This page summarizes ideas from a website of Craig Rusbult, an enthusiastic educator with a PhD in C & I.* I'm optimistically excited when thinking about activities and strategies that we — using your ideas (for your schools) and my ideas, cooperatively working together — can develop and use, to help students improve their problem-solving skills in all areas of life, by helping them get more experiences (with problem solving) and learn more from their experiences.
* My PhD project at the U of Wisconsin (during life on a road less traveled) was constructing a model for “scientific method” — describing how science uses logical Reality Checks plus other factors — and using this model to help us analyze & improve our science education. Since then I've generalized this model (for Science Process) to form a model for Design Process (for Problem-Solving Process). { contact-email: craigru57-att-yahoo-daut-caum }
two other aspects of whole-person education: I'm also interested in exploring possibilities for helping students improve the important social skill of improvising conversation (in ways that promote understanding & respect) and the enjoyable artistic skill of improvising music (by playing a keyboard with chord-notes that are colorized – red, blue, green – to guide their creative inventing of harmonious melodies).
This new Summary-Page contains ideas from the HomePage of my large website about Education for Problem Solving. I want to show you how Design Process (my model for Problem-Solving Process) might be very useful in education, so its possibilities are worth exploring and developing, because (although not proved with certainty) this is “a good way to bet.”
The HomePage has two parts:
Part 1 describes educational goals that are generally accepted, that you (as an experienced educator) already know and probably accept, so while reading you'll be thinking “yes”. But I also explain how using Design Process can help us achieve our goals, and for these claims you might think “yes” (or “yes and...” by adding your own ideas) or “maybe” (or “maybe but...” with questions) or “no because...” (with reasons to reject). { my goals for Parts 1 & 2 ➞ us co-creating better education }
Part 2 is about my model for Design Process (for Problem-Solving Process) that is descriptively accurate and educationally beneficial, that can help us achieve the worthy educational goals in Part 1. At the right is a general overview of our problem-solving process, when we Define and Solve. When you study this overview-diagram, you'll understand it, but here is a mystery question: Why does the cycle have arrows on both sides? On the cycle's left side it's obvious, because you must Generate An Option before you can Evaluate This Option. But why does its right-side arrow point from Evaluate to Generate? After you've been thinking for awhile, study the left-side diagram below; it may stimulate new thinking, or maybe it will show (verbally & visually) what you already have been thinking. / 
The left-side diagram shows how we Evaluate An Option. And it shows how my model smoothly-and-logically integrates Design with Science because the core of its evaluation logic (when we Use 3 Elements in 3 Comparisons) leads naturally to the logical evaluations that we use for both General Design (aka Design, the usual term) and Science-Design (aka Science, usually). When students understand the logical integrating of design-with-science in my model this will help them develop a logical integrating of design-with-science in their thinking while they're solving problems. Both diagrams (Define-and-Solve, 3 Comparisons) are combined in the detailed diagram below that also answers the mystery question by showing why the cycle has a right-side arrow.
Both diagrams (Define-and-Solve, 3 Comparisons) are combined in this detailed diagram that also answers the mystery question by showing why the cycle has a right-side arrow.
ways to learn: In this page (above) and the HomePage (Part 2) you can learn from your discoveries and my explanations. A classroom teacher can help students learn Principles for Problem Solving (as in my model for Design Process) in these two ways (from discoveries & explanations) and also with classroom activities that guide them in a process of Experience + Reflection ➞ Principles that uses a process-of-inquiry to help students learn principles-for-inquiry.
