Employers are frustrated because new employees are deficient in soft skills like problem solving, communication and team work.
Post-secondary promises to deliver these skills but is overwhelmed with both the technical aspects of the programs and the demand for breadth courses.
High schools are evaluated on how well students do on standardized testing. Accordingly, teachers have become increasingly focused on test scores.
Elementary school has always had its hands full teaching the critical basics – reading, writing, arithmetic – and how to sit still long enough for some of it to sink in. As many remember – and Barbie so famously said – math’s hard. In addition to adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing – all difficult tasks – you have to learn measurement, weight and temperature. The current Ontario elementary school mathematics curriculum has five strands. One of these, number sense and numeration, requires the student be able to “apply their numeric understanding in flexible ways to make mathematical judgements and develop useful strategies for solving problems”.
Let’s focus on problem solving. It seems that skill is embedded in the elementary education promise. If some basic skills are developed at this early stage they can be reinforced and strengthened in high school and in college or university. After elementary school the student must take at least three more math credits to graduate high school. To the extent that there is a direct correlation between math and problem solving this skill should be well established.
So how is it possible that many post-secondary students need a calculator to determine 10% of a number? How can they so often tell me that 1.7 metres at $12.00 per meter is 20.4. When I ask “20.4 what?” they are as likely to tell me metres as dollars. Where is the mathematical judgement that we were promised? Is the deficiency one of mathematics, communication or problem solving?
Again, this is not about blame. It is a frustrated acknowledgement that the persistent rumours bear truth. People may be better educated (defined as more credentials in the form of certificates, diplomas and degrees) but they are not always better equipped for the world.
The education system cannot promise much of anything because it is a process that does not have sufficient quality control mechanisms.
If all students must pass, if all board metrics must be met, if the goal is for 80% of the population to have post-secondary education (so that we look good on the world stage) the methodology is obvious. Coach students in what they need to know to pass the tests.
Problem solving, communications, interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence. These skills are in demand. But they cannot be reduced to a course or programs, or even be well-defined.
Consider how problem solving can be included in curriculum.
From the teaching and learning laboratory of MIT: “An intended learning outcome should describe what students should know or be able to do at the end of the course that they couldn’t do before.”
Learning outcomes shouldn’t be abstract and should be assessable.
Now I challenge you to write a learning outcome for problem solving.
By the time the students finish this course they should be able to…
- Solve problems
- List the steps required to solve problems
- Explain the steps used to solve problems
- Make good decisions
Go ahead – pick one.
It seems obvious that we want students to be able to solve problems (#1) but it is abstract – how would you evaluate? Do we want creative solutions or solutions that match the answer key in the text-book? How will we know if the student is successful? How will the student know if they are successful?
The second choice is easily understood by both the student and the teacher. But listing the steps is not the same as engaging a thought process. Unfortunately this is often the extent of problem solving as a learning objective.
Explaining the steps (#3) is more complex than merely “listing” and likely shows a better understanding. But was the original goal to understand the process of problem solving or actually be able to solve problems?
If you selected #4 you have reworded the intent. Nothing wrong with that but it is different. How can we define a “good” decision? Some post-secondary courses which could help develop problem solving use case methodology. The cases are sufficiently complex to replicate the “real” world and are most often drawn from real world experiences. But too often the evaluation is based on how the report is organized and written. Marks are assigned for the presentation of the case alternatives and recommendation. The benchmark is often the actual outcome or the teaching notes.
Let me break this very gently. Not all teachers are innately smarter than the students. They may, in elementary and secondary education, be older than the students. They may have more life experiences, but not always. But all teachers (yes even university professors with PhDs) are the product of the very educational system we are examining.
So, “problem solving” as a learning outcome is in itself, problematic.
In formal education, problem solving usually involves limited input, prescribed circumstances and well-defined outcomes. Two plus two is four in ever-increasing levels of complexity.
When prodded, employers do not define problem solving as answering questions that have one or two correct answers. What they really want is creativity. They want employees who can respond to change. They want people who can remember the goal and who have the ability to work towards it, without a road map and despite obstacles.
And unfortunately they expect this when the business entities themselves are struggling to define what it means to be successful. After decades of turmoil in a rapidly changing world, business looks to highly educated new entrants for solutions to ill-defined problems.
So what should we teach young people?