When people disagree about this issue, is
one conclusion correct while the others are wrong?
(C1) If YES, how do you decide which
conclusion is correct?
OR
(C2) If NO, is one conclusion better than the
others?
(C2a) If NO, why not?
OR
(C2b) If YES, how do you decide which one is
better?
D. Would you ever be willing to change your
conclusion?
(D1) If NO, why not?
OR
(D2) If YES, what might cause you to change
your conclusion?
Exercise 3 (see Identifying)
Self-Evaluation
Review what you wrote for the problem solving
warm-up essay (Exercise
2). Respond to the following items.
1. In your short essay (Part 1) and/or your
answers to the follow-up questions (Part 2), did you acknowledge that the
problem is open-ended?
___ No
___ Weak yes
___ Strong yes
2a. If you answered
"weak yes" or "strong yes," list passages from your work
that provide evidence that you understand the open-ended nature of the problem.
OR
2b. If you answered
"no," write at least one complete sentence that describes your
current understanding of the nature of the problem.
Exercise 4 (see Identifying)
Focusing on Uncertainties
Think about the problem that was the focus of
your essay for Exercise
2.
In the space below, begin a list of reasons
or factors that contribute to the uncertainties
embedded in your open-ended problem. Some will be more general than others. As
you continue through this tutorial and become aware of additional reasons or of
ways to state the reasons more clearly, revise your work for this exercise.
Exercise 5 (see Identifying)
Beginning Your Lists of Relevant
Information
As you think and read about the problem you
are addressing in this tutorial,
(A) begin to list relevant information under the categories identified below
AND
(B) be sure to note the sources for your information.
When you identify relevant information that
doesn’t fall under one of those categories, feel free to begin additional
lists. As you move through the problem solving process, you will be continually
revising these lists.
Categories of information
- Definitions
- Rules,
policies, laws, axioms
- Groups
of people who may have different points of view about the problem
- Solution
options
- Specific
pieces of data or evidence
- Factors
to consider in thinking about the problem
- Theories
or models
- Assumptions
- Characteristics
of the problem environment and of the persons affected by the problem
- Different
ways to state the problem
- Sub-problems
or questions
Exercise 6 (see
Framing)
Preferences and Assumptions
An unexamined preference is a bias or "a
highly personal and unreasoned distortion of judgment" or a
"prejudice" (Merriam-Webster, 1984, p. 147).
An assumption is something that is accepted
as true without verification.
1. Carefully read the essay you wrote for Exercise 2.
What experiences might be affecting what you wrote? What biases and/or
assumptions might have influenced your thinking?
2. We have a tendency to associate primarily
with people who share beliefs that are similar to our own and understand the
world much like we do. If possible, talk with someone who is likely to have
beliefs about the problem that are different from your own. In your discussion,
focus on assumptions.
a. Do you share a
common understanding of what the word "assumption" means?
b. Does he or she
share your assumptions related to the problem?
c. In what ways
does he or she understand the problem differently than you?
3. Carefully review the lists of
characteristics of the problem environment and affected persons you began in Exercise 5.
What assumptions and/or biases might be embedded in your descriptions?
Exercise 7 (see Framing)
Analyzing Information From
Different Points of View
In Exercise 5,
you began a list of groups of people who may have different points of view
about the problem.
1. Identify and read additional
information about the problem that is written by people who are likely to have
different ideas about the problem. For example, the Opposing Viewpoints series
published by Greenhaven Press (www.greenhaven.com)
offers information about many open-ended problems like the example problems
listed in Exercise
1. As you are reading the additional information, make notes or mark
passages that provide information you want to add to the lists you began in
Exercise 5 and to any other lists that are potentially useful. You may want to
use different colors to mark information that will be added to different lists.
2. Revise the lists you began in Exercise 5.
3. As objectively as possible, analyze the
available information in your lists from the perspective of someone who
supports one of the solution options you did NOT endorse in your initial essay.
Keep in mind the impact of assumptions and preferences. You might
consider questions such as these:
a. From that other person's point of view,
what information is most important and what does it mean?
b. Why might some information be disregarded
or given less weight?
c. From that different point of view, what
are the strengths and weaknesses of different pieces of information?
d. After responding to Items a, b, and c,
write a summary of your analysis of the information from that different point
of view, including the evaluation criteria you used.