My goals for Parts 1 & 2 are different yet related, with overlaps. I want to work with other educators, so I'm hoping you will see our “common ground” in Part 1, will be thinking “Craig is one of us, is with us and for us, he understands, is similar to us.” And during Part 2, “he is a little different, with an innovative model — to describe (verbally & visually) problem-solving actions, to help students understand these actions and improve their own actions — that will contribute useful ‘added value’ to education, so working with him will help us improve education, so we can be...”
co-creating better education: I'm an enthusiastic educator who enjoys talking with other educators, simply to share ideas and learn from each other. But (as explained in Working Together) "I also want to collaborate on projects of mutual interest — and doing this as a free volunteer will be fine with me — working cooperatively to develop our ideas for how to help students improve their creative-and-critical thinking skills and their effective using of problem-solving process in all areas of life" because we think "strategies for improving our problem-solving education are worth developing and (by converting our strategy-ideas into classroom-actions) actualizing. To do this developing-and-actualizing, collaboration is necessary because although I have some understandings and skills, I need help from other educators who have developed other understandings and skills,... who understand the perspectives of classroom teachers [and students] more accurately & thoroughly, or are skilled activity developers, and have other kinds of useful experience & expertise, so that by working together with coordinated cooperation, creatively combining your understandings-and-skills with mine, we can design curriculum & instruction that is a good match for how students like to learn (and are able to learn), and how teachers like to teach. ..... I want to see my ideas actualized in practical ways, by combining them with your ideas, working together to achieve your goals."
education for all ages: While writing this page (and the HomePage & website) for other educators, I'm thinking mostly about education in K-12 schools. But the ideas – about our goals & my model, in Parts 1 & 2 – also can be useful for younger children in pre-school, and older students in college, and everyone in everyday life.
this new page: Recently I decided to avoid overwhelming people with “too much” in the entire long HomePage, by making this shorter Summary Page so it can be the read-me-first page.* Its main content is sections from the introductory Short Overview (of Part 1) in the HomePage. When you want to learn more, links with green shading go to sections in the Longer Overview or Part 2 of the Home Page, where you sometimes find some links to “even more” in a Detailed Overview-Page. / * To make this Summary-Page the "read-me-first page" it's now linked-to at the top of my personal HomePage that previously had linked to a two-page combination with the HomePage (on left side) and Detailed Overview-Page (on right side).
Table of Contents
You can read the rest of this page in any order, by clicking any link that looks interesting:
Design Process has Two Wide Scopes that increase Transfers of Learning - Two Wide Scopes (for Activities and Process) - Scientific Knowledge about Increasing Transfer — when students expect Transfers (because we Build Educational Bridges from School into Life and into Their Future) this will improve their Motivations and Confidences
Develop-and-Use a Growth Mindset – Improve in the Present and/or Future with Objectives for Performing and/or Learning – Help Students Learn More from their Problem-Solving Experiences by combining Design Process with Metacognitive Thinking Strategies
Goal-Directed Designing of Curriculum & Instruction – designing a coordinated Wide-Spiral Curriculum with Wide Scope and Spiral Repetitions – designing Instruction Activities that are Fun (in two ways) and Personally Useful — connections between Problem-Solving Education and Overall Education — Improving Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
combining different Models-for-Process
[[ iou – during mid-November I'll describe other useful topics (that aren't in this page) and will link to their sections in the HomePage. ]]
Will two wide scopes of Design Process
increase Transfers of Learning and thus
help make education Personally Useful?
My ideas will be especially beneficial for education IF using Design Process will increase transfers-of-learning Between Areas (in School & in Life) and Through Time (from Present into Future),* because these transfers will provide many practical benefits for students. And IF students persuade themselves (because they see Bridges between School & Their Life & Their Future) so they believe that their learning will be personally useful because it will transfer from School into Life and into the Future — so a student is thinking “when I improve my School-Learning, it will improve my Life-Living, it will help me achieve my goals for Life” — their beliefs will be giving them personal motivations to learn in school. Students will convert their own education into a problem-solving project (when their problem-solving objective is to make things better in their own life) — because they believe that making their education better will help to make their life better — and they will be motivated to pursue their own personal education.
