The aim of this study is to identify a teaching strategy which can enable Further Education and Training learners to enquire creative problem solving skills. A programme was formulated to this effect. Four sessions were conducted to the subject of study using facilitation as teaching method. Facilitation engages learners actively in learning activities when compared to traditional and old teaching methods. Participants were engaged in different activities which enable the participants to use creative problem solving skills. At the beginning of the programme, the participants were not as active as towards the end. Based on the creativity that the participants displayed towards the end of the programme, the researcher concludes that the participants were able to acquire creative problem solving skills. / Dissertation (MEd (Guidance and Counselling))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

Molecular biologists use algorithms that compare and otherwise analyze sequences that represent genetic and protein molecules. Most of these algorithms, however, operate on the basic sequence and do not incorporate the additional information that is often known about the molecule and its pieces. This research describes schemes to combinatorially annotate this information onto sequences so that it can be analyzed in tandem with the sequence; the overall result would thus reflect both types of information about the sequence. These annotation schemes include adding colours and arcs to the sequence. Colouring a sequence would produce a same-length sequence of colours or other symbols that highlight or label parts of the sequence. Arcs can be used to link sequence symbols (or coloured substrings) to indicate molecular bonds or other relationships. Adding these annotations to sequence analysis problems such as sequence alignment or finding the longest common subsequence can make the problem more complex, often depending on the complexity of the annotation scheme. This research examines the different annotation schemes and the corresponding problems of verifying annotations, creating annotations, and finding the longest common subsequence of pairs of sequences with annotations. This work involves both the conventional complexity framework and parameterized complexity, and includes algorithms and hardness results for both frameworks. Automata and transducers are created for some annotation verification and creation problems. Different restrictions on layered substring and arc annotation are considered to determine what properties an annotation scheme must have to make its incorporation feasible. Extensions to the algorithms that use weighting schemes are explored. schemes are explored. / Graduate

This research adopts a sociocultural framework (Vygotsky, 1978) to investigate how multilingual children express their mathematical reasoning during collaborative problem solving. The topic is important because North America is becoming increasingly multicultural, and according to mathematics teachers this has complicated the challenges of teaching and learning mathematics. Many educators assume that children should be competent in the language of instruction before they engage with mathematical content (Civil, 2008; Gorgorió & Planas, 2001). A review of recent research in this area challenges the idea that multilingual students need to have mastered the official language of instruction prior to learning mathematics (Barwell, 2005; Civil, 2008; Moschkovich, 2007). These researchers demonstrate that the knowledge of the language of instruction is only one aspect of becoming competent in mathematics. My research was designed to build on the findings of the current research on multilingual children’s reasoning in order to more fully understand how multilingual children express their mathematical understanding and reasoning. For this study, two multilingual families, each with 3 children between the ages of 8 and 12, participated in a mathematical problem-solving activity. Findings show the children’s mathematical reasoning was evidence-based drawing on mathematical knowledge and world knowledge.

M.Comm. / The objectives of the study are: To define "creativity", to understand how people think when they solve problems, and to identify the major barriers to creative problem solving and opportunity finding and to investigate whether these barriers can be overcome. To investigate the essence of TRIZ, its history of development, how it works, its nderlying inventive principles, its psychology and whether it is an effective problem solving technique in the sense that it is a cure for barriers to creative thinking. To investigate whether TRIZ can be applied in a non-technical context as a creative problem solving technique, whether it can be applied in conjunction with other creative problem solving techniques and whether it is effective in relation to other creative problem solving techniques.

