problem solving education technology

How technology is reinventing education

Stanford Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz and other education scholars weigh in on what's next for some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom.

Image credit: Claire Scully

New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

“Technology is a game-changer for education – it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching,” said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . “But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren’t great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently.”

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students’ use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities – for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. “I’m heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers’ lives better – not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do,” he said. “I hope to see more on that front.”

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. “AI is not going away,” said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. “We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology.”

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

“This is an area that’s really going to explode over the next couple of years,” said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. “Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live.”

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. “If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers.”

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students’ attention.

“Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful,” said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. “If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be motivated to do math anywhere else.”

Gamification sometimes tries to make “chocolate-covered broccoli,” Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students’ activities in the classroom and online. “We’re now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes,” said Schwartz – data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data – now owned by tech companies – is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students’ interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that’s being collected, said Schwartz – and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is “requiring people to check their assumptions about education,” said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. “But it’s also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It’s an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching – this is the path I hope to see.”

Problem-Based Learning (PBL)

What is Problem-Based Learning (PBL)? PBL is a student-centered approach to learning that involves groups of students working to solve a real-world problem, quite different from the direct teaching method of a teacher presenting facts and concepts about a specific subject to a classroom of students. Through PBL, students not only strengthen their teamwork, communication, and research skills, but they also sharpen their critical thinking and problem-solving abilities essential for life-long learning.

By working with PBL, students will:

Become engaged with open-ended situations that assimilate the world of work
Participate in groups to pinpoint what is known/ not known and the methods of finding information to help solve the given problem.
Investigate a problem; through critical thinking and problem solving, brainstorm a list of unique solutions.
Analyze the situation to see if the real problem is framed or if there are other problems that need to be solved.

How to Begin PBL

Establish the learning outcomes (i.e., what is it that you want your students to really learn and to be able to do after completing the learning project).
Find a real-world problem that is relevant to the students; often the problems are ones that students may encounter in their own life or future career.
Discuss pertinent rules for working in groups to maximize learning success.
Practice group processes: listening, involving others, assessing their work/peers.
Explore different roles for students to accomplish the work that needs to be done and/or to see the problem from various perspectives depending on the problem (e.g., for a problem about pollution, different roles may be a mayor, business owner, parent, child, neighboring city government officials, etc.).
Determine how the project will be evaluated and assessed. Most likely, both self-assessment and peer-assessment will factor into the assignment grade.

Designing Classroom Instruction

How to Orchestrate a PBL Activity

Explain Problem-Based Learning to students: its rationale, daily instruction, class expectations, grading.
Serve as a model and resource to the PBL process; work in-tandem through the first problem
Help students secure various resources when needed.
Supply ample class time for collaborative group work.
Give feedback to each group after they share via the established format; critique the solution in quality and thoroughness. Reinforce to the students that the prior thinking and reasoning process in addition to the solution are important as well.

Teacher’s Role in PBL

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Meaningful Technology and Curriculum

Julia Green

Julia Green ( [email protected] ) York Region District School Board

Technology has been an integral part of education as teachers strive to prepare students for the twenty-first century. In order for education to be pertinent, productive, progressive and proficient, technology is an essential tool (Abbas, Lai-Mei, Ismail, 2013). Problem-based learning (PBL) is grounded in meaningful and experiential situations. In PBL, students learn by solving problems, becoming active learners, situated in real-world problems and allowing students to be responsible for their learning paths (Hmelo-Silver, 2004). Modern-day educators require innovative teaching methods which promote skill acquisition and are problem-based, “Millennial students can benefit from this approach as they work collaboratively, construct integrated knowledge, develop problem-solving skills, experience self-directed learning, and become intrinsically motivated” (Matthews & Dworatzek, 2012, p.196). Technology can be defined in a wide variety of ways, and the multitude of methods in which technology can be used to support PBL is equally as diverse. (Brush & Saye, 2014). The purpose of this chapter is to discuss how technology can support the implementation of PBL in educational settings. The key characteristics of both technology and PBL are examined in order to guide educators to make informed decisions to support deep and authentic learning.

Keywords : collaboration, critical thinking, learner-centered, problem-based learning (PBL), real-world application, technology

Introduction

Problem-based learning has been in the realm of education for the past fifty years (Wood, 2008). Its implementation in educational settings has promoted collaboration, problem-solving and independent acquisition of new knowledge. With changes in education (for example; the flipped classroom, online courses and students in charge of their own learning journeys), there has been a natural move towards the utilization of technology. Twenty-first century learners are more adept at using technological tools than ever before. Students are accessing tech platforms to communicate with each other, research topics of interest to them and learn about world issues.

Technology refers to the designs and environments that engage learners (Abbas et al., 2013). The integration of technology in problem-based learning supports exploration, collaborative inquiry and the development of the skills required for students moving into the modern world. When done effectively, technology can support problem-based learning because of the wide range of tools available; the way in which technology naturally lends itself to collaboration, and its ability to help students explore problems. Problem-based learning’s scope has become even wider with the integration of tech in the classroom. The possibilities to promote the objectives of PBL (discussed later in this chapter) are flexible and ever-changing, allowing PBL to exist naturally in modern learning environments.

Background Information

Problem-based learning.

Developed in the late 1960s for primary use in medical schools, problem-based learning or PBL is grounded in the constructivist learning theory (Wood, 2008). This theory posits that learning is an active, constructive process. Constructivism states that learning takes place in contexts (Abbas et al., 2013). PBL was developed by Barrows and utilized at McMaster University in 1968 for the first time. Barrows proposed the following three objectives of PBL:

Students acquire knowledge that is retrievable and usable.
Students develop the cognitive skills appropriate for reasoning.
Students extend and improve knowledge to remain current with new problems that may arise (self-directed learning skills), (Taylor & Miflin, 2008).

Other educational models emerged from this such as Bruner’s ‘discovery learning’ (Taylor & Miflin, 2008). PBL was innovative because of its shift in teaching strategies and outcomes. It was predicted that PBL created better learning environments, knowledge, skills, and attitudes (Wood, 2008). PBL focuses on meaningful tasks which are practical in their approach and experiential (Hmelo-Silver, 2004). Theorists such as Dewey (1938) explained that learning was most authentic when done through experience. He believed that education and learning were a social and interactive process. Students should experience and interact with curriculum and take part in own learning (Talebi, 2015). Similarly, in PBL, students solve problems which are related to the real-world, construct knowledge and develop strategies for problem-solving (Hmelo-Silver, 2004). One of the defining features of the PBL approach is that students investigate and work collaboratively to find out what they need to know in order to solve the presented problem (Hmelo-Silver, 2004). Today, PBL is a construct of previous research and practices. It has been adapted to modern learning environments, is flexible and dynamic.

The teacher’s role in PBL .

In problem-based learning, the teacher acts more as a facilitator to student learning than being in complete control. Facilitators progressively fade their scaffolding as students become more experienced with PBL until finally the learners adopt many of the facilitators’ roles (Hmelo-Silver, 2004). The teacher helps students acquire the skills necessary for problem-solving and collaboration (Hmelo-Silver, 2004). Modern PBL approaches vary depending on norms, beliefs and values of PBL practitioners. Furthermore, PBL and its implementation also rely on the cost, the extent of influences, understanding and interpretation by the teacher and institution (Taylor & Miflin, 2008).

The modern teacher is one who recognizes, encourages, facilitates and stretches student learning. Teachers are considered partners with their students and no longer need to teach by telling. Teachers should foster creativity and real-life problem solving, purpose and passion (Fullan, 2013). Allowing students to demonstrate their knowledge of technology is a great way for teachers to work alongside students.

