Problem-solving Workshops Research Articles

Designing a blended delivery foundation mathematics course: Targeting self-efficacy, skill development and social connectedness

Foundation mathematics courses play a crucial role in allowing students who have not achieved the pre-requisite mathematics credits for tertiary studies to re-engage with STEM studies. This paper describes how targeting self-efficacy, skill development and social connectedness have influenced the design of a foundation mathematics course at a New Zealand university. These design goals are grounded in education literature, and the paper outlines how focusing on these goals has resulted in the design of a course that incorporates novel approaches to learning and assessment, including online and face-to-face components. These approaches include the use of large, automatically graded weekly quizzes; adaptive learning quizzes for essential skills such as fraction arithmetic; and an emphasis on face-to-face learning and connection through tutorials and collaborative problem-solving workshops. The paper concludes with reflections on the success of the course so far and raising questions for future investigation.

The electric flux through a square of a point charge near one corner

This paper presents two geometric models that can be used by students studying electrostatics to explore the electric flux of a point charge through a square in the limit of infinitesimal displacement from one corner. We first use qualitative reasoning to show that the limit is not a single value, but depends on the direction of displacement, and has significant discontinuities at the plane inside the square and along its sides. In the first model, the square is treated as one face of a cube. With this model, we discuss how to use Gauss’s law to determine the limiting flux through the square for displacements along symmetry lines of the cube, and their reflections through the planes of the faces. The second model treats the square as the base of a square pyramid and enables derivation of the limiting flux for displacements in an arbitrary direction. The result is verified against that obtained analytically, by integrating the definition of electric flux over the area of the square, in the limit of infinitesimal displacement from the corner. Both models require and facilitate an intuitive understanding of Gauss’s law and the limit concept, and the quantitative reasoning involves a minimum of algebra and no calculus. The first model, especially, is suitable for use in a guided-inquiry tutorial or problem-solving workshop for undergraduate physics students.

Metacognition and Critical Thinking: Using ChatGPT-Generated Responses as Prompts for Critique in a Problem-Solving Workshop (SMARTCHEMPer)

Metacognition and Critical Thinking: Using ChatGPT-Generated Responses as Prompts for Critique in a Problem-Solving Workshop (SMARTCHEMPer)

Healing dialogue: Can the techniques and practices of Track Two diplomacy play a role in resolving public health conflicts?

Track Two Diplomacy, a form of facilitated informal and unofficial dialogues between conflicting parties, has become a well-established form of international conflict resolution. This paper seeks to explore whether the techniques and practices of Track Two could be applied in a new setting beyond international armed conflicts: public health. Global society continues to grapple with the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, systemic racism, and climate change, among other pressing public health issues that can not only exacerbate but also create new conflicts that negatively affect communities. Innovative and interdisciplinary approaches are needed more than ever. We synthesize literature from both Track Two and public health fields to present a conceptual framework that posits whether and how such concepts as the “problem-solving workshop,” “transfer,” “reflective practice” and others might support parties involved in divisive, intractable, visible, and invisible conflicts which currently mark the public health space.

STUDENT CONCERNS FOR ENGAGEMENT IN ONLINE ACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS DURING COVID-19

This paper shares a summary of the self-reported concerns of 134 first-year engineering students around engagement in online active learning environments during COVID-19. The students had volunteered to participate in remote weekly problem-solving workshops for four weeks that utilized Active Learning techniques. In this paper, we specifically analyze samples from the students who participated in only one workshop and responded to the following question: What concerns do you have that might limit your ability to engage in online active learning environments? Twenty of the participants reported no concerns. The tone of each student's response and personal feelings reported were also analyzed. Then, a thematic analysis of each student response was made, with the transcription and coding agreement being performed by two coders. As expected, most of the students expressed their concerns in a negative or neutral tone, and only a few expressed an affinity for current educational settings. Word mining of feeling terms shows that more students had verbalized being disengaged, followed by distracted and uncomfortable and none communicated a positive feeling. Our thematic analysis showed that learning socially (72/114, or 63%) is the most pressing concern for the students, followed by more personal regulating factors such as attitude and motivation (44%), quality of physical and virtual study environment (40%), as well as the guidance received from the course administrators (24%). Findings suggest the need for developing a global understanding of what active learning in an online environment entails in the context of engineering education, and to develop and adjust tools and practices to help students learn in this new context.

