The National Curriculum Statement indicates clearly that learners must be encouraged to think critically and to engage in problem-solving:

v  The Critical Outcomes require learners to ‘identify and solve problems and make decisions using critical and creative thinking’ (p2).

v  The ‘kind of learner envisaged’ must ‘demonstrate an ability to think logically and analytically, as well has holistically and laterally’ (p2).

The question is: How does the teacher put this into practice? One way is to use what I call the ‘guess-and-test’ method: Get learners to guess answers and then to test their answers, arriving at a conclusion that they were right or wrong, and being able to justify their conclusion. This is, in effect, the procedure used in dealing with everyday problems, in making professional or mechanical judgements and in conducting scientific and academic research. Let’s look at examples of each of these:

Everyday situation: The pool is going green. Guess: Not enough chlorine. Test: Put in more chlorine. Result: No change. Guess again: Not enough acid for the chlorine to take effect. Test: Put in some acid. Test: Check colour of pool. Result: No more green! Conclusion: Not enough acid.

Mechanical judgement: The car won’t start. You call in a mechanic. He proceeds as follows: Guess: No petrol. Test: check petrol gauge. Result: There is petrol. Guess again: Battery flat. Test: Try putting on the lights. Result: Lights don’t go on. Conclusion: Battery flat.

Professional judgement: ‘Doctor, I’ve got a pain in my side.’ Doctor’s guess: Appendicitis. Test – the doctor will know. Result: ‘Yes, the results show that you have appendicitis’.

Scientific research: HIV/Aids is taking its toll. How can we help people to live longer? Guess: Give them ARVs. Test: Try out one animals and then later on humans – patients are healthier and live longer. Result: ARVs are the way to go.

Each time, the person involved – the person-in-the street, the motor mechanic, the doctor, the scientist – is considering a multiple-choice list of options based on his/her experience and then testing the guess chosen.

In fancier language, they are all setting up hypotheses and then checking them against given evidence.  This is based on the deductive approach to scientific discovery, which involves starting with a hypothesis based on personal experience, which is then tested by reference to the data. If the data contradicts the hypothesis, then the hypothesis will be modified or discarded completely; if the facts support or at any rate do not contradict the hypothesis, then the hypothesis will be maintained, even though it cannot necessarily be proven from the facts. The hypothesis is therefore accepted as long as no contradictory data comes to light. The ‘proof’ would thus often be a negative one.

As the practitioner becomes more knowledgeable / experienced, he/she will be able to arrive at hypotheses/guesses which are more likely to be correct, knowing which guess to try first.

Back to the classroom. In much the same way, we should encourage learners to accept that it’s not wrong to guess – they are following a hallowed tradition. So, for example, if we ask learners what the word class is of the word ‘English’ in the phrase ‘English team’, very often they don’t know where to begin, so they don’t, or they make wild guesses and wait to be told the correct answer. If, on the other hand, we ask them to guess what they think it is and then to test it, they can be taught how to solve problems. Thus, for example, the learner might say that the word is a noun. The following format could be used for them to pursue their answers:

From this it is clear that the learner needs knowledge to make an educated guess. This method can be used as one works through the definitions of the different word classes and then later when one asks them to label word classes in sentences. It is particularly useful at the second stage. When one is handling a particular concept, learners often know what the correct answer is because that is what they are concentrating on at that time. When, however, one deals with a group of concepts together (in this case the word classes), they don’t know where to begin.

The same approach can be used in other contexts. In the case of English literature, for example, one can ask learners to indicate how the poet feels. The learner can, having read the poem, suggest something which he/she then tests against the text.

For this to work, there needs to be a non-threatening atmosphere in the classroom, where learners feel free to guess without being put down by the teacher or his/her peers. It also means that the teacher must avoid expecting pat answers or indicating immediately whether the given answers are right or wrong, rather allowing the learner time to work through his/her answer.

problems-solving, teaching methods