4. Now analyze the same information from the
perspective of someone who supports a different solution option. Write a
summary of your analysis, including the evaluation criteria you used.
5. Compare the sets of evaluation criteria
you used for Items 3 and 4, above. Write a paragraph that describes the most
important differences between the two sets of criteria.
Exercise 8 (see
Framing)
Exploring a Problem's Complexities
In Exercise 5,
you began several lists of information related to the problem you are
considering. In Exercise 7
you revised your lists based on some additional information and tried to
understand the problem from different points of view.
1. Look carefully at your lists. Think
about how all the information is related in the "big picture" of the
problem you are considering. You may want to put the information on different
"stickie notes" so you can arrange and
re-arrange the pieces as you think.
2. Write at least one paragraph
explaining how your understanding of the problem has changed since you
completed Exercise
2.
Exercise 9 (see Resolving)
Factors to Consider
In Exercise 5, you began a list of factors to
consider and in Exercise 8
you revised that list based on additional information you had gained about the
problem you are addressing with this tutorial.
1. Review your current list of factors to consider.
Think carefully about that list and focus on factors that apply across solution
options. What factors need to be added to the list? You might want to list the
factors on separate "sticky notes" so you can more easily consider
how to organize and weight the factors in relationship to each other.
2. How might the list best be organized? For
example, are some factors actually subcategories under more general factors?
Which factors are more important than other factors? What is affecting your
decisions about the relative weightings of the factors?
Exercise 10 (see Resolving)
Choosing Among Viable Options
1. Examine the list of
options you began in Exercise 5
and probably expanded during the framing phase of the problem solving process.
As you currently understand the problem, are there any options that should be
deleted? If so, what are your reasons for no longer actively considering those
options?
2. Among the options that remain, can any of
them be combined into better options? If so, how would the new options best be
described? What other options should be added to the list?
3. Using your weighted list of factors from Exercise 9,
carefully consider your options. What are the relative strengths and
weaknesses of your various options, and which one is most viable?
Exercise 11 (see Resolving)
Communicating Your Conclusions
Write a short essay that would effectively
communicate the conclusions you reached in Exercise 10
to someone who might endorse a different conclusion. Be careful to include an
explanation of how you considered various options and reached your conclusion,
rather than simply stacking up evidence that supports your conclusion.
Exercise 12 (see Re-Addressing)
Next Steps
Carefully examine what you wrote for Exercise 11.
Answer the following questions in complete sentences and/or paragraphs.
1. What are the limitations, weaknesses, or
unknown aspects related to your proposed solution?
2. What are the implications of those
limitations?
3. What new information or changes in
conditions might lead you to re-address the problem?
4. What strategies could be implemented to
monitor the results of your conclusions and help you revise your approach as
needed?
Exercise 13 (see Re-Addressing)
Documenting Your Open-Ended Problem
Solving Skills
For Exercise 2,
you wrote a short essay about a particular open-ended problem. In the
subsequent exercises, you have considered that problem in increasingly complex
ways.
1. Carefully review your work in all the
exercises and the Questions for
Problem Solvers that were presented in the introduction to this
tutorial.
2. Building on all your work for this
tutorial, re-write your original essay. Your essay for this exercise should be
no longer than 4 pages, single spaced in 12 point type. Your work should
effectively demonstrate your identifying, framing, resolving, and re-addressing
skills. You won't have space to address each of the questions for problem
solvers and discuss all the options and perspectives, so you will have to make
some judgments about how best to use that space.
3. Evaluate your essay using the Evaluation Form.You may download the
MS Word-97 Document
here.
Ó January 2000, Cindy Lynch, Susan Wolcott, and Greg
Huber
Permission is granted to reproduce this
information for noncommercial purposes. Please cite this source: Lynch, C. L.,
Wolcott, S. K., & Huber, G. E. (2000, January). Tutorial
for optimizing and documenting open-ended problem solving skills [On-line].
Available: http://home.apex.net/~leehaven