But there are two IF-conditions, thus two questions: Why should we expect transfers? How can we help students persuade themselves? These questions are important, and the answers are not obvious. Therefore the next two sections (1 and 2) explain some logical reasons to predict that using Design Process will increase transfers of learning – and will help us persuade students that these transfers are personally useful – because of connections between
Wide Scopes (for problem solving) in "1" below, and
Scientific Knowledge (about transfers) in "2" below.
1 – Two Wide Scopes for Problem Solving:
When we use Design Process (my model for Problem-Solving Process) in our Education for Problem Solving, we have logical reasons to expect that the result will be very useful for K-12, and for younger & older, because with Design Process there is a wide scope for Activities (that include almost everything we do) and for Process (that is similar for almost everything people do).
because when educators choose to use broad definitions — a problem is any opportunity to make things better, and problem solving occurs whenever we do make something better — almost everything students do can be a PS-Activity. And...
because during Design Process (as described in my simplest model) students just Generate Ideas & Evaluate Ideas, and we use these mental actions often, for almost everything in life. And we find other similarities when we dig deeper. But also differences because, for different people & different situations, the process is similar but not identical. Why?
And when we recognize how we Evaluate Ideas during Design Process (it's our Problem-Solving Process), we see similarities because 9 Functional Problem-Solving Actions (they're the core of Design Process) are used while solving almost all problems. In a brief description of the 9 Actions, we design-and-do “experiments” (that produce experiences) so we can get Information (by making Predictions or making Observations) that we use (along with Goals for a Solution) to Evaluate a Solution-Option, and then we use our Evaluation to Generate a better Solution-Option. { a detailed description of The 9 Actions }
But differences occur when each problem-solving person flexibly coordinates their problem-solving process by asking “what is the best way to make progress in my process?” so they can make strategic Action-Decisions about “what to do next,” about which Actions to use, when, and how. The flexible goal-directed improvising of a problem solver is analogous to the flexible goal-directed improvising of a hockey player. But not the rigid choreography of a figure skater. / The flexible process-coordinating is analogous to the modular process-of-building when a few kinds of simple Lego Bricks are used to build many different complex structures. With a modular process-of-solving we can use The 9 Actions to form many variations of Problem-Solving Process. We can solve a wide variety of problems by building a Process that is similar (but not identical) for almost everything we do, because each Process is a variation (improvised with modular flexibility) on a basic theme, made by combining the same Actions in different ways.
{ more about The Wide Scope of Process } { also, whether our “thinking” is conscious and/or subconscious in a particular situation, we use a similar process of Observe & Learn, Generate, Predict & Evaluate, Decide & Do }
2 – Scientific Knowledge about Increasing Transfer:
Why should we expect transfers-of-skills to increase when we use Design Process? Some logical science-based reasons come from How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (a highly respected book, commissioned by the National Research Council, about using educational research to improve educational practice) when – after saying "the ultimate goal of learning" is transfer, so it's "a major goal of schooling" – the authors recommend that to increase transfer, we use teaching methods that include these two Strategies:
2-A) teach knowledge in multiple contexts, and... 1-A) this 2-A Strategy is allowed by the wide scope of Problem-Solving Activities that includes almost everything students do;
2-B) teach knowledge in an easily-generalizable form, and... 1-B) this 2-B Strategy can be done by using Design Process to show students the wide scope of Problem-Solving Process that is similar for almost everything they do, for most of their Problem-Solving Activities in all areas of life.
{more}
When we help students build bridges
so they expect school-to-life transfers,
this will produce the indirect benefits
of improving motivation & confidence:
Based on what we know about how people learn, we should expect Design Process to help increase transfers Across Areas (between subjects in School and areas in Life) and Through Time (from Past to Present into Future). When this is happening,...
Students will get direct benefits when these transfers improve their problem-solving abilities (and other abilities) in a wider variety of situations, in their School-Life and NonSchool-Life, with School-Life + NonSchool-Life = Whole-Life. And When they have better transfer, students get direct benefits that produce changes in their external results, in their abilities to Learn AND Perform.
