Page 140 - Foundations of Learning, 4th Edition (Revised)

Assessing Problem Solving

In order to improve your problem solving, it is important to step back and assess how you have worked
to solve the problem. Since Evelyn is now fairly comfortable in applying methodologies, she decided to
perform an assessment of the solution to the pizza problem. Read over her comments. You’ll be asked to
perform a similar assessment of your problem solving in Activity 5.2.

Table 5.3 Assessing Performance in Problem Solving

Performance Criteria Strengths Areas for Improvement Insights

Statement of the Problem Concise and clear None
clarity
appropriate scope Specific None Identifying key issues
conciseness is an important step!
accurate
Information given Could have identified I would have looked
Key Issues is helpful. unknowns & prior knowledge at the number of
clarity slices!
any irrelevant issues? Irrelevant info needed more clearly.
any non-important issues? about number
any missing issues? of slices was Could have explained more
are they specific enough? why number of slices was
removed.
Assessing Information not relevant.
is irrelevant info removed?
organized Clear These will sometimes
defined unknowns take time to identify.
defined knowns
prior knowledge needed Not very expandable

Key Assumptions I never thought of this
any irrelevant? way to compare
can be researched/tested prices!
clarity
Short and sweet Not the strongest validation
Breaking the Problem Apart
appropriate number of com-
ponents
clean separation into parts

Quality of Models
# of issues incorporated
simplicity
expandability

Generalizing the Solution
understand the limits
applied to new situations

Presentation of the Solution
clarity
all components included
processes documented
assessment of the solution

134 Foundations of Learning