Considerations and applications for technology in PBL

Technology is an integral and supportive factor of learning in PBL. The following section delineates characteristics of problem-based learning in the twenty-first century learning environment, and how technology can best support them.

Learner-centered.

With students at the forefront of this style of learning, teachers are able to engage and motivate learners. In learner-centered environments, the focus on abilities and process of the learner are of priority. This strategy also centers on what the students already know which encourages motivation (Megwalu, 2014). Student skill-level and interests are considered in a PBL environment. Web 2.0 for example, allows users to browse topics and explore (Tambouris, Panopoulou, Tarabanis, Ryberg, Buus, Peristeras, Porwol, 2012). Students can use their own preferred technological tools to solve problems and show their understanding of topics. They may prefer to use their personal devices or engage in new tools.

With this in mind, the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of the learners are considered. Preconceptions, cultural differences, comfort level in various group settings are crucial to creating a positive learning environment. Attention should be given to individual progress and material needs to present the right amount of challenge. In order to achieve this, teachers and schools need to understand student knowledge, skill levels and interests (Donovan, 2002). Tools such as online surveys, polls and collaborative online workspaces engage students and help teachers check in with student progress, better understand their interests and their position as a learner.

Collaborative.

It is important that a technological tool create a community of learners by broadening repertoires and personal resources (Conoley, 2010). Collaboration promotes engagement as well as positive well-being. Collaborative spaces have proven to positively impact well-being, “People with relationships to other individuals they trust and depend upon are healthier, more productive, and happier”, (Uchino, Cacipo, Kiecolt-Glasser, 1996 as cited in Conoley, 2010, p.77).

When technology tools are appropriately selected, they promote the collaborative production of knowledge through engaging with real-world problems or cases (Tambouris et al., 2012). The emergence and re-conceptualization of online systems supports collaboration between learners and teachers. It affords learners and facilitators access to external resources and resource persons. Donnelly (2010), suggests that the social processes of learning in PBL and through the enabling power of online asynchronous communication, actively engage students in their own learning. Current trends focus on virtual learning environments, but also a shift to personal online learning environments, which allow students to customize their learning journey (Tambouris et al., 2012). Additionally, there exist a plethora of collaborative online platforms from which to choose such as online classrooms, synchronous and asynchronous learning spaces as well as web-based software which allow multiple users to work, revise and comment simultaneously.

Real-life applications.

When students are able to make connections between new material and the real-world it creates for authentic learning environments, “Learning is stronger when it matters” (Brown et al., 2014, p.11). Repetition has not shown to remain in long-term memory, however, when connections are made to real-life problems, the learning is better retained (Hmelo-Silver, 2004). Research has shown that rereading, for example, is a time-consuming learning strategy which does not result in lasting learning. On the other hand, students exploring real problems that exist in relation to the subject matter can deepen the learning. That being said, it is important for educators to take risks and allow students to connect with their communities and the world. Learners should apply new skills in context which can be facilitated through tools such as virtual reality, online forums, blogs and discussions and communication tools to connect via video chat across the world.

Optimal learning occurs with the development of norms and connections to the outside world. In these settings, intellectual camaraderie is promoted to build a sense of community. Students build upon each other’s knowledge, questioning, make suggestions and work collaboratively towards a common goal. Problem-solving, argumentation, a sense of comfort, an excitement of learning, and a sense of ownership are developed. Furthermore, classroom learning should be connected to aspects of students’ lives (Donovan, 2002). Educators play a key role in developing questions and creating tasks, “Real learning involves students immediately using what they learn to do something and/or change something in the world” (Prensky, 2010, p.20). Teachers set the learning goals and offer guidance and questions for students and then allow them the freedom to explore but also apply their learning in a real context. The notion of positioning learners as active and productive in real practices seems to correspond well with many of the ideas and ideals associated with Web 2.0 in learning (Tambouris et al., 2012).

Engages critical thinking.

In order to help students adapt to ever-changing situations and problems, critical thinking is an essential skill; “Higher level questioning requires students to further examine the concept(s) under study through the use of application, analysis, evaluation, and synthesis (Nappi, 2017, p.1). As questioning is an important teaching tool, questions which are simply recall of information are considered lower level questions and do not encourage higher order thinking (Nappi, 2017). Students can use the internet to research and seek solutions to complex problems.

Because of the influx of information available to them, students require questions which allow them to investigate rather than completing a simple search. The use of subject specific technological tools can enrich student experience and close gaps which were previously roadblocks in the problem-solving process. Such an example is explained by Taradi et al. (2005), “Virtual environments encourage students to explore a topic beyond the boundaries of given material, thus supporting the proactive and exploratory nature of learning that allows the student to become self-reliant” (p. 38).

Conclusions and Future Recommendations

The integration of technology and problem-based learning is complicated since individually they each demand that staff and students possess a complex array of different teaching and learning capabilities (Donnelly, 2010). Together they are complementary to learning. By combining PBL with collaborative technological tools, educators can create active, vibrant learning environments that enhance student learning (Taradi et al., 2005). Problem-based learning affords students the flexibility of exploring concepts and acquiring skills through the learning process and co-create problems and solutions. Student engagement increases as they are active participants in their own learning (Wirkala, Kuhn, 2011). PBL has a clear connection with the promotion of twenty-first century skills, it “offers an opportunity for moving beyond content acquisition to develop skills and dispositions needed for lifelong learning” (Taradi et al., 2005, p.35).

With student success in mind and preparing students for the world beyond the classroom, PBL encourages problem-solving and collaboration. Furthermore, it allows students to engage in critical thinking and make real-world connections. The advancement of technology has further supported the integration of PBL in learning environments. The wide array of available tools, the collaborative nature, and links to the outside world lend themselves suitably to PBL.

Due to the range of technological tools available, it is challenging to identify exactly which tools best promote PBL. Consideration should be given to whether the tool is enhancing the learning experience or if the same problem-solving strategy could be used without the technology? In fact, several questions should be considered when selecting the appropriate tool for PBL:

Does the tool encourage a learner-centered environment?
Will the tool allow for collaboration among students?
Does the tool promote real-world application?
Can the tool be used to facilitate investigation, problem-solving and inquiry?

Technology has an ability to increase the complexity with which students create and implement a multitude of roles. This can lead to specialization and promote in-depth investigation. Technology in PBL learning environments lends itself to authentic and challenging tasks which support communication with others and promotes active learning (Abbas et al., 2013). The blending of technology in PBL encourages students to become twenty-first century problem-solvers. While there are many factors which contribute to the effective implementation of tech in PBL, it is undeniable that there are positive correlations between the two.

Abbas, P. G., Lai-Mei, L., & Ismail, H. N. (2013). Teachers’ use of technology and constructivism. International Journal of Modern Education and Computer Science, 5 (4), 49-63. doi: http://dx.doi.org.uproxy.library.dc-uoit.ca/10.5815/ijmecs.2013.04.07

Brown, P.C., Roedinger, H.L., McDaniel, M.A. (2014). Learning is misunderstood. Make it stick , pp.1-22.