Students also get indirect benefits when they improve their internal attitudes, their motivations (for wanting to learn) and their confidence (in being able to learn).
Confidences in Abilities to Learn: These will improve when students recognize that their external results are improving, when they see reasons for confidence with better "problem-solving abilities (and other abilities) in a wider variety of situations, in their School-Life and NonSchool-Life."
Motivations for Personal Education: These will increase IF students persuade themselves – with us helping them by showing the two wide scopes (for Problem-Solving Activities & Problem-Solving Process) – to believe that their Problem-Solving Activities in School will be personally useful in Life. Students will be motivating themselves because they are thinking “when I improve in School NOW, this will help me improve in Life LATER.” { timings: In their Now-and-Later, the "Later" can happen after school today, and next year, and when they're an adult, a little later and a lot later, spanning a wide range of time. } During this process of attitude change, we are helping students develop personal motivations to pursue their personal goals by using personal education that is proactive problem solving when they decide “I want to solve a problem by making my education better because this will make my life better, will help me achieve my goals for life.” { This growth mindset is the foundational Habit 1 – Be Proactive ( A B C D E ) – in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. }
Motivations from Building Bridges: We can use the wide scopes of PS-Activities & PS-Process to help students expect transfers (with their internal attitudes) and actualize these transfers (in their external results). We can help them build bridges — in their expectations for what will occur, and the realities of what does occur — with two-way Transfers Across Areas (from School-Life into NonSchool-Life, and from NonSchool-Life into School-Life) and Transfers Through Time (from their Present into their Future). These bridges can improve their Transfers of Learning (Across Areas & Thru Time) and also their Transitions of Attitudes (by improving their motivations for wanting to learn, and their confidence in being able to learn). {more about building bridges and encouraging transitions of attitudes}
Now we'll shift from WHY (with Reasons for Using Design Process because this can Increase Transfers and Improve Confidences & Motivations) to WHAT-and-HOW, beginning with three related ways to use metacognitive Thinking Strategies by...
Learning with Transfers
(Across Areas, thru Time)
by using a Growth Mindset:
An excellent way to learn more effectively is by developing-and-using a better growth mindset so – when a student asks themself “how well am I doing in this area of life?”* and honestly answers “not well enough” – they are thinking “not yet” (instead of “not ever”) because they are confident that in this area they can “grow” by improving their skills, when they invest intelligent effort. With this attitude they're supplementing current self-perception (based on what they've done in the past) with optimism (about what they can do now & in their future) to build a more useful self-perception. This optimistic view-of-self will help students develop a justifiable confidence in their ability to improve now, so they can “do things better” in their future. Regarding two kinds of Objectives – to connect their present and future – they will be trying to improve their present-time Learning so they can improve their future-time Performing. This long-term perspective will motivate them because they have a confident belief that their efforts to self-improve (as in personal education for life) will be rewarded.
* A reason to ask “how well am I doing?” is to learn from experience, for self-education. When I make a mistake, I want to learn from the experience so I can “do it better” the next time. Therefore I ask myself “why?” and often the answer is “my process wasn't effective,” so (in an effort to do better) I've found it beneficial to develop-and-use a Checklist for Problem-Solving Process.
Are there two kinds transfer? Although present-to-future learning typically isn't considered to be transfer, there are connections between the “two kinds of transfer” — because Transfers Thru Time are necessary to produce most Transfers Across Areas, and for inspiring self-motivated Personal Education — and it's educationally useful to think about both being transfers of learning, e.g. when you are...
trying to improve in your
Present and/or Future with
time-related Objectives for
Performing and/or Learning:
When you want your best possible performance now, you have a Performance Objective. When you want your best possible learning now, so you can improve your best possible performance later, you have a Learning Objective. For example, compare a basketball team's early-season practice (with a Learning Objective, wanting to learn NOW so they can perform better LATER) and late-season tournament game (with a Performance Objective, wanting to play their best NOW). / The title is "and/or" because your highest priority can be to maximize your learning now, or your performing now, or both.
