Independent Learning: The Best Way To Teach Problem-Solving Skills

I have pointed out in two previous articles how it is possible for us, as teachers, to learn from students effective ways of working that may then be highlighted to others either in the same class or in future groups. Some ideas will come to light through our own day-to-day classroom experience; others may be revealed only through research that gives us an insight into the way our charges think.

My work as a supervisor responsible for the delivery of the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) to Sixth Formers at Monkseaton High School has led me to realise that open-ended independent learning assignments provide especially fertile ground in this area. This is because they offer plenty of scope for candidates to arrive at their own responses to challenges that may emerge at different stages in the inquiry process, often over a prolonged period of time.

Moreover, as Gary Marchionini recognises, a key phase in independent learning – that of finding information – is itself 'a special case of problem-solving.¹ In my first article, I addressed how four students known to me had developed personal and highly successful methods for:

• selecting a focus for their research;
• gathering appropriate information;
• using the material collected to construct the outcome;
• reviewing the overall experience.²

The second article reported not so much a specific research method but an attitude of mind which helped one student to conceptualise the nature of independent learning. He viewed each assignment as a 'dynamic jigsaw puzzle'.

The task was dynamic in that its particulars were constantly shifting as the student progressed in his pursuit of information and the understanding he constructed from the material. It was jigsaw-like because a major requirement lay in ensuring that his new knowledge had to be made to fit together to form a coherent whole in his essay. The boundaries within which he knew he must work constituted the outer edge of the overall jigsaw picture.³ I quickly recognised that his metaphorical perspective would resonate with other students.

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