Brush, T & Saye, J. (2014). Technology-supported Problem-based Learning in Teacher Education. The Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-based Learning, 8 (1). Available from differhttp://dx.doi.org/10.7771/1541-5015.1480

Conoley, J. (2010). Why Does Collaboration Work? Linking Positive Psychology and Collaboration. Journal of educational and psychological consultation, 20 (1), 75-82. doi:10.1080/10474410903554902

Donnelly, R. (2010). Harmonizing technology with interaction in blended problem-based learning. Computers & Education, 54 , pp. 350–359. doi :10.1016/j.compedu.2009.08.012

Donovan, M.S, Bransford, J. D., & Pellegrino, J.W. (2002). How people learn: Bridging research & practice . Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Fullan, M. (2013). Pedagogy and change: Essence as easy. Stratosphere, pp.17-32.

Hmelo-Silver, C.E. (2004). Problem-Based Learning: What and How Do Students Learn? Educational Psychology Review. 16 (3), pp.235-266. https://doi-org.uproxy.library.dc-uoit.ca/10.1023/B:EDPR.0000034022.16470.f3

Matthews, J. & Dworatzek, P. (2012). Millennial Graduate Students’ Use Of Technology And Problem-Based Learning To Enhance Higher-Level Cognition In Health Promotion Program Planning. American Journal of Health Science, 3 (3), p.195-200.

Megwalu, A. (2014). Practicing Learner-Centered Teaching. The Reference Librarian, 55 (3), 252-255, doi : 10.1080/02763877.2014.910438

Nappi, P. (2017). The Importance of Questioning in Developing Critical Thinking Skills. The Delta Kappa Gamma bulletin, 84 (1).

Prensky, M. (2010). Partnering. Teaching digital natives. Partnering for real learning . pp. 9-29.

Talebi, K. (2015). John Dewey – Philosopher and Educational Reformer. European Journal of Education Studies. 1 (1). Available from www.oapub.org/edu

Tambouris, E., Panopoulou, E., Tarabanis, K., Ryberg, T., Buus, L., Peristeras, V., Porwol, L. (2012). Enabling problem based learning through web 2.0 technologies: PBL 2.0. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 15 (4), 238. Available from http://search.proquest.com.uproxy.library.dc-uoit.ca/docview/1287025375?accountid=14694

Taradi, S., Taradi, M., Radic, K. & Pokrajac, N. (2005). Blending problem-based learning with Web technology positively impacts student learning outcomes in acid-base physiology. Advances in Physiology Education, 29 , pp. 35-39. doi :10.1152/advan.00026.2004.

Taylor, D. & Miflin, B. (2008). Problem-based learning: Where are we now? Medical Teacher, 30 , pp. 742–763. doi : 10.1080/01421590802217199

Wirkala, C & Kuhn, D. (2011). Problem-Based Learning in K-12 Education: Is it Effective and How Does it Achieve its Effects? American Educational Research Journal, 48 (5), pp. 1157-1186.

Wood, D. (2008). Problem Based Learning. British Medical Journal, 336 (7651), p.971.

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Distance Learning

Using technology to develop students’ critical thinking skills.

by Jessica Mansbach

What Is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is a higher-order cognitive skill that is indispensable to students, readying them to respond to a variety of complex problems that are sure to arise in their personal and professional lives. The cognitive skills at the foundation of critical thinking are analysis, interpretation, evaluation, explanation, inference, and self-regulation.

When students think critically, they actively engage in these processes:

Communication
Problem-solving

To create environments that engage students in these processes, instructors need to ask questions, encourage the expression of diverse opinions, and involve students in a variety of hands-on activities that force them to be involved in their learning.

Types of Critical Thinking Skills

Instructors should select activities based on the level of thinking they want students to do and the learning objectives for the course or assignment. The chart below describes questions to ask in order to show that students can demonstrate different levels of critical thinking.

*Adapted from Brown University’s Harriet W Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning

Using Online Tools to Teach Critical Thinking Skills

Online instructors can use technology tools to create activities that help students develop both lower-level and higher-level critical thinking skills.

Example: Use Google Doc, a collaboration feature in Canvas, and tell students to keep a journal in which they reflect on what they are learning, describe the progress they are making in the class, and cite course materials that have been most relevant to their progress. Students can share the Google Doc with you, and instructors can comment on their work.
Example: Use the peer review assignment feature in Canvas and manually or automatically form peer review groups. These groups can be anonymous or display students’ names. Tell students to give feedback to two of their peers on the first draft of a research paper. Use the rubric feature in Canvas to create a rubric for students to use. Show students the rubric along with the assignment instructions so that students know what they will be evaluated on and how to evaluate their peers.
Example: Use the discussions feature in Canvas and tell students to have a debate about a video they watched. Pose the debate questions in the discussion forum, and give students instructions to take a side of the debate and cite course readings to support their arguments.
Example: Us e goreact , a tool for creating and commenting on online presentations, and tell students to design a presentation that summarizes and raises questions about a reading. Tell students to comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the author’s argument. Students can post the links to their goreact presentations in a discussion forum or an assignment using the insert link feature in Canvas.
Example: Use goreact, a narrated Powerpoint, or a Google Doc and instruct students to tell a story that informs readers and listeners about how the course content they are learning is useful in their professional lives. In the story, tell students to offer specific examples of readings and class activities that they are finding most relevant to their professional work. Links to the goreact presentation and Google doc can be submitted via a discussion forum or an assignment in Canvas. The Powerpoint file can be submitted via a discussion or submitted in an assignment.

Pulling it All Together

Critical thinking is an invaluable skill that students need to be successful in their professional and personal lives. Instructors can be thoughtful and purposeful about creating learning objectives that promote lower and higher-level critical thinking skills, and about using technology to implement activities that support these learning objectives. Below are some additional resources about critical thinking.

Additional Resources

Carmichael, E., & Farrell, H. (2012). Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Online Resources in Developing Student Critical Thinking: Review of Literature and Case Study of a Critical Thinking Online Site. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice , 9 (1), 4.

Lai, E. R. (2011). Critical thinking: A literature review. Pearson’s Research Reports , 6 , 40-41.

Landers, H (n.d.). Using Peer Teaching In The Classroom. Retrieved electronically from https://tilt.colostate.edu/TipsAndGuides/Tip/180

Lynch, C. L., & Wolcott, S. K. (2001). Helping your students develop critical thinking skills (IDEA Paper# 37. In Manhattan, KS: The IDEA Center.

Mandernach, B. J. (2006). Thinking critically about critical thinking: Integrating online tools to Promote Critical Thinking. Insight: A collection of faculty scholarship , 1 , 41-50.

Yang, Y. T. C., & Wu, W. C. I. (2012). Digital storytelling for enhancing student academic achievement, critical thinking, and learning motivation: A year-long experimental study. Computers & Education , 59 (2), 339-352.

Insight Assessment: Measuring Thinking Worldwide

http://www.insightassessment.com/

Michigan State University’s Office of Faculty & Organizational Development, Critical Thinking: http://fod.msu.edu/oir/critical-thinking

The Critical Thinking Community

http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766

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9 responses to “ Using Technology To Develop Students’ Critical Thinking Skills ”

This is a great site for my students to learn how to develop critical thinking skills, especially in the STEM fields.

Great tools to help all learners at all levels… not everyone learns at the same rate.

Thanks for sharing the article. Is there any way to find tools which help in developing critical thinking skills to students?

Technology needs to be advance to develop the below factors:

Understand the links between ideas. Determine the importance and relevance of arguments and ideas. Recognize, build and appraise arguments.

Excellent share! Can I know few tools which help in developing critical thinking skills to students? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

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Brilliant post. Will be sharing this on our Twitter (@refthinking). I would love to chat to you about our tool, the Thinking Kit. It has been specifically designed to help students develop critical thinking skills whilst they also learn about the topics they ‘need’ to.