In your future, your better performing can happen in two ways. First, you will know better because you have learned from experience, so your potential performing has improved, and you can do better. Second, this potential must be actualized by converting “can do better” into “are doing better” with high-quality actual performing. / a summary: After your past learning has improved your present potential performing, this potential (in principle, as a possibility) to “do it better” will be actualized (in reality) when you do present actual performing with high quality, so you're combining past learning (wanted in previous Learning Objectives) with present performing (wanted in your current Performance Objective). { more about performing better now in these two ways – by using your past-to-present Learning, and present Performing – as in the “know better, do better” of Angela Mayou. } { Mahatma Gandhi, "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." }
helping students learn more from
their problem-solving experiences
by combining Design Process and
metacognitive Thinking Strategies:
getting more and learning more: Students will learn more when they get more experiences (of the kinds that are educationally useful) and learn more from their experiences. Well-designed uses of Design Process can be especially useful for helping students learn more from their experiences. How? A teacher can promote educationally useful cognition-and-metacognition with reflection activities by asking students to reflect on (to observe or remember, and think about) their experiences while solving a problem — by asking “what did I do, and think?” (or “what am I now doing and thinking?”) and “then what happened,” and also “with different actions & thinking, could the results have been better?” — so they can learn more from the experience and do things better the next time, to improve their performing and/or learning and enjoying. When a teacher wants to help students learn Principles for Problem Solving (that are accurately described in a model for Design Process), this Reflection is the central part of Experience + Reflection ➞ Principles that uses a process-of-inquiry to help students learn principles-for-inquiry. Usually students will learn more, and will think more effectively, when they develop-and-use strategies for thinking to effectively regulate their metacognition by deciding when to avoid it or use it, and how. {getting more experiences}
two understandings: Each person can use self-aware metacognition for intrapersonal intelligence and use other-aware empathy for interpersonal intelligence – and use a growth mindset to improve both, so we'll develop better metacognition (to understand self) and better empathy (to understand others).
Goal-Directed Designing
of Curriculum & Instruction:
To use this strategy for designing, we...
• DEFINE GOALS for desired outcomes of our CURRICULUM, for ideas-and-skills we want students to learn,
• DESIGN INSTRUCTION with learning activities (and associated teaching activities) that will provide opportunities for experience with these ideas & skills, and will help students learn more from their experiences.
CURRICULUM — skillfully design a
Coordinated Wide Spiral that has a
Wide Scope with Spiral Repetitions:
If your school decides “yes” for Problem-Solving Education, one way to pursue it with enthusiastic dedication – with a Big YES – 
is by designing and using a Wide Spiral for Curriculum & Instruction.
When we're designing C&I that is “wide” the wide scope of problem solving (it includes almost everything students do) is useful because it lets teachers use problem-solving activities in all subject areas – in sciences & engineering, business, humanities, and arts, in STEAM and beyond – to produce an ideas-and-skills curriculum with wide scope, so in every area students can have similar experiences with Problem-Solving Process, using a process of General Design and/or Science-Design that they can adapt to match their problem-solving Objectives. These experiences can be part of a wide spiral curriculum that spans many grades in K-12, that has wide scope (so related learning experiences are coordinated across different areas) and uses spiral repetitions (so learning experiences are coordinated over time) to help all students (of all ages) improve their problem-solving skills and their basic skills & knowledge. {more: Goal-Directed Designing of a Wide-Spiral Curriculum – What, Why, Who, How – using instruction spirals that are short-term narrow, short-term wide, long-term wide.}
We have reasons to expect that using Design Process might be very useful in a Wide Spiral Curriculum, that it's “a good way to bet” for improving students' problem-solving education, and (especially when we build two-way bridges between school & life) their overall education. { The best way to understand Design Process – it's my model for Problem-Solving Process – is with Learning by Your Discovery & My Explanations. }
INSTRUCTION — skillfully design
Problem-Solving Activities that
are Fun and Personally Useful:
A holistically integrated strategy for designing effective Instruction – by trying to do everything that will help achieve the goals for effective Curriculum – will include Problem-Solving Activities that are FUN for students, and personally USEFUL
for them, with...