Transfer Effects from Problem‐Solving Workshops to Negotiations: A Process and Outcome Model

The problem‐solving workshop (PSW) is a small‐group method of conflict analysis and resolution that is identified with the very origins of the field and that has a considerable history of theorizing and practice. Since the creation of the method, scholars have addressed the question of the transfer of outcomes and effects from workshops to negotiation, policy making, and political discourse. Following a definition and review of the intentions and rationale of transfer, a flow model is presented that consists of eight sequential components that capture the process and outcomes of transfer, in part by drawing on models of intervention and frameworks for the evaluation of PSWs. Notwithstanding the utility of this development, it is acknowledged that transfer is a very complex process whose evaluation entails significant constraints and whose ultimate and exact contributions to peace processes are likely unknowable.

Empowering tertiary level students to solve their own study-related problems to improve study performance

PurposeStudents’ progressing to tertiary (undergrad or higher) level education often faces problems due to the change in the educational settings that may directly or indirectly affect their studies and interim results. In addition, they may suffer from low self-esteem, which in turn may result from another set of issues such as negative peers, past poor results, unable to get into a school of choice and so on. Those who have to live away from home to attend a university could have their own set of problems. To provide support many universities have counseling offices to help the students tackle their problems. The counseling officers often give repeated appointments in an attempt to help solve these problems. At the university where the research was conducted, more than 75 percent of the students come from a rural background. These are students who, for the purposes of acquiring their tertiary-level education, have had to move to the city, away from their family. These students are known to have problems such as adjusting to urban life, missing home, managing all household chores by themselves, even a culture shock given the nature of urban life and so on, all of which may affect their studies. Unfortunately, the university under study does not employ a student counselor to look after students coming from rural areas. Therefore, to support such students it was thought that a peer counseling session might help the students help themselves.Design/methodology/approachA workshop using a collaborative approach to help students solve their own problems was designed and conducted. From three different departments, 78 students with a low Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA < 2.50 out of 4.0) participated in the problem-solving workshop. The students were guided in a collaborative environment where individual problems were first identified anonymously by working in pairs and possible solutions were presented by the students themselves by working in collaborative groups.FindingsThe paper proposes a performance-improving model to reduce the dropout rate and ensure graduation with a better CGPA. After six semesters of the intervention, the performance of the participating students was compared against the students with similar profile who did not attend the workshop. The perception of effectiveness of the collaborative guidance model was also measured by taking feedback from students.Research limitations/implicationsThe collaborative approach seems to benefit students by empowering them to think on their own to solve study-related problems by themselves. To become a standardized procedure, however, more rigorous testing across a greater cross section and number of subjects would be helpful. This paper provides an initial study of the methodology for further study and use.Originality/valueAs the collaborative approach purely involves peers, it benefits students by empowering them to solve study-related problems by themselves and indirectly help self-esteem development.

Problem-solving challenges: operating a campus food pantry to improve student success

ABSTRACT As of June 2018, over 640 college campuses were registered with the College and University Food Bank Alliance, an organization that supports campuses currently operating or interested in opening a pantry. However, a dearth of research exists that examine how campus pantries function: what unique challenges do campus pantries face and how do pantry staff creatively address these challenges? In October 2016, researchers collected qualitative data during a problem-solving workshop at a daylong summit of 28 pantry representatives from 16 Michigan college campuses. Pantry staff documented their biggest challenges and then collectively brainstormed solutions. Researchers used consensus qualitative research coding procedures to generate common themes. Four overarching themes, and 11 sub-themes, emerged out of the 51 challenges and 117 solutions generated by participants: (1) infrastructure and resources, (2) operating within university systems, (3) building and sustaining partnerships, and (4) data, research, and assessment. The challenges and solutions generated by participants reflect the distinctiveness of campus pantry work relative to community-based pantries and underscore challenges and potential best practices of operating a pantry within a university system. These findings help campus administrators and pantry staff anticipate and address food security as an increasingly necessary strategy for student success and educational equity.

Teaching for Creativity: Mini-c, Little-c and Experiential Learning in College Classroom

The wave of changes in teaching approaches due to the introduction of the 21 century skills – including creativity and problem solving – has affected not only K through 12 classrooms, but also colleges and universities. Thompson (2014) suggests that when designing courses and curricula college educators should consider not only the content knowledge, skills and dispositions their students need to learn, but also what capacities ought to be developed and through what type of pedagogies. In this article, I propose that pedagogies of engagement are developed and used to teach content and skills in a college level course on Psychology of Creativity. In the main section of the article, I present three groups of creative assignments developed in collaboration with Dr. Heather Snyder: journal activities, creative project assignments, and creative problem-solving workshops. I argue that these assignments not only affect students’ motivation, engagement, and deep learning, but they also facilitate the development of mini-c and little-c creativity.

Using Balloons to Model Pi-Conjugated Systems and to Teach Frontier Molecular Orbital Theory

Large-scale molecular orbital balloon models have been designed and developed for implementation in the general, organic, or physical chemistry classroom. The purposes of the models are to help students visualize and understand concepts of pi-bonding, conjugation, aromaticity, and cycloaddition reactions or symmetry-controlled reactions. Second-semester organic chemistry students have welcomed the models with positive responses, claiming that the 3D models bring 2D textbook and lecture images to life. The balloon models may be constructed and presented by the instructor during a formal lecture, or they may be constructed by students during problem-solving workshops. Short video tutorials have been created to demonstrate the construction of these inexpensive classroom manipulatives.

Comment: Interactive Problem-Solving Interventions as Instrument of Conflict Transformation: Prospects and Challenges

Even though wars between states were historically the major forms of conflict, civil strife based on questions of identity, ethnicity, religion and other similar grounds has become the order of the day after the end of the Second World War. The complexity of mostly overlapping, social, economic, cultural, political and religious factors in these conflicts makes them difficult to deal with. This structural and conceptual metamorphosis in the international conflict paradigm has required the international community to rethink the traditional and formal conflict management and third party intervention techniques and instruments such as negotiation and mediation. In the course of achieving these goals, conflict scholars have focused on multiple but concurrent multi-track diplomacy instruments. Track II of this multi-track diplomacy and its conflict transformation instruments are based on the concerted efforts of unofficial actors to establish unofficial communication channels and facilitate the relations between the conflicting parties. One of the most commonly used instruments of Track II diplomacy is interactive problem-solving. The primary (but not the only) instrument of interactive problem-solving is a problem-solving workshop. This interdisciplinary comment deals with pertinent issues of relevance with regard to the nature and effectiveness of this conflict transformation instrument. In doing so, it makes a practical effectiveness assessment test against one of such methods, i.e., the Kumi method. Key termsConflict, conflict transformation, multi-track diplomacy, Track II diplomacy, interactive problem-solving, problem-solving workshop, Kumi Method

Sustainability Jam Sessions for vision creation and problem solving

This article presents a concept for creating arenas where expertise from certain branches of industry can interact with sustainability professionals and researchers to address and solve sustainability challenges. The concept Sustainability Jam Session (SJS) builds upon the idea of conducting creative meetings between professionals in “jam sessions,” similar to those associated primarily with music and improvisation. Approaches such as these have been used in the IT sector over the past decades, but this is the first attempt to apply it in the area of sustainability. SJS's were tested at the 2012 Greening of Industry Network Conference (GIN2012) and here we report our experiences from arranging six SJS's at the conference.A typical process of an SJS includes a preparatory phase, the actual jam, and documentation and follow up. The preparatory phase mainly involves identifying hosts and topics to be addressed at the SJS, followed by attracting participants. The jam is started by an introduction of the topics, a technical visit (if appropriate), and a problem-solving workshop, ending with a wrap-up reporting. Thorough documentation is necessary for following up the results of the SJS and preparing for implementation of the identified solutions.We conclude that skill, structure, setting, and surrender of control, as well as finding “red and hot” topics for the jams are the key factors for successful SJS's.Based on our experiences from GIN2012, we recommend other research conferences in the sustainability field use SJS's if the intention is to boost the interaction between the conference and the host region or non-academic organizations in general. We also suggest that a similar approach can be used in regional development for creating an infrastructure for learning and transformation towards sustainability and initiatives for open innovation.

A Novel Educational Strategy Targeting Health Care Workers in Underserved Communities in Central America to Integrate HIV into Primary Medical Care

BackgroundCurrent educational strategies to integrate HIV care into primary medical care in Central America have traditionally targeted managers or higher-level officials, rather than local health care workers (HCWs). We developed a complementary online and on-site interactive training program to reach local HCWs at the primary care level in underserved communities.MethodsThe training program targeted physicians, nurses, and community HCWs with limited access to traditional onsite training in Panama, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, and Guatemala. The curriculum focused on principles of HIV care and health systems using a tutor-supported blended educational approach of an 8-week online component, a weeklong on-site problem-solving workshop, and individualized project-based interventions.ResultsOf 258 initially active participants, 225 (225/258 = 87.2%) successfully completed the online component and the top 200 were invited to the on-site workshop. Of those, 170 (170/200 = 85%) attended the on-site workshop. In total, 142 completed all three components, including the project phase. Quantitative and qualitative evaluation instruments included knowledge assessments, reflexive essays, and acceptability surveys. The mean pre and post-essay scores demonstrating understanding of social determinants, health system organization, and integration of HIV services were 70% and 87.5%, respectively, with an increase in knowledge of 17.2% (p<0.001). The mean pre- and post-test scores evaluating clinical knowledge were 70.9% and 90.3%, respectively, with an increase in knowledge of 19.4% (p<0.001). A survey of Likert scale and open-ended questions demonstrated overwhelming participant satisfaction with course content, structure, and effectiveness in improving their HIV-related knowledge and skills.ConclusionThis innovative curriculum utilized technology to target HCWs with limited access to educational resources. Participants benefited from technical skills acquired through the process, and could continue working within their underserved communities while participating in the online component and then implement interventions that successfully converted theoretical knowledge to action to improve integration of HIV care into primary care.

A randomized wait-list controlled analysis of the implementation integrity of team-initiated problem solving processes

Members of Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) teams from 34 elementary schools participated in a Team-Initiated Problem Solving (TIPS) Workshop and follow-up technical assistance. Within the context of a randomized wait-list controlled trial, team members who were the first recipients of the TIPS intervention demonstrated greater implementation integrity in using the problem-solving processes during their team meetings than did members of PBIS Teams in the Wait-List Control group. The success of TIPS at improving implementation integrity of the problem-solving processes is encouraging and suggests the value of conducting additional research focused on determining whether there is a functional relation between use of these problem-solving processes and actual resolution of targeted student academic and social problems.

Comparing a Problem-Solving Workshop to a Conflict Assessment Framework: Conflict Analysis versus Conflict Assessment in Practice

The nexus between peacebuilding and development is widely acknowledged, and yet the two fields continue to operate differently in diagnosing destructive intergroup conflicts, as demonstrated by conflict analysis methods versus conflict assessment frameworks. This article juxtaposes conflict analysis, as illustrated by a problem- solving workshop on the Cyprus conflict, with a specialised conflict assessment workshop on an intergroup conflict in India. A comparative analysis based on participant observation in each workshop revealed basic similarities, but these were outweighed by important differences primarily related to differing assumptions about conflict causation (relationships versus structures). The implications for greater cross-fertilisation and the improvement of practice in both fields are identified.

Cross-disciplinary problem-solving workshop: a pedagogical approach to anticipate ergonomist engineering design collaboration

The aims of this paper are to present concept and results of an innovative educational model approach based on ergonomics involvement in industrial project. First we present Cross disciplinary Problem solving Workshop by answering three questions:1) What is a CPW: A partnership between Universities and one or several companies, purposes of it are first to increase health, well being, companies teams competencies, and competitiveness, second to train the "IPOD generation" to include risks prevention in design. 2) How does it work? CPW allows cooperation between experience and new insight through inductive methods. This model follows the Piaget (1) philosophy linking concrete world to abstraction by a learning system associating realization and abstraction. 3) Is it successful? In order to answer this third question we will show examples of studies and models performed during CPWs.It appears that the CPWs produce visible results in companies such as new process designs, new methods, and also changes in lectures. However some less visible results remain unclear: How the company personnel evolve during and after CPW? Does CPW motivate our future engineers enough to continuously improve their skills in risk prevention and innovative design?

Building Local Capacity for Training and Coaching Data-Based Problem Solving With Positive Behavior Intervention and Support Teams

Positive Behavior Intervention and Support Teams use data to guide decisions about student social and academic behavior problems. In previous evaluation and research efforts, the authors taught team members to use Team-Initiated Problem Solving, a model that embeds data-based decision making into a broader problem-solving framework. In this study, the authors taught local trainer/coaches to deliver the problem-solving workshop to Positive Behavior Intervention and Support Team members. Trainer/coaches delivered the workshop and follow-up technical assistance with fidelity, and team members subsequently (a) used the problem-solving procedures in their meetings and (b) perceived positive differences between their pre- and postworkshop meetings. The study provides support for developing local capacity to deliver training and coaching, in particular as it concerns data-based decision making and problem solving.

Challenges of power asymmetry and justice for problem-solving workshops

The applicability and effectiveness of problem-solving workshops (PSWs) has been questioned in the case of significant power differences between the parties and in relation to an impartial facilitation role that may be blind to questions of justice in conflict resolution. This article analyzes these challenges in light of the theory of practice and the social-psychological rationale that support PSW methods. These methods attempt to acknowledge and address the challenges of asymmetric conflict, for example by empowering the weaker party, but may not be able to transfer workshop outcomes to policy making given the power realities on the ground. The difficulties of transfer are magnified in situations of power asymmetry wherein the more powerful party is less likely to listen to or act on the outcomes of unofficial interventions. Sadly, without change in the status quo toward greater equality and justice, most intractable, ethno-political conflicts will not be resolved.

Interactive problem solving: Changing political culture in the pursuit of conflict resolution.

Interactive problem solving is an unofficial, third-party approach to the resolution of international and intercommunal conflicts, derived from the work of John Burton and anchored in social-psychological principles. The article presents the approach as a specially constructed microprocess, best exemplified by problem-solving workshops with unofficial representatives of the conflicting parties, designed to produce changes in the macroprocess of conflict resolution through the joint development of new ideas and insights that can be fed into the political cultures of the two societies. The article describes the dual purpose of problem-solving workshops, their relationship to official negotiations, their typical participants, the role of the third party, the ground rules governing workshop interactions, and the broad agenda they are designed to cover. The work of the author and his collaborators on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict over the past four decades is briefly reviewed and its possible contributions ...

Commentary on Herbert Kelman's contribution to interactive problem solving.

It is an honor and a challenge to provide a commentary on Herbert Kelman's work on interactive problem solving (IPS), which presents a complex and integrated tapestry of theory, research, and practice devoted to the resolution of violent intergroup conflict, with special attention to the Israeli–Palestinian tragedy. In his tapestry, Herb has created a systematic and comprehensive description of the major components of IPS and its connections to the broader flow of international conflict management. Through four decades of thoughtful analysis and practice, Herb has articulated and elaborated the social-psychological rationale and the social technology of the problem-solving workshop (PSW) as the primary vehicle for IPS. The long term application of IPS to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict demonstrates the relevance and utility of the method, and will stand as a lasting contribution to the eventual resolution of that costly and tragic interaction.