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Problem Solving

Developed by Melinda Stanley

The importance of this activity is to teach people the process of creative problem solving and ways that it can be applied to their lives.

For this competency, you will want to learn more about Creative Problem Solving by reading more on the process at http://www.ideastream.com/create/. Complete four of the following seven activities:

  1. Think of an unappealing duty, dreaded task, routine chore or minor job that you wish a machine could accomplish for you. On a sheet of paper or computer, design a machine that would improve your life in some way. At the bottom of the page, create an ad with a slogan that would sell the public on your idea.
  2. Select one of the problems listed below:

    3. In the future, what will be the impact of:

    1. Rapid population growth?
    2. A large elderly population?
    3. Urban Sprawl?
    4. Cashless Society?
    5. Growth and speed of new technology?
    6. The growth of prison populations?
    7. A scarcity of natural resources?
    8. The high cost of medical care?
    9. Genetic engineering and cloning?

    Work on solutions using the Quick Skills Decision Making and Problem Solving Manual located in the Media Center.

  3. For this activity you should begin by identifying a problem that you are currently facing. The problem would need to be one that can be solved through your application of thought and expenditure of time and effort. Use the following steps as a guide through the identification of your thought processes used in solving this problem.
    1. What is your problem?
    2. What is the answer to your problem?
    3. Write down, step by step, any thoughts you can remember leading up to your solution.
    4. Try to recall some thought which you experienced a minute or so before and then follow the thinking forward.
    5. Cross out anything not definitely remembered, even if it seems to be plausible.
    6. After each remembered step, were there any visual or other sensory images associated with the step? Describe those images.
    7. After each step, ask: Can I remember anything else that occurred between this step and the next? Write this down.
    8. Through the use of the above steps, what personal "insight" did you discover about your problem solving method?
  4. Pretend that the following people are attending a dinner party and that you are responsible for the seating. You have five tables with six people at each table. Who would you seat where and why? Include a diagram of your seating arrangement and a written explanation of why you selected this arrangement. (It should not be assumed that this is a representative group of the world’s most creative people, but rather a representation of a diverse group of notable individuals.)

    5. Ronald Reagan                             Michelangelo                        John F. Kennedy

    Benjamin Franklin                        Charles Dickens                    Ernest Hemingway

    Martin Luther King                      Amelia Earhart                      Madame Curie

    Queen Victoria                            Daniel Boone                        John Glenn

    Albert Einstein                             William Shakespeare             Harriet Tubman

    John Lennon                                Thomas Edison                     Napoleon

    Clark Gable                                 Fidel Castro                        Frank Lloyd Wright

    Barbara Walters                          Bill Gates                             Mother Teresa

    Sydney Portier                             Ralph Nader                        Donald Trump

    Oprah Winfrey                             Gloria Steinam                     George W. Bush

    If you need to learn more about these individuals, visit the Internet or your local library.

  5. At the annual craft fair six exhibitors, five women and one man, including a glassblower, displayed their works in booths. When the fair ended, they tried to work out agreeable trades with one another. From the following clues, can you determine who is engaged in each craft and who exchanged with whom?
    1. Becky debated between a trade with Tammy and a trade with the weaver and finally settled on one of the two.
    2. Craig is not the potter.
    3. Susan is not the one who does patchwork.
    4. Mindi is not the woodcarver or the weaver.
    5. By the final trading arrangements, the potter traded two pieces of pottery, each with a different person: four of the six – Becky, Mindi, the jewelry maker, and the woman who does patchwork – were involved in one each; and Sharon was involved in none. (Note: All six exhibitors are mentioned in this clue.)

     

    Glass

    Jewel

    Patch

    Potter

    Weaver

    Wood

    Mindi

    		            

    Becky

    		            

    Tammy

    		            

    Susan

    		            

    Sharon

    		            

    Craig

    		            

    Provide link to answer (on input answer and find out if it is correct or incorrect.)

  6. A card dealer has shuffled the jacks, queens, kings, and aces from a deck of cards and dealt them face up on the table from left to right in four rows of four cards each (i.e.. in the order shown by the numbers below). From the following clues, can you correctly locate each of the cards?
    1. All of the aces are on the periphery of the arrangement.
    2. The four corner cards, in no particular order, are the jack of hearts, the jack of clubs, the queen of diamonds, and the ace of clubs.
    3. Each row and each column includes one card of each suit.
    4. Each column includes one of each face card and one ace.
    5. The second row has no aces in it.
    6. The first card dealt was a club.
    7. The queen of diamonds is not in the first row.
    8. Card 12 is not a diamond.
    9. Card 2 is not a spade.
    10. The king of clubs was dealt after the queen of clubs.

     

     

     

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    Provide link to answer (on input answer and find out if it is correct or incorrect.)

  7. Write a letter to the editor of a local newspaper. Choose a topic that you feel poses a problem for your school, neighborhood, community, or even the country as a whole. The problem doesn’t have to be a major issue of national policy. It can be something small like a sidewalk that needs to be repaired or the need for a new course at your school. In your letter, define the problem. Make clear what the difficulty is and give the facts of the situation. You don’t need to spell out the solution, but your definition of the problem should suggest the kinds of steps that you think need to be taken. Share your letter with a teacher and then, if you like, send it to the editor.