This study extended existing research on structured problem solving into disadvantaged South African classrooms. Sixteen disadvantaged urban South African high schools participated in a quasi-experimental study to investigate the effect of a structured problem solving strategy in physics on performance and conceptual understanding. The schools were disadvantaged with regard to standards set by the apartheid education system as well as by instruction in English, the second language of the students and most of the teachers. The problem solving strategy incorporated the use of different representations, group work, verbal arguments, written explanations, planning and interpretation of solutions. The strategy was implemented by a cascading model, where the researcher interacted with the teachers, while the teachers interacted with students. The treatment was non-disruptive of the normal school routine. The problem solving strategy was applied throughout the year while learning new content; there were no extra classes or additional work for learners. Normal classroom tests and examinations were utilized as sources of quantitative data. The treatment group outperformed the control group by 8 % in the midyear examination; this increased average score was statistically significant at the .001 level, indicating enhanced problem solving skills. Evidence of enhanced conceptual understanding was found by analyzing solutions presented in the midyear examination, videotaped problem solving and responses to questionnaires. Two new techniques were developed to assess conceptual understanding. Firstly, “solutions maps” were constructed for specific examination problems. These maps were visual representations of concepts, formulae, assumptions, substitutions and numerical answers presented by students. The popularity of various routes on the maps was compared for the two groups as a measure of differences in conceptual understanding. Secondly, a “conceptual index” was defined to quantify the extent to which a group of students used a conceptual approach in their solutions, as opposed to an algebraic approach. Learners and teachers regarded the structured problem solving strategy as a viable practice, they believed the students’ problem-solving skills were improved and they commented on the value of the strategy as a facilitator of understanding the language and concepts of physics. Teachers also believed that their own problem solving skills improved. Greeno’s model for scientific problem solving and reasoning was incorporated to explain the effect of structured problem solving on performance and conceptual understanding. Two complementary theories were offered to explain the results of the study. It was proposed that implementing the strategy fostered (1) the co-development of conceptual understanding and problem solving skills, and (2) the development of a conceptual approach to problem solving. Implementation of structured problem solving is a small intervention aimed at developing new habits of problem solving. In the South African context, it can make a significant contribution towards the enhancement of learning and teaching physics in disadvantaged schools. / Thesis (PhD (Science Education))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Physics / unrestricted

The data for this study was collected by the use of the Manifest Needs Questionnaire, Jackson's Personality Research Form, and the Thomas-Kilmann MODE Instrument to assess dominance at the individual and group levels.

Fun problem solving! Participants will leave with ideas to help students become engaged in the art of solving problems using 3-act tasks and open middle.

Computer-based tests facilitate the collection of problem-solving processes, also known as process data. Response processes recorded in computer log files provide a new venue for investigating and understanding human behaviors. This thesis focuses on the development of statistical learning methods for process data and considers the following three problems. The first problem is feature extraction. Response processes are noisy and of non-standard formats. To exploit information in process data, we propose two generic methods that summarize response processes to vectors so that standard statistical tools such as regression models are applicable. In Chapter 2, features are extracted using multidimensional scaling and a pairwise dissimilarity measure of response processes. Chapter 3 utilizes autoencoder and recurrent neural network to explore the latent structure of process data. For both methods, empirical studies show that the extracted features preserve a substantial amount of information in the observed processes and have greater predictive power for many variables than the traditional item responses. The second problem is assessment based on process data. We present a statistical procedure in Chapter 4 that incorporates process information to improve the latent trait estimation of item response theory models. The procedure is data-driven and can be easily implemented by means of regression models. Theoretical guarantee is established for the mean squared error reduction. Application of this new process-data-based estimator to a real dataset shows that it achieves higher reliability than the traditional item-response-theory-based estimator. The third problem is identification of problem-solving strategies for exploratory analysis. The approach presented in Chapter 5 segments individual process into a sequence of more homogeneous subprocesses using action predictability. Each subprocess is associated with a subtask whereby long and complex response process can be transformed into shorter and more interpretable subtask sequence. Using this approach, problem-solving strategies can be visualized and compared among groups of respondents and process information can be decomposed for further analysis.

The just-in-time (JIT) production and inventory philosophy coupled with manufacturing automation in the form of computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) and its related facets are considered by many as great competitive weapons. The birth of JIT and its positive influence on the global strategic posture of Japanese firms is well-documented. In the 1980s many US manufacturers regarded JIT manufacturing as a peculiar Japanese contrivance, suited only to the oriental culture. However, as more companies with ever more diverse manufacturing environments successfully applied its principles, manufacturers recognized its inherent wisdom. Today, most US manufacturers have come to regard JIT as vital to their survival. This study examines the problems associated with the implementation of JIT in manufacturing environments and attempts to identify hindering factors for its success. An implementation strategy is proposed so that the organization will achieve the benefits of JIT and ultimately improve its strategic posture.

Individuals within the United States Forest Service, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and state park systems were studied to determine their integrative orientation (general problem solving strategies). This orientation involves a preference for trying new ideas, working within a long time frame, generalizing in planning or managing, taking risks, working in close association with others, examining many aspects of a problem, working on difficult problems, developing a variety of skills, and working on problems requiring continual revision. An attempt was made to relate this orientation to education, major field of study, agency, time, tasks, level in the organization, important skills, and situations in which skills are acquired. The results, for the most part, were inconclusive. However, much of this can be attributed to the sampling procedure and the format of the questionnaire. Integrative orientation tested with skills thought to be important yielded significant results, with definite differences appearing between the groups. The overall pattern which developed showed that an individual with a high integrative ability feels that a wider varie y of skills is more important than does an individual with less integrative ability.