Problem solving

“ Sequential Problem Solving is a labor of love for all students who seek success and for the parents and teachers who guide them. Sequential Problem Solving also provides the lifelong-learner with the satisfaction of being able to measure his performance.
The goal of Sequential Problem Solving is to provide learners with a road map for successfully making decisions. Students can began their adult lives with a framework that will help them pick noble goals, know themselves, and be prepared for dealing with life's villains. ”

“ The Ten Commandments and the underlying message of the Bible, of helping one another, provide us with the framework for appropriate interpersonal relationships. When the human factor in problem solving is kept in mind through a list of values and a code of conduct, personal problem solving becomes a matter of analyzing internal conflict (fear, arrogance, laziness, or loneliness) . When a problem presents itself and action seems slow, it is helpful to recognize the ways people evade problems.
PROBLEM SOLVING EVASIONS. ”

“ Students should learn a systematic workable framework for making decisions. All students should develop the ability to evaluate their thought processes as a learned skill. The mature learner should be able to recall the steps of scientific problem solving, recognize specific personal values and character traits, and remember the tests for sequential steps in moral decision making. Students should then be able to use apply those mature thinking skills to first literary scenarios and then to real life problems. ”

“ People solving problems share certain common steps in resolving those problems and face certain common difficulties. How do we develop solutions? Where do we get information to work with? Who should we trust for advise? ”

“ This is a vast problem, in the solution of which the whole world is vitally interested, and one which, sooner or later, must be solved. If its solution were possible now, coming generations would look back and bless us for the solving. ”

“ In the face of the problem which can be settled only by reference to some established principle, we find ourselves questioning the generalizations formerly accepted, and the process of thought in solving our problem will involve induction as well as deduction. ”

“ TRYING THE SOLUTION.
Often complex or new tasks become learning projects, in themselves, to try to more accurately identify the problem, and to gather sufficient facts through failure in experimentation to make progress. Projects should include ongoing evaluation and re-planning. Old World craftsmen, the master craftsmen of yesteryear, had a guiding principle that continues to have merit: "Any job worth doing is worth doing well." Doing a job well often means making a final copy after revising the rough draft.
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MANPOWER MANAGEMENT. ”

“ Basic thinking skills include memorization techniques, the stream of consciousness technique, outlining, note taking, rapid reading, scanning for main ideas and keywords, questioning, and reorganizing.
Mature thinking skills include procedures that require specialized knowledge and basic thinking skills, like applying the sequential steps of problem solving and following the sequential tests for moral decision making.
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STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Both creative writers, artists and scientific problem solvers use the stream of consciousness or free-association skill. ”

“ Even if he fails, the tension to which his faculties have been wound up, insures his remembrance of the solution when given to him, better than half-a-dozen repetitions would. Observe, again, that this discipline necessitates a continuous organisation of the knowledge he acquires. It is in the very nature of facts and inferences assimilated in this normal manner, that they successively become the premises of further conclusions—the means of solving further questions. The solution of yesterday's problem helps the pupil in mastering to-day's. ”

“ The process begins by letting our thoughts flow freely and then sorting out the ones useful to our problem from the many that came to mind. Often many of the random thoughts that come to mind have no apparent connection to the problem; they are merely connected like circular links in a spider's web to threads that interconnect with others and run toward the center of the problem. ”

“ It provides an idea of what changes need to be made before expensive or hard to procure materials are used.
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MANPOWER.
Is sufficient manpower available to execute the plan? Are the talents of the available manpower matched to the task? [1] Are the available people qualified to perform the tasks? Are the men being lead by the best method? Several alternative methods exist for leading or managing workers on a project. These will be discussed in the section on leadership.
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Developing a Solution. ”

“ If we do not succeed in solving a mathematical problem, the reason frequently consists in our failure to recognize the more general standpoint from which the problem before us appears only as a single link in a chain of related problems. After finding this standpoint, not only is this problem frequently more accessible to our investigation, but at the same time we come into possession of a method which is [Pg 8] applicable also to related problems. ”

“ If the problem be solved at all—and I firmly believe it will, though nowhere else has it been—it will be solved by the people most deeply bound in interest, most deeply pledged in honor to its solution. ”

“ The solution is definitive, in the sense that it entirely satisfies and convinces all who study it carefully. For over two thousand years the human intellect was baffled by the problem; its many failures and its ultimate success make this problem peculiarly apt for the illustration of method. ”

“ My solution must be simply accepted as affording a guidance by which different people may, along more 39 or less converging lines, approach their particular objectives. For the problem presents itself under ever-changing forms, and demands a continuous development, and almost a progressive interpretation of the concept which I am going to offer as an aid to its solution. ”

“ It is in its school we have learned; our successors must learn never to be blindly proud, of methods too general, to envisage the questions in themselves and to find, in the conditions particular to each problem, perhaps a direct way towards a solution, perhaps the means of applying in an appropriate manner the general procedures which every science should gather. ”

“ Exercise the full force of your intelligence and spare no pains to eliminate from every case all matter not bearing directly upon the actual problem. Nine times out of ten the issue is direct, and once permit side issues to draw their tracks across it, once admit metaphysical lines of reasoning, the result will be confusion and a problem increasing in complexity at every stage. ”

“ As to the method of attacking problems, the student is perhaps already aware that before attempting solution it is best to read and study the problem carefully to determine exactly what is called for and then to decide as to the treatment of all doubtful points and items—what they mean and how they must be handled to arrive at what is called for. ”

“ It cannot be surprising that those who believe {81} the door to be shut, so to speak, in the direction of any theory of development through mechanical and chemical agencies alone, should look elsewhere for the solution of a problem which science is bound to do its very utmost to solve. ”

“ No one undertaking the study of this problem is likely to underrate the difficulty of the task. To find a solution is obviously a matter of great importance; but it is also a matter in which small success may reasonably be expected. ”

“ Of course, here again it is some particular problem that defines the search for the general and directs attention to some class characteristics rather than to others. Not only is the starting point of all reasoning some definite situation for which there is no adequate response, but the end point must naturally be the same. A particular problem demanding solution is the cause for reasoning, and, of course, the end of the process must be the solution of that problem. ”

“ It is only by a logical development of a suggested solution to a problem that it is possible to hit upon the essence of the matter for a particular situation, to single out of a gross total situation, the key to the phenomenon. ”

“ And I do it to show, in the second place, that when we insist on resolving a verbally-intelligible cause into its actual factors, we get not only a clear solution of the problem before us, but we find that the way is opened to solutions of sundry other problems. ”

“ With a clear perception of the problem to be solved, a man of science must either think out the particular conjunction of conditions occurring in Nature, which, if found to occur, would give an unequivocal solution, or he must devise such an artificial conjunction of conditions as may lead to the same result. ”

“ It is a vast and difficult question, and one for which a complete answer may possibly be looked for in the next century; but the method of inquiry is understood; and the mode in which the materials are now being accumulated bearing on that inquiry, the processes by which results are now obtained, and the observation of these phenomena, lead to the belief that the problem also, some day or other, will be solved. ”

“ They all impose themselves psychologically; but this proves nothing as to their logical value, and science has to test them just the same.
(b) The principles which are said to be necessary or logical ‘presuppositions’ all turn out to be hypothetical when they are examined. They are needed, no doubt, to solve the problem in hand, if the particular way it is formulated is taken for granted. But if either the order or the formulation of problems is altered, they cease to be either ‘necessary’ or ‘presuppositions’. ”

“ Often, indeed, the very division of the larger problem into smaller problems constitutes its solution, for we finally come to a problem which practically answers itself, and which we recognize as being included in, or a par­tic­u­lar form of, some more general problem to which we already know the answer. ”

“ The problem that confronts you, then, in either kind of analysis, however formal or informal it may be, is, How shall I go to work? The first necessity is the choosing of a basis for division of the subject, whether it be in classification or partition. The necessity for this arises from the demand of the human mind for logical consistency. Life seems often wildly inconsistent, but we demand that explanation of it or any phase of it be arranged according to what seems to us some logical law of progression, some consistent point of view. ”

“ The aim is to present the problem under consideration clearly and with as little emphasis as possible on its technical aspects, a purpose often more successfully realized, according to some of the members, by the men who have been especially successful in their particular fields. ”

“ To admit that scientific inquiries concern problems, and that to every problem (at least) two solutions may be propounded, between which a choice has to be made, is to admit that knowledge must take risks in order to progress. ”

“ There are two sets of conditions to be fulfilled which may be distinguished as the natural and the human conditions of the problem. The difficulty is not to be found in the non-fulfillment of the former; as has already been remarked, the natural conditions have been well met by Science. But, after all the successful work laboriously done upon these—chiefly in the verification of the units—the hardest part of the problem yet remains, viz., such an adaptation of the system to mankind that the peoples to be benefitted shall adopt and use it in the daily business of life. ”

“ In induction the problem is concerned with a general. In some situation a concept, law, or principle has proven inadequate as a response. The question is then raised as to what is wrong with it and the inductive process is instigated. The problem is solved when the principle or concept is perfected or enlarged--in other words, is made adequate. In deduction the problem is concerned with the individual situation. Some problem is raised by a particular fact or experience and is answered when it is placed under the law or concept to which it belongs. ”

“ If the problem is not beyond the child’s comprehension, if it deals with situations which are significant to him, if the solution derived has some bearing on his future action, if he has carefully scrutinized his experience in the light of the problem stated and has brought to bear those elements which are significant for its solution, we may be confident that the activity resulting is closely akin to that which is found in the controlled thinking of men the world over. ”

“ The solution of problems is the most characteristic and peculiar sort of voluntary thinking. Where the end thought of is some outward deed or gain, the solution is largely composed of the actual motor processes, walking, speaking, writing, etc., which lead up to it. ”

“ You can think powerfully in abstract terms, unhampered by Terran facts and laws which we now know are neither facts nor laws. I cannot even categorize the problems we face. Perhaps you three will be able to. You will listen, then consult, then tell me how to pick the teams to do the work. A more important job for you is this: Any problem, to be solved, must be stated clearly; and we don't know even what our basic problem is. ”