How does the design & teaching of the problem-solving course reflect the major tenants of problem solving

& inquiry? The class itself is approached in a manner that is reflective of its teaching goals. This was true with the teaching and design opportunities within the middle school and high school and then also in general with class lecture style with assignments. The main emphasis on assignments is one that constantly, on a weekly basis, reflects and reinforces the algo-heuristic approach to lesson planning. When we were given an important and required science topic that is covered in all classrooms and an algorithmic lesson on it, we were asked to transform the lesson into something more heuristic. A heuristic approach could be something that could bring in as many of the attributes of problem solving and inquiry as possible. The transformations allowed some playfulness in bringing the other attributes to life, particularly, real world problems, relevance to the students, and their perceived risk. With practice in designing, I was able to apply the algor-heuristic design into lessons plans that I taught. My experience of this was that it put the attributes of problem-solving inquiry such as the real world problem and its relevance, in the forefront in the class exercise, versus it being a lesson not in action. Bringing a lesson to a classroom setting allows invoking the attributes in a real world scenario, myself in the classroom teaching, making mistakes, recognizing successes in the real world, relevant. The particular lecture style that occurred in this class is also another way that emphasizes the attributes of problem solving and inquiry. For example, we had several class exercises where the roles were reversed with the future teachers taking the class role playing students that they may teach. This was a playful approach and also brought the Thou of I-It-Thou into the younger students perspective. Also, the in-class discussions on assigned readings focused on validating and enforcing different attributes of problem solving and inquiry.

Over all, the design of the class was approached in the way that the major tenants of problem-solving and inquiry were incorporated in a seamless way that was only recognizable due to those attributes being the subject matter of the class.