FUN intrinsically when a student enjoys the experience because they think the problem-topic is interesting, and their own actions are interesting. This will stimulate their curiosity, can inspire a love of learning.
FUN due to satisfaction when a student anticipates success, and does succeed. We want to help them develop confidence with a growth mindset. One way is to design activities with a “just right” level of challenge, like a good mystery story, so students won't be bored (if too easy) or discouraged (if too difficult), so they will be challenged but will succeed and will enjoy the satisfactions of success. {more about levels}
USEFUL as perceived by a student who thinks it will be personally useful, will help them achieve their personal goals. We can try to understand students (with empathy), and then consider their goals when defining our goals, to guide our goal-directed designing of their activities. We want them to think “this school-activity will be a useful part of my personal education, will help me achieve my personal goals for life.”
Will our Overall Education improve if we
improve our Problem-Solving Education?
limitations: Although we would like our Overall Education to achieve multiple goals — by helping students improve in a variety of ways, in many areas of life – we have limited educational resources (of time, people, money,...) so we must make tough choices about goals by asking “what resources should be invested in each kind of goal?”
a claim: I think one of our goals — helping students improve their Problem-Solving Skills (so they are able to solve problems) and Problem-Solving Motivations (so they want to solve problems, to make things better) — is currently under-emphasized in most schools, and we will increase the quality of our Overall Education if we increase our emphasis on Problem-Solving Education. I claim that this shift-of-emphasis will “make things better” by producing better Overall Education – because what we gain (in the shift) will be more valuable than what we lose – so improving our Education for Problem Solving is a worthy Educational Goal.
two principles and a tool: The quality of a student's education for problem solving will improve when they get more educationally-useful experiences with problem solving, and they learn more from their experiences. We have logical reasons to conclude that Design Process is a tool we can use to help students learn more from their experiences with metacognitive thinking strategies.
a fact, and obstacles: An activity will produce large-scale improvements only if the activity is educationally effective AND is widely adopted by teachers, schools, districts, and states. When making a decision (yes or no) whether to use more resources for problem-solving activities, many factors are considered, including some rational reasons to say No. These reasons can make it difficult to convert potentially-beneficial activities (that IF done would help students get more experiences & learn more from experiences) into actually-beneficial activities (that are done and are experienced by students, so their problem-solving skills & motivations can improve).
a plan: We should think about possible “reasons for No” (these & others) and whether trying to reduce their impact would make our decisions more educationally productive.
Knowledge and Basic Skills plus Problem-Solving Skills: The beginning of my simplest model for Design Process is to "learn so you understand more accurately-and-thoroughly," because productive problem solving is the result of effectively combining creative-and-critical thinking with relevant knowledge. Thus, one benefit of better subject-area knowledge is better problem-solving skills. In this way & others, knowledge-and-skills are mutually supportive in a student's personal education. / In our whole-person goals for education, problem-solving skills should supplement – not replace – basic skills of reading & math, and knowledge in sciences, history, social studies, literature. We should try to help students improve in multiple ways, in their skills (with reading, math, problem solving) and knowledge (in many areas of life). { and we can help students use Design Process to develop-and-use thinking strategies for how to learn basic skills & knowledge more effectively, as in strategies for Self-Regulated Learning. } { more about Unfortunately-Rational Reasons to Avoid Problem-Solving Activities in Schools plus experiences (getting more & learning more) with 4 Levels of Problem-Solving Activities that promote Experiences + Reflections ➞ Principles }
But despite these reasons for wanting knowledge-and-skills, thinking it's knowledge-versus-skills is one of the...