The effectiveness of collaborative problem solving in promoting students’ critical thinking: A meta-analysis based on empirical literature

Enwei Xu ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6424-8169 1 ,
Wei Wang 1 &
Qingxia Wang 1

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume 10 , Article number: 16 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Collaborative problem-solving has been widely embraced in the classroom instruction of critical thinking, which is regarded as the core of curriculum reform based on key competencies in the field of education as well as a key competence for learners in the 21st century. However, the effectiveness of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking remains uncertain. This current research presents the major findings of a meta-analysis of 36 pieces of the literature revealed in worldwide educational periodicals during the 21st century to identify the effectiveness of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking and to determine, based on evidence, whether and to what extent collaborative problem solving can result in a rise or decrease in critical thinking. The findings show that (1) collaborative problem solving is an effective teaching approach to foster students’ critical thinking, with a significant overall effect size (ES = 0.82, z = 12.78, P < 0.01, 95% CI [0.69, 0.95]); (2) in respect to the dimensions of critical thinking, collaborative problem solving can significantly and successfully enhance students’ attitudinal tendencies (ES = 1.17, z = 7.62, P < 0.01, 95% CI[0.87, 1.47]); nevertheless, it falls short in terms of improving students’ cognitive skills, having only an upper-middle impact (ES = 0.70, z = 11.55, P < 0.01, 95% CI[0.58, 0.82]); and (3) the teaching type (chi 2 = 7.20, P < 0.05), intervention duration (chi 2 = 12.18, P < 0.01), subject area (chi 2 = 13.36, P < 0.05), group size (chi 2 = 8.77, P < 0.05), and learning scaffold (chi 2 = 9.03, P < 0.01) all have an impact on critical thinking, and they can be viewed as important moderating factors that affect how critical thinking develops. On the basis of these results, recommendations are made for further study and instruction to better support students’ critical thinking in the context of collaborative problem-solving.

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Introduction.

Although critical thinking has a long history in research, the concept of critical thinking, which is regarded as an essential competence for learners in the 21st century, has recently attracted more attention from researchers and teaching practitioners (National Research Council, 2012 ). Critical thinking should be the core of curriculum reform based on key competencies in the field of education (Peng and Deng, 2017 ) because students with critical thinking can not only understand the meaning of knowledge but also effectively solve practical problems in real life even after knowledge is forgotten (Kek and Huijser, 2011 ). The definition of critical thinking is not universal (Ennis, 1989 ; Castle, 2009 ; Niu et al., 2013 ). In general, the definition of critical thinking is a self-aware and self-regulated thought process (Facione, 1990 ; Niu et al., 2013 ). It refers to the cognitive skills needed to interpret, analyze, synthesize, reason, and evaluate information as well as the attitudinal tendency to apply these abilities (Halpern, 2001 ). The view that critical thinking can be taught and learned through curriculum teaching has been widely supported by many researchers (e.g., Kuncel, 2011 ; Leng and Lu, 2020 ), leading to educators’ efforts to foster it among students. In the field of teaching practice, there are three types of courses for teaching critical thinking (Ennis, 1989 ). The first is an independent curriculum in which critical thinking is taught and cultivated without involving the knowledge of specific disciplines; the second is an integrated curriculum in which critical thinking is integrated into the teaching of other disciplines as a clear teaching goal; and the third is a mixed curriculum in which critical thinking is taught in parallel to the teaching of other disciplines for mixed teaching training. Furthermore, numerous measuring tools have been developed by researchers and educators to measure critical thinking in the context of teaching practice. These include standardized measurement tools, such as WGCTA, CCTST, CCTT, and CCTDI, which have been verified by repeated experiments and are considered effective and reliable by international scholars (Facione and Facione, 1992 ). In short, descriptions of critical thinking, including its two dimensions of attitudinal tendency and cognitive skills, different types of teaching courses, and standardized measurement tools provide a complex normative framework for understanding, teaching, and evaluating critical thinking.

Cultivating critical thinking in curriculum teaching can start with a problem, and one of the most popular critical thinking instructional approaches is problem-based learning (Liu et al., 2020 ). Duch et al. ( 2001 ) noted that problem-based learning in group collaboration is progressive active learning, which can improve students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Collaborative problem-solving is the organic integration of collaborative learning and problem-based learning, which takes learners as the center of the learning process and uses problems with poor structure in real-world situations as the starting point for the learning process (Liang et al., 2017 ). Students learn the knowledge needed to solve problems in a collaborative group, reach a consensus on problems in the field, and form solutions through social cooperation methods, such as dialogue, interpretation, questioning, debate, negotiation, and reflection, thus promoting the development of learners’ domain knowledge and critical thinking (Cindy, 2004 ; Liang et al., 2017 ).

Collaborative problem-solving has been widely used in the teaching practice of critical thinking, and several studies have attempted to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of the empirical literature on critical thinking from various perspectives. However, little attention has been paid to the impact of collaborative problem-solving on critical thinking. Therefore, the best approach for developing and enhancing critical thinking throughout collaborative problem-solving is to examine how to implement critical thinking instruction; however, this issue is still unexplored, which means that many teachers are incapable of better instructing critical thinking (Leng and Lu, 2020 ; Niu et al., 2013 ). For example, Huber ( 2016 ) provided the meta-analysis findings of 71 publications on gaining critical thinking over various time frames in college with the aim of determining whether critical thinking was truly teachable. These authors found that learners significantly improve their critical thinking while in college and that critical thinking differs with factors such as teaching strategies, intervention duration, subject area, and teaching type. The usefulness of collaborative problem-solving in fostering students’ critical thinking, however, was not determined by this study, nor did it reveal whether there existed significant variations among the different elements. A meta-analysis of 31 pieces of educational literature was conducted by Liu et al. ( 2020 ) to assess the impact of problem-solving on college students’ critical thinking. These authors found that problem-solving could promote the development of critical thinking among college students and proposed establishing a reasonable group structure for problem-solving in a follow-up study to improve students’ critical thinking. Additionally, previous empirical studies have reached inconclusive and even contradictory conclusions about whether and to what extent collaborative problem-solving increases or decreases critical thinking levels. As an illustration, Yang et al. ( 2008 ) carried out an experiment on the integrated curriculum teaching of college students based on a web bulletin board with the goal of fostering participants’ critical thinking in the context of collaborative problem-solving. These authors’ research revealed that through sharing, debating, examining, and reflecting on various experiences and ideas, collaborative problem-solving can considerably enhance students’ critical thinking in real-life problem situations. In contrast, collaborative problem-solving had a positive impact on learners’ interaction and could improve learning interest and motivation but could not significantly improve students’ critical thinking when compared to traditional classroom teaching, according to research by Naber and Wyatt ( 2014 ) and Sendag and Odabasi ( 2009 ) on undergraduate and high school students, respectively.

The above studies show that there is inconsistency regarding the effectiveness of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking. Therefore, it is essential to conduct a thorough and trustworthy review to detect and decide whether and to what degree collaborative problem-solving can result in a rise or decrease in critical thinking. Meta-analysis is a quantitative analysis approach that is utilized to examine quantitative data from various separate studies that are all focused on the same research topic. This approach characterizes the effectiveness of its impact by averaging the effect sizes of numerous qualitative studies in an effort to reduce the uncertainty brought on by independent research and produce more conclusive findings (Lipsey and Wilson, 2001 ).

