Learning goal: Problem solving

The ability to quickly and effectively solve problems plays a major role in classroom, college, and career success. Help your students develop these essential skills using the FutureFit resources collected under the “Solve” domain. Skills highlighted in this domain include process acumen, computational thinking, and design thinking.

At the practical level, Solve focuses on skills and abilities that blend well with both core academic concepts and broader social-emotional learning goals articulated by standards organizations, states, and researchers. We’ve meshed the best and most relevant concepts and approaches into an accessible list of skills that is easy to understand and articulate to students, including:

• Computational thinking: The ability to effectively formulate and frame problem-solving strategies that can be applied and carried out by computers, machines, or humans
• Process acumen: The ability to clearly and effectively define and implement replicable processes, as well as to communicate the associated tasks, roles and details to others
• Design thinking: The ability to learn and apply techniques common in solving complex problems (i.e. in engineering and science) to disparate or tangential circumstances and situations
• Solicit assistance: The ability to ask for help, assistance and expertise when one’s own limits become an impediment to progress