rational reasons to avoid Problem-Solving Activities: These reasons pose a challenge for educators who are trying to design C&I that is educationally effective AND is widely adopted by teachers & schools. When making decisions about Problem-Solving Activities, some of the strongest reasons for NO come from perceptions of "competition between ideas and skills" leading to concerns that become especially important "when quality of teaching is defined mainly by students’ performance on standardized exams that emphasize knowledge & basic skills (in reading & math)" so "teachers (and their schools) who want a high rating will ‘teach to the exam’ by emphasizing knowledge & basic skills." What can we do? Maybe we also can use...
Conceptual Evaluation of Instruction: Although "accurate [quantitative] assessment of higher-level thinking skills is difficult," maybe we should supplement quantitative assessments of knowledge with qualitative assessments of problem-solving skills by using Conceptual Evaluation of Instruction. This kind of evaluation is given more credibility if we accept a claim — made by David Perkins (a Professor at Harvard) in a 1992 book, Smart Schools: From Training Memories to Educating Minds — that "people learn much of what they have a reasonable opportunity and motivation to learn." If we want students to learn problem-solving skills, we must give them opportunities to learn these skills, and motivations to learn. When we examine the C&I of a school, we can evaluate the quantity & quality of opportunities for problem-solving experiences. If students have plenty of opportunities to learn skills, and motivations to learn, almost certainly (in “a good way to bet”) there will be more learning-of-skills. Conceptual Evaluation of Instruction will promote better education if it encourages teachers & administrators to ask “how can we design curriculum-guided instruction that will be more beneficial for more students?” instead of just “how can we get more points on the standardized exams?” / When we're doing conceptual evaluation, one useful tool is the integrative analysis of instruction — it's a systematic way to find opportunities for students to practice & improve their problem-solving skills — that helps us understand the structure of instruction more accurately & thoroughly, so we can improve the instruction to make it more effective in achieving our educational goals.
improving Diversity, Equity, Inclusion:
Student Diversity: All students are similar in the most important ways, but each has a personal history that makes them unique. Each has their own complex blend of abilities they inherit, plus attitudes (like motivations & confidences) and skills (using multiple “intelligences” in many areas of life) they develop, with personal growth (mental, emotional, social, physical) affected by characteristics (gender, race,...) and situations (produced by family, friends, community, school) in their whole-life experiences (in school and outside).
Activity Diversity: There are logical reasons to conclude that "we should try to design eclectic instruction by creatively combining the best features of different approaches into a synergistic blend that produces an optimal overall result (a greater good for a greater number) in helping students achieve worthy educational goals." One reason is that, due to many kinds of diversity, some students will experience more success in problem-solving activities than in other activities, and they will enjoy the emotional & motivational rewards of success. But some won't. We want to minimize those who "won't" so we should be...
Designing for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: We want to design activities that provide opportunities for all students to succeed, and help more students succeed, so more will experience the benefits (in school & life) of success. We want to design curriculum-and-instruction (including activities) that actually does help more students, with wider diversity, more fully actualize their whole-person potentials. We should try to “open up the options” for all students, so each will say “yes, I can do this” for a wider variety of subject-options in school and career-options in life. We want to help students choose wisely by asking “among my many options — with career choices (for “what I want to DO”) and life choices (for “who I want to BE”) — what are the goals I want to pursue (and the roads I want to travel, in school & outside, now and later) so I can build a better life?” {more}
the importance of timings: Because we want to “keep options open” for more students, we should try to improve K-12 education, especially in the elementary grades. When we help more students develop personally-useful skills (for problem solving & in other areas) and attitudes (motivations & confidence) at an early age, they will receive the benefits during more of their schooling, and will be able to more fully develop their whole-person potentials. But we also should help students who already are older (are now in middle school, high school, college) so – before they leave school – they will get more problem-solving experiences and will learn more from their experiences.
options for timings: We ask “when is the best time to plant a fruit tree?” and answer “the best time was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.” OK. But should we focus our now-responses on elementary (to get more benefits for young students) or secondary & college (to get benefits for more students)? Each option has reasons (logical & ethical) to prefer it, with differing payoffs and time scales, so “do both” is the best response.
• is similar to other models — with basic agreement about the productive thinking & actions we use during a creative-and-critical process of problem solving — so DP is educationally compatible with other models and it “plays well” with them. DP can be smoothly blended into most systems of instruction, using common methods for teaching inquiry, whether the instruction currently does or doesn't use another model. This offers practical benefits, because we don't have to design DP-specific activities, instead we can just add DP to already-available activities using other models, or using no models.
• is distinctive in important ways,* with special features that produce added value; DP can be especially valuable in a well-designed combination of models, contributing to a synergism that provides extra benefits for students.
Together it's “yes and” with “yes” due to similarities, with “and” for distinctive added value.
* Here are three distinctive features of Design Process (DP). { You can quickly learn DP – and these features – with your discoveries plus my explanations. }
DP logically integrates Design and Science, because the core of its evaluation-logic (when 3 Elements are used in 3 Comparisons) leads naturally to it being used for both General Design (aka Design, the usual term) and Science-Design (aka Science, usually). By contrast, most other models are for a process of either Design or Science, but not both. When students understand the smooth integrating of design-with-science in my model this will help them develop a smooth integrating of design-with-science in their thinking while they're solving problems. {more about the differences when we're comparing my model for Design-AND-Science with other models that are Design-OR-Science}
DP is a family of models: One reason for the educational utility of DP is because it's a Model (capitalized) that is a logically organized family of models. This logical “family structure” lets a teacher use different models in a 4-Stage progression of learning so students can begin with simplicity and gradually learn the complexities in an intuitive progression. The progression is intuitive and it works well, because each model is a different version of the same Model. Each model is "a different version" of the Model, with a different description of the same process; each model features different aspects of the Model. { Due to these differences, each model accurately describes in different ways, and each model is educationally useful in different ways. } / When principles for process (it's procedural knowledge) are verbally-and-visually organized – as in my Model for Design Process – this produces many kinds of educational benefits.
DP is modular: Another distinctive of Design Process (DP) is how its modularity encourages a flexibly customized coordinating of problem-solving process.* DP describes our problem-solving process with short-term Actions (that can be functionally connected to form short-term Sequences) but other models typically describe longer-term Phases that contain the shorter-term Actions & Sequences of DP; using DP can help students understand how their creative-and-critical productive thinking happens during the short-term Actions & Sequences of DP. And because our Models (my DP and another Model) operate at different “levels” (with short-term in DP, long-term in other Models) it's less likely that our Models will compete with each other to perform the same teaching-functions during instruction. Instead we can use the different Models for different functions, so they will be supportive instead of competitive, with each contributing to the instruction.* For thinking about DP's modularity, a useful analogy is using LEGO Bricks (the short-term Actions & Sequences of DP) to make LEGO Objects (the longer-term Phases of other Models), or using small atoms & molecules (the Actions & Sequences of DP) to form larger objects (the Phases of other Models). {* Wikipedia says "modularity is the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit [thus produced] of flexibility and variety in use." }
* Structures and Strategies: Typically a model-for-process is educationally useful in two ways, by providing structures (for instruction) and strategies (for thinking). Each model has its own structures & strategies, so each offers its own benefits for students. When we effectively combine the structures & strategies from two (or more) models, we combine their benefits.
The full-length Part 2C ends by describing possibilities for combining DP with other Models, especially with POE (Predict-Observe-Explain) and CER (Claim-Evidence-Reasoning) but also with others.