This paper used a meta-analytic approach and carried out a meta-analysis to examine the effectiveness of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking in order to make a contribution to both research and practice. The following research questions were addressed by this meta-analysis:

What is the overall effect size of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking and its impact on the two dimensions of critical thinking (i.e., attitudinal tendency and cognitive skills)?

How are the disparities between the study conclusions impacted by various moderating variables if the impacts of various experimental designs in the included studies are heterogeneous?

This research followed the strict procedures (e.g., database searching, identification, screening, eligibility, merging, duplicate removal, and analysis of included studies) of Cooper’s ( 2010 ) proposed meta-analysis approach for examining quantitative data from various separate studies that are all focused on the same research topic. The relevant empirical research that appeared in worldwide educational periodicals within the 21st century was subjected to this meta-analysis using Rev-Man 5.4. The consistency of the data extracted separately by two researchers was tested using Cohen’s kappa coefficient, and a publication bias test and a heterogeneity test were run on the sample data to ascertain the quality of this meta-analysis.

Data sources and search strategies

There were three stages to the data collection process for this meta-analysis, as shown in Fig. 1 , which shows the number of articles included and eliminated during the selection process based on the statement and study eligibility criteria.

This flowchart shows the number of records identified, included and excluded in the article.

First, the databases used to systematically search for relevant articles were the journal papers of the Web of Science Core Collection and the Chinese Core source journal, as well as the Chinese Social Science Citation Index (CSSCI) source journal papers included in CNKI. These databases were selected because they are credible platforms that are sources of scholarly and peer-reviewed information with advanced search tools and contain literature relevant to the subject of our topic from reliable researchers and experts. The search string with the Boolean operator used in the Web of Science was “TS = (((“critical thinking” or “ct” and “pretest” or “posttest”) or (“critical thinking” or “ct” and “control group” or “quasi experiment” or “experiment”)) and (“collaboration” or “collaborative learning” or “CSCL”) and (“problem solving” or “problem-based learning” or “PBL”))”. The research area was “Education Educational Research”, and the search period was “January 1, 2000, to December 30, 2021”. A total of 412 papers were obtained. The search string with the Boolean operator used in the CNKI was “SU = (‘critical thinking’*‘collaboration’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘collaborative learning’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘CSCL’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘problem solving’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘problem-based learning’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘PBL’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘problem oriented’) AND FT = (‘experiment’ + ‘quasi experiment’ + ‘pretest’ + ‘posttest’ + ‘empirical study’)” (translated into Chinese when searching). A total of 56 studies were found throughout the search period of “January 2000 to December 2021”. From the databases, all duplicates and retractions were eliminated before exporting the references into Endnote, a program for managing bibliographic references. In all, 466 studies were found.

Second, the studies that matched the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the meta-analysis were chosen by two researchers after they had reviewed the abstracts and titles of the gathered articles, yielding a total of 126 studies.

Third, two researchers thoroughly reviewed each included article’s whole text in accordance with the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Meanwhile, a snowball search was performed using the references and citations of the included articles to ensure complete coverage of the articles. Ultimately, 36 articles were kept.

Two researchers worked together to carry out this entire process, and a consensus rate of almost 94.7% was reached after discussion and negotiation to clarify any emerging differences.

Eligibility criteria

Since not all the retrieved studies matched the criteria for this meta-analysis, eligibility criteria for both inclusion and exclusion were developed as follows:

The publication language of the included studies was limited to English and Chinese, and the full text could be obtained. Articles that did not meet the publication language and articles not published between 2000 and 2021 were excluded.

The research design of the included studies must be empirical and quantitative studies that can assess the effect of collaborative problem-solving on the development of critical thinking. Articles that could not identify the causal mechanisms by which collaborative problem-solving affects critical thinking, such as review articles and theoretical articles, were excluded.

The research method of the included studies must feature a randomized control experiment or a quasi-experiment, or a natural experiment, which have a higher degree of internal validity with strong experimental designs and can all plausibly provide evidence that critical thinking and collaborative problem-solving are causally related. Articles with non-experimental research methods, such as purely correlational or observational studies, were excluded.

The participants of the included studies were only students in school, including K-12 students and college students. Articles in which the participants were non-school students, such as social workers or adult learners, were excluded.

The research results of the included studies must mention definite signs that may be utilized to gauge critical thinking’s impact (e.g., sample size, mean value, or standard deviation). Articles that lacked specific measurement indicators for critical thinking and could not calculate the effect size were excluded.

Data coding design

In order to perform a meta-analysis, it is necessary to collect the most important information from the articles, codify that information’s properties, and convert descriptive data into quantitative data. Therefore, this study designed a data coding template (see Table 1 ). Ultimately, 16 coding fields were retained.

The designed data-coding template consisted of three pieces of information. Basic information about the papers was included in the descriptive information: the publishing year, author, serial number, and title of the paper.

The variable information for the experimental design had three variables: the independent variable (instruction method), the dependent variable (critical thinking), and the moderating variable (learning stage, teaching type, intervention duration, learning scaffold, group size, measuring tool, and subject area). Depending on the topic of this study, the intervention strategy, as the independent variable, was coded into collaborative and non-collaborative problem-solving. The dependent variable, critical thinking, was coded as a cognitive skill and an attitudinal tendency. And seven moderating variables were created by grouping and combining the experimental design variables discovered within the 36 studies (see Table 1 ), where learning stages were encoded as higher education, high school, middle school, and primary school or lower; teaching types were encoded as mixed courses, integrated courses, and independent courses; intervention durations were encoded as 0–1 weeks, 1–4 weeks, 4–12 weeks, and more than 12 weeks; group sizes were encoded as 2–3 persons, 4–6 persons, 7–10 persons, and more than 10 persons; learning scaffolds were encoded as teacher-supported learning scaffold, technique-supported learning scaffold, and resource-supported learning scaffold; measuring tools were encoded as standardized measurement tools (e.g., WGCTA, CCTT, CCTST, and CCTDI) and self-adapting measurement tools (e.g., modified or made by researchers); and subject areas were encoded according to the specific subjects used in the 36 included studies.

The data information contained three metrics for measuring critical thinking: sample size, average value, and standard deviation. It is vital to remember that studies with various experimental designs frequently adopt various formulas to determine the effect size. And this paper used Morris’ proposed standardized mean difference (SMD) calculation formula ( 2008 , p. 369; see Supplementary Table S3 ).

Procedure for extracting and coding data

According to the data coding template (see Table 1 ), the 36 papers’ information was retrieved by two researchers, who then entered them into Excel (see Supplementary Table S1 ). The results of each study were extracted separately in the data extraction procedure if an article contained numerous studies on critical thinking, or if a study assessed different critical thinking dimensions. For instance, Tiwari et al. ( 2010 ) used four time points, which were viewed as numerous different studies, to examine the outcomes of critical thinking, and Chen ( 2013 ) included the two outcome variables of attitudinal tendency and cognitive skills, which were regarded as two studies. After discussion and negotiation during data extraction, the two researchers’ consistency test coefficients were roughly 93.27%. Supplementary Table S2 details the key characteristics of the 36 included articles with 79 effect quantities, including descriptive information (e.g., the publishing year, author, serial number, and title of the paper), variable information (e.g., independent variables, dependent variables, and moderating variables), and data information (e.g., mean values, standard deviations, and sample size). Following that, testing for publication bias and heterogeneity was done on the sample data using the Rev-Man 5.4 software, and then the test results were used to conduct a meta-analysis.

Publication bias test

When the sample of studies included in a meta-analysis does not accurately reflect the general status of research on the relevant subject, publication bias is said to be exhibited in this research. The reliability and accuracy of the meta-analysis may be impacted by publication bias. Due to this, the meta-analysis needs to check the sample data for publication bias (Stewart et al., 2006 ). A popular method to check for publication bias is the funnel plot; and it is unlikely that there will be publishing bias when the data are equally dispersed on either side of the average effect size and targeted within the higher region. The data are equally dispersed within the higher portion of the efficient zone, consistent with the funnel plot connected with this analysis (see Fig. 2 ), indicating that publication bias is unlikely in this situation.

This funnel plot shows the result of publication bias of 79 effect quantities across 36 studies.

Heterogeneity test

To select the appropriate effect models for the meta-analysis, one might use the results of a heterogeneity test on the data effect sizes. In a meta-analysis, it is common practice to gauge the degree of data heterogeneity using the I 2 value, and I 2 ≥ 50% is typically understood to denote medium-high heterogeneity, which calls for the adoption of a random effect model; if not, a fixed effect model ought to be applied (Lipsey and Wilson, 2001 ). The findings of the heterogeneity test in this paper (see Table 2 ) revealed that I 2 was 86% and displayed significant heterogeneity ( P < 0.01). To ensure accuracy and reliability, the overall effect size ought to be calculated utilizing the random effect model.

The analysis of the overall effect size

This meta-analysis utilized a random effect model to examine 79 effect quantities from 36 studies after eliminating heterogeneity. In accordance with Cohen’s criterion (Cohen, 1992 ), it is abundantly clear from the analysis results, which are shown in the forest plot of the overall effect (see Fig. 3 ), that the cumulative impact size of cooperative problem-solving is 0.82, which is statistically significant ( z = 12.78, P < 0.01, 95% CI [0.69, 0.95]), and can encourage learners to practice critical thinking.

This forest plot shows the analysis result of the overall effect size across 36 studies.

In addition, this study examined two distinct dimensions of critical thinking to better understand the precise contributions that collaborative problem-solving makes to the growth of critical thinking. The findings (see Table 3 ) indicate that collaborative problem-solving improves cognitive skills (ES = 0.70) and attitudinal tendency (ES = 1.17), with significant intergroup differences (chi 2 = 7.95, P < 0.01). Although collaborative problem-solving improves both dimensions of critical thinking, it is essential to point out that the improvements in students’ attitudinal tendency are much more pronounced and have a significant comprehensive effect (ES = 1.17, z = 7.62, P < 0.01, 95% CI [0.87, 1.47]), whereas gains in learners’ cognitive skill are slightly improved and are just above average. (ES = 0.70, z = 11.55, P < 0.01, 95% CI [0.58, 0.82]).

The analysis of moderator effect size

The whole forest plot’s 79 effect quantities underwent a two-tailed test, which revealed significant heterogeneity ( I 2 = 86%, z = 12.78, P < 0.01), indicating differences between various effect sizes that may have been influenced by moderating factors other than sampling error. Therefore, exploring possible moderating factors that might produce considerable heterogeneity was done using subgroup analysis, such as the learning stage, learning scaffold, teaching type, group size, duration of the intervention, measuring tool, and the subject area included in the 36 experimental designs, in order to further explore the key factors that influence critical thinking. The findings (see Table 4 ) indicate that various moderating factors have advantageous effects on critical thinking. In this situation, the subject area (chi 2 = 13.36, P < 0.05), group size (chi 2 = 8.77, P < 0.05), intervention duration (chi 2 = 12.18, P < 0.01), learning scaffold (chi 2 = 9.03, P < 0.01), and teaching type (chi 2 = 7.20, P < 0.05) are all significant moderators that can be applied to support the cultivation of critical thinking. However, since the learning stage and the measuring tools did not significantly differ among intergroup (chi 2 = 3.15, P = 0.21 > 0.05, and chi 2 = 0.08, P = 0.78 > 0.05), we are unable to explain why these two factors are crucial in supporting the cultivation of critical thinking in the context of collaborative problem-solving. These are the precise outcomes, as follows:

Various learning stages influenced critical thinking positively, without significant intergroup differences (chi 2 = 3.15, P = 0.21 > 0.05). High school was first on the list of effect sizes (ES = 1.36, P < 0.01), then higher education (ES = 0.78, P < 0.01), and middle school (ES = 0.73, P < 0.01). These results show that, despite the learning stage’s beneficial influence on cultivating learners’ critical thinking, we are unable to explain why it is essential for cultivating critical thinking in the context of collaborative problem-solving.

Different teaching types had varying degrees of positive impact on critical thinking, with significant intergroup differences (chi 2 = 7.20, P < 0.05). The effect size was ranked as follows: mixed courses (ES = 1.34, P < 0.01), integrated courses (ES = 0.81, P < 0.01), and independent courses (ES = 0.27, P < 0.01). These results indicate that the most effective approach to cultivate critical thinking utilizing collaborative problem solving is through the teaching type of mixed courses.

Various intervention durations significantly improved critical thinking, and there were significant intergroup differences (chi 2 = 12.18, P < 0.01). The effect sizes related to this variable showed a tendency to increase with longer intervention durations. The improvement in critical thinking reached a significant level (ES = 0.85, P < 0.01) after more than 12 weeks of training. These findings indicate that the intervention duration and critical thinking’s impact are positively correlated, with a longer intervention duration having a greater effect.

Different learning scaffolds influenced critical thinking positively, with significant intergroup differences (chi 2 = 9.03, P < 0.01). The resource-supported learning scaffold (ES = 0.69, P < 0.01) acquired a medium-to-higher level of impact, the technique-supported learning scaffold (ES = 0.63, P < 0.01) also attained a medium-to-higher level of impact, and the teacher-supported learning scaffold (ES = 0.92, P < 0.01) displayed a high level of significant impact. These results show that the learning scaffold with teacher support has the greatest impact on cultivating critical thinking.

Various group sizes influenced critical thinking positively, and the intergroup differences were statistically significant (chi 2 = 8.77, P < 0.05). Critical thinking showed a general declining trend with increasing group size. The overall effect size of 2–3 people in this situation was the biggest (ES = 0.99, P < 0.01), and when the group size was greater than 7 people, the improvement in critical thinking was at the lower-middle level (ES < 0.5, P < 0.01). These results show that the impact on critical thinking is positively connected with group size, and as group size grows, so does the overall impact.

Various measuring tools influenced critical thinking positively, with significant intergroup differences (chi 2 = 0.08, P = 0.78 > 0.05). In this situation, the self-adapting measurement tools obtained an upper-medium level of effect (ES = 0.78), whereas the complete effect size of the standardized measurement tools was the largest, achieving a significant level of effect (ES = 0.84, P < 0.01). These results show that, despite the beneficial influence of the measuring tool on cultivating critical thinking, we are unable to explain why it is crucial in fostering the growth of critical thinking by utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

Different subject areas had a greater impact on critical thinking, and the intergroup differences were statistically significant (chi 2 = 13.36, P < 0.05). Mathematics had the greatest overall impact, achieving a significant level of effect (ES = 1.68, P < 0.01), followed by science (ES = 1.25, P < 0.01) and medical science (ES = 0.87, P < 0.01), both of which also achieved a significant level of effect. Programming technology was the least effective (ES = 0.39, P < 0.01), only having a medium-low degree of effect compared to education (ES = 0.72, P < 0.01) and other fields (such as language, art, and social sciences) (ES = 0.58, P < 0.01). These results suggest that scientific fields (e.g., mathematics, science) may be the most effective subject areas for cultivating critical thinking utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

The effectiveness of collaborative problem solving with regard to teaching critical thinking

According to this meta-analysis, using collaborative problem-solving as an intervention strategy in critical thinking teaching has a considerable amount of impact on cultivating learners’ critical thinking as a whole and has a favorable promotional effect on the two dimensions of critical thinking. According to certain studies, collaborative problem solving, the most frequently used critical thinking teaching strategy in curriculum instruction can considerably enhance students’ critical thinking (e.g., Liang et al., 2017 ; Liu et al., 2020 ; Cindy, 2004 ). This meta-analysis provides convergent data support for the above research views. Thus, the findings of this meta-analysis not only effectively address the first research query regarding the overall effect of cultivating critical thinking and its impact on the two dimensions of critical thinking (i.e., attitudinal tendency and cognitive skills) utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving, but also enhance our confidence in cultivating critical thinking by using collaborative problem-solving intervention approach in the context of classroom teaching.

