Problem Solving

I think problem solving is so important in getting students to create original work. In the book Ordinary to Extraordinary, the author got his students to create amazing final projects by creating lessons that involved rigorous problem solving. I think the more you can get your students to take part in the process, the better their work is going to become! During student teaching, to get my students to be critical thinkers and problem solvers I added detailed criteria to the lessons that made them think about themes and ideas related to their work. Instead of just telling them to paint anything, I gave them a problem to solve. For example, for our painting project I taught the high school students about focal points and how they strengthen a composition. I then gave each student an index card with a small window cut in it and told them to use it as a "magnifying glass" to find a section of a magazine image that was interesting and involved a focal point. I then had them cut out the small magazine piece and use a copier to blow the image up so they could paint it. Making the students problem solve resulted in them creating highly abstract and interesting paintings. Another example of one way I got my students to problem solve was in elementary with our collage project. Instead of telling them to pick anything to collage, I gave them a card with a word on it and told them to find three images that related to that theme. By giving my students a "problem," no matter how small, made them think about the process and always resulted in more interesting final products.