In emails after my seminar (abstract + bio) in the seminar series of OSU's Engineering Education, I told friends “I was lively and logical, they had insightful comments, we had fun.” Doing it was intellectually stimulating, inspiring me to revise many things in the home-page of my website about Education for Problem Solving, and to add a Short Overview that's a quicker read than the original Longer Overview. {also: my overall homepage has lots of links, to a wide variety of web-pages I've written.}
If you have comments or questions, contact me – Craig Rusbult, PhD (my life on a road less traveled) – by email, craigru57-att-yahoo-daut-caum
For the seminar I made a PowerPoint — available in two kinds of files, PowerPoint (.pptx) and PDF — that will give you a feeling for the flavor, and the ideas, although I think the Short Overview (in my Edu-HomePage) is better overall.
Below is the seminar-bio & seminar-abstract (plus a key question for Q-and-R) and first slide (it was on-screen before the seminar began), and an early longer abstract (with more info) that later was condensed.
my seminar-bio:
I'm an enthusiastic educator who enjoys discussing ideas with other educators. Improving our education — by designing better ways to teach & learn, so we can improve our thinking and doing — is one of the most important things we can do. And it's fun! I've continued studying education after earning a PhD in C&I from U of Wisconsin, following degrees in Chemistry (BS, MS) and History of Science (MA) from U of CA-Irvine, U of WA, and U of WI. My PhD project was developing a model for Scientific Method and using it to analyze science instruction; later it was generalized into a process-model for Problem Solving (for Science-Design plus General Design that includes Engineering) and I've developed a comprehensive website – about Education for Problem Solving – to explore ways of using my model (and other models) to help students improve their problem-solving abilities in all areas of life. One motivation for moving from Madison to Columbus, in May 2022, was my goal of networking with other educators and doing cooperative collaborations to improve our education. {full bio and wide variety of web-pages}
the seminar-abstract:
Education (in K-12, college) for Problem Solving (in Engineering, Science, and other areas) has a wide scope, including most things in life, when we choose broad definitions: Education is learning from life-experiences; a Problem is an opportunity to make things better, in any area of life; and we do Problem Solving whenever we make things better. I've developed a model for Problem Solving (as an extension of my PhD work on Scientific Method) that can help students improve their abilities to solve problems and make things better. This model will help students recognize how they use a similar process – they Generate Ideas, and Evaluate Ideas by comparing Predictions, Observations, Goals – for most things they do in life. This similarity will help them build two-way bridges from life into school, and school into life, to motivate their proactive Personal Education. Because it's important for individuals and for society, we should ask “How can we use our ideas for problem-solving education in ways that will help all students improve their problem-solving abilities, as part of our efforts to produce better diversity, equity, and inclusion?”
Here is a key question for the Q-and-R part of our seminar:* How can we become more effective in pursuing our goal of designing education that will help all students improve – so we can achieve better diversity, equity, and inclusion – by helping more students (with a wide variety of backgrounds) fulfill more of their whole-person potential because they have improved their abilities (in their skills plus motivations) to solve problems by making things better for themself and for others? We want 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, so they can choose wisely by asking “among my many options in school & life, what are the roads I want to travel (and the goals I want to pursue) so I can build a better life?”
* it's Q-and-R, not Q-and-A, because I will provide Responses to Questions, instead of claiming to give Answers; in fact, most of you are more expert than me, in our attempts to solve the challenging "all students" problem so we can make things better for more students.
my first slide: Before the seminar began, this slide was on the screen, so early arrivers could think about two interesting things,
• a main theme of my title – "for All Students" – and
• a logical verbal-and-visual diagram that is one of my sub-models for Problem-Solving Process. { under the slide is a diagram that shows more details of the whole-Model }
This is an earlier “too long” version of the abstract, before it was condensed:
Education for Problem Solving (in K-12, college, lifelong learning) has a broad scope – that includes most things in life – when we choose broad definitions: Education is learning from life-experiences; a Problem is an opportunity to make things better, in any area of life; and we do Problem Solving whenever we make things better.
As an extension of my PhD work on Scientific Method, I've developed a model for Problem Solving that can help students improve their abilities (their skills-and-motives) to solve problems, to make things better. In the model's simplest form, a person Defines a Problem (by deciding what to make better, studying the Problem-Situation to improve their understanding, and defining Goals for an ideal Problem-Solution) and tries to Solve this Problem (by creatively generating ideas for a Solution, and critically evaluating these ideas). This model will help students recognize how they use a process of Define-and-Solve for most things they do in life, and this recognition will help them build two-way bridges from life into school, and school into life, to motivate their proactive Personal Education. In a deeper form, the model helps a student understand how they do evaluations by using Goals & Predictions & Observations to do Quality Checks (during General Design that includes Engineering, when they are trying to design a better Problem-Solution) and do Reality Checks (during Science-Design, trying to understand how the world works).
Because it's important for individuals and for society, we should ask "How can we use our ideas for problem-solving education in ways that will help all students improve their problem-solving abilities, as part of our efforts to produce better diversity, equity, and inclusion?"
{for more info, educationforproblemsolving.net/eed} [it's this page]
In this video, unfortunately it's difficult to see me so you'll have to imagine my enthusiastic “hand waving” during the session, because I'm small-and-dark, small due to Zoom's split-screen with large PowerPoint and small Craig, and dark due to the room-light being much dimmer than the screen-brightness.