Furthermore, the associated improvements in attitudinal tendency are much stronger, but the corresponding improvements in cognitive skill are only marginally better. According to certain studies, cognitive skill differs from the attitudinal tendency in classroom instruction; the cultivation and development of the former as a key ability is a process of gradual accumulation, while the latter as an attitude is affected by the context of the teaching situation (e.g., a novel and exciting teaching approach, challenging and rewarding tasks) (Halpern, 2001 ; Wei and Hong, 2022 ). Collaborative problem-solving as a teaching approach is exciting and interesting, as well as rewarding and challenging; because it takes the learners as the focus and examines problems with poor structure in real situations, and it can inspire students to fully realize their potential for problem-solving, which will significantly improve their attitudinal tendency toward solving problems (Liu et al., 2020 ). Similar to how collaborative problem-solving influences attitudinal tendency, attitudinal tendency impacts cognitive skill when attempting to solve a problem (Liu et al., 2020 ; Zhang et al., 2022 ), and stronger attitudinal tendencies are associated with improved learning achievement and cognitive ability in students (Sison, 2008 ; Zhang et al., 2022 ). It can be seen that the two specific dimensions of critical thinking as well as critical thinking as a whole are affected by collaborative problem-solving, and this study illuminates the nuanced links between cognitive skills and attitudinal tendencies with regard to these two dimensions of critical thinking. To fully develop students’ capacity for critical thinking, future empirical research should pay closer attention to cognitive skills.

The moderating effects of collaborative problem solving with regard to teaching critical thinking

In order to further explore the key factors that influence critical thinking, exploring possible moderating effects that might produce considerable heterogeneity was done using subgroup analysis. The findings show that the moderating factors, such as the teaching type, learning stage, group size, learning scaffold, duration of the intervention, measuring tool, and the subject area included in the 36 experimental designs, could all support the cultivation of collaborative problem-solving in critical thinking. Among them, the effect size differences between the learning stage and measuring tool are not significant, which does not explain why these two factors are crucial in supporting the cultivation of critical thinking utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

In terms of the learning stage, various learning stages influenced critical thinking positively without significant intergroup differences, indicating that we are unable to explain why it is crucial in fostering the growth of critical thinking.

Although high education accounts for 70.89% of all empirical studies performed by researchers, high school may be the appropriate learning stage to foster students’ critical thinking by utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving since it has the largest overall effect size. This phenomenon may be related to student’s cognitive development, which needs to be further studied in follow-up research.

With regard to teaching type, mixed course teaching may be the best teaching method to cultivate students’ critical thinking. Relevant studies have shown that in the actual teaching process if students are trained in thinking methods alone, the methods they learn are isolated and divorced from subject knowledge, which is not conducive to their transfer of thinking methods; therefore, if students’ thinking is trained only in subject teaching without systematic method training, it is challenging to apply to real-world circumstances (Ruggiero, 2012 ; Hu and Liu, 2015 ). Teaching critical thinking as mixed course teaching in parallel to other subject teachings can achieve the best effect on learners’ critical thinking, and explicit critical thinking instruction is more effective than less explicit critical thinking instruction (Bensley and Spero, 2014 ).

In terms of the intervention duration, with longer intervention times, the overall effect size shows an upward tendency. Thus, the intervention duration and critical thinking’s impact are positively correlated. Critical thinking, as a key competency for students in the 21st century, is difficult to get a meaningful improvement in a brief intervention duration. Instead, it could be developed over a lengthy period of time through consistent teaching and the progressive accumulation of knowledge (Halpern, 2001 ; Hu and Liu, 2015 ). Therefore, future empirical studies ought to take these restrictions into account throughout a longer period of critical thinking instruction.

With regard to group size, a group size of 2–3 persons has the highest effect size, and the comprehensive effect size decreases with increasing group size in general. This outcome is in line with some research findings; as an example, a group composed of two to four members is most appropriate for collaborative learning (Schellens and Valcke, 2006 ). However, the meta-analysis results also indicate that once the group size exceeds 7 people, small groups cannot produce better interaction and performance than large groups. This may be because the learning scaffolds of technique support, resource support, and teacher support improve the frequency and effectiveness of interaction among group members, and a collaborative group with more members may increase the diversity of views, which is helpful to cultivate critical thinking utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

With regard to the learning scaffold, the three different kinds of learning scaffolds can all enhance critical thinking. Among them, the teacher-supported learning scaffold has the largest overall effect size, demonstrating the interdependence of effective learning scaffolds and collaborative problem-solving. This outcome is in line with some research findings; as an example, a successful strategy is to encourage learners to collaborate, come up with solutions, and develop critical thinking skills by using learning scaffolds (Reiser, 2004 ; Xu et al., 2022 ); learning scaffolds can lower task complexity and unpleasant feelings while also enticing students to engage in learning activities (Wood et al., 2006 ); learning scaffolds are designed to assist students in using learning approaches more successfully to adapt the collaborative problem-solving process, and the teacher-supported learning scaffolds have the greatest influence on critical thinking in this process because they are more targeted, informative, and timely (Xu et al., 2022 ).

With respect to the measuring tool, despite the fact that standardized measurement tools (such as the WGCTA, CCTT, and CCTST) have been acknowledged as trustworthy and effective by worldwide experts, only 54.43% of the research included in this meta-analysis adopted them for assessment, and the results indicated no intergroup differences. These results suggest that not all teaching circumstances are appropriate for measuring critical thinking using standardized measurement tools. “The measuring tools for measuring thinking ability have limits in assessing learners in educational situations and should be adapted appropriately to accurately assess the changes in learners’ critical thinking.”, according to Simpson and Courtney ( 2002 , p. 91). As a result, in order to more fully and precisely gauge how learners’ critical thinking has evolved, we must properly modify standardized measuring tools based on collaborative problem-solving learning contexts.

With regard to the subject area, the comprehensive effect size of science departments (e.g., mathematics, science, medical science) is larger than that of language arts and social sciences. Some recent international education reforms have noted that critical thinking is a basic part of scientific literacy. Students with scientific literacy can prove the rationality of their judgment according to accurate evidence and reasonable standards when they face challenges or poorly structured problems (Kyndt et al., 2013 ), which makes critical thinking crucial for developing scientific understanding and applying this understanding to practical problem solving for problems related to science, technology, and society (Yore et al., 2007 ).

Suggestions for critical thinking teaching

Other than those stated in the discussion above, the following suggestions are offered for critical thinking instruction utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

First, teachers should put a special emphasis on the two core elements, which are collaboration and problem-solving, to design real problems based on collaborative situations. This meta-analysis provides evidence to support the view that collaborative problem-solving has a strong synergistic effect on promoting students’ critical thinking. Asking questions about real situations and allowing learners to take part in critical discussions on real problems during class instruction are key ways to teach critical thinking rather than simply reading speculative articles without practice (Mulnix, 2012 ). Furthermore, the improvement of students’ critical thinking is realized through cognitive conflict with other learners in the problem situation (Yang et al., 2008 ). Consequently, it is essential for teachers to put a special emphasis on the two core elements, which are collaboration and problem-solving, and design real problems and encourage students to discuss, negotiate, and argue based on collaborative problem-solving situations.

Second, teachers should design and implement mixed courses to cultivate learners’ critical thinking, utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving. Critical thinking can be taught through curriculum instruction (Kuncel, 2011 ; Leng and Lu, 2020 ), with the goal of cultivating learners’ critical thinking for flexible transfer and application in real problem-solving situations. This meta-analysis shows that mixed course teaching has a highly substantial impact on the cultivation and promotion of learners’ critical thinking. Therefore, teachers should design and implement mixed course teaching with real collaborative problem-solving situations in combination with the knowledge content of specific disciplines in conventional teaching, teach methods and strategies of critical thinking based on poorly structured problems to help students master critical thinking, and provide practical activities in which students can interact with each other to develop knowledge construction and critical thinking utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

Third, teachers should be more trained in critical thinking, particularly preservice teachers, and they also should be conscious of the ways in which teachers’ support for learning scaffolds can promote critical thinking. The learning scaffold supported by teachers had the greatest impact on learners’ critical thinking, in addition to being more directive, targeted, and timely (Wood et al., 2006 ). Critical thinking can only be effectively taught when teachers recognize the significance of critical thinking for students’ growth and use the proper approaches while designing instructional activities (Forawi, 2016 ). Therefore, with the intention of enabling teachers to create learning scaffolds to cultivate learners’ critical thinking utilizing the approach of collaborative problem solving, it is essential to concentrate on the teacher-supported learning scaffolds and enhance the instruction for teaching critical thinking to teachers, especially preservice teachers.

Implications and limitations

There are certain limitations in this meta-analysis, but future research can correct them. First, the search languages were restricted to English and Chinese, so it is possible that pertinent studies that were written in other languages were overlooked, resulting in an inadequate number of articles for review. Second, these data provided by the included studies are partially missing, such as whether teachers were trained in the theory and practice of critical thinking, the average age and gender of learners, and the differences in critical thinking among learners of various ages and genders. Third, as is typical for review articles, more studies were released while this meta-analysis was being done; therefore, it had a time limit. With the development of relevant research, future studies focusing on these issues are highly relevant and needed.

Conclusions

The subject of the magnitude of collaborative problem-solving’s impact on fostering students’ critical thinking, which received scant attention from other studies, was successfully addressed by this study. The question of the effectiveness of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking was addressed in this study, which addressed a topic that had gotten little attention in earlier research. The following conclusions can be made:

Regarding the results obtained, collaborative problem solving is an effective teaching approach to foster learners’ critical thinking, with a significant overall effect size (ES = 0.82, z = 12.78, P < 0.01, 95% CI [0.69, 0.95]). With respect to the dimensions of critical thinking, collaborative problem-solving can significantly and effectively improve students’ attitudinal tendency, and the comprehensive effect is significant (ES = 1.17, z = 7.62, P < 0.01, 95% CI [0.87, 1.47]); nevertheless, it falls short in terms of improving students’ cognitive skills, having only an upper-middle impact (ES = 0.70, z = 11.55, P < 0.01, 95% CI [0.58, 0.82]).

As demonstrated by both the results and the discussion, there are varying degrees of beneficial effects on students’ critical thinking from all seven moderating factors, which were found across 36 studies. In this context, the teaching type (chi 2 = 7.20, P < 0.05), intervention duration (chi 2 = 12.18, P < 0.01), subject area (chi 2 = 13.36, P < 0.05), group size (chi 2 = 8.77, P < 0.05), and learning scaffold (chi 2 = 9.03, P < 0.01) all have a positive impact on critical thinking, and they can be viewed as important moderating factors that affect how critical thinking develops. Since the learning stage (chi 2 = 3.15, P = 0.21 > 0.05) and measuring tools (chi 2 = 0.08, P = 0.78 > 0.05) did not demonstrate any significant intergroup differences, we are unable to explain why these two factors are crucial in supporting the cultivation of critical thinking in the context of collaborative problem-solving.

Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included within the article and its supplementary information files, and the supplementary information files are available in the Dataverse repository: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/IPFJO6 .

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the graduate scientific research and innovation project of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region named “Research on in-depth learning of high school information technology courses for the cultivation of computing thinking” (No. XJ2022G190) and the independent innovation fund project for doctoral students of the College of Educational Science of Xinjiang Normal University named “Research on project-based teaching of high school information technology courses from the perspective of discipline core literacy” (No. XJNUJKYA2003).

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Xu, E., Wang, W. & Wang, Q. The effectiveness of collaborative problem solving in promoting students’ critical thinking: A meta-analysis based on empirical literature. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 , 16 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01508-1

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Expert vs. novice problem solvers, communicate.

Have students identify specific problems, difficulties, or confusions . Don’t waste time working through problems that students already understand.
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Model the problem solving process rather than just giving students the answer. As you work through the problem, consider how a novice might struggle with the concepts and make your thinking clear
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Try to communicate that the process is more important than the answer so that the student learns that it is OK to not have an instant solution. This is learned through your acceptance of his/her pace of doing things, through your refusal to let anxiety pressure you into giving the right answer, and through your example of problem solving through a step-by step process.

Experts (teachers) in a particular field are often so fluent in solving problems from that field that they can find it difficult to articulate the problem solving principles and strategies they use to novices (students) in their field because these principles and strategies are second nature to the expert. To teach students problem solving skills, a teacher should be aware of principles and strategies of good problem solving in his or her discipline .

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Problem Solving in Technology Education: A Taoist Perspective

Problem Solving in Technology Education: A Taoist Perspective Jim Flowers Problem solving and product design experiences can empower students by presenting unique learning opportunities. Although the problem solving method may have been important to technology education, as well as industrial arts, as far back as the 1920s (Foster, 1994 ), the movement to incorporate more problem solving and product design in technology education kept surfacing in the 1990s. For example, the Commonwealth of Virginia introduced a series of high school technology courses grouped together as Design and Technology (Virginia Department of Education, 1992 ); TIES Magazine's web site offered 70 video tapes "that will support the teaching of design, problem solving and technology" (Ties, 1998 ); the use of design briefs was emphasized (Ritz & Deal, 1992 ); the popularity of a textbook titled Design and Problem Solving in Technology (Hutchinson & Karsnitz, 1994 ) continued to grow; and smiling students and their technological inventions were featured in articles (Edwards, 1996 ), at fairs, and in promotional materials. In the newer approaches to technology education that center on design, students are often asked to design new products. They creatively invent products like: pizza cutters with built-in flashlights; roller skates that work in sand; hats with built-in fans for cooling; and yet another way to store compact discs. Subtly, the definition of technology education has evolved to reflect this movement, since "much technological activity is oriented toward designing and creating new products, technological systems, and environments" (International Technology Education Association, 1996, p.18 ). While there are many definitions of technology (Dyrenfurth, 1991 ), a number of them are oriented toward a product design and problem solving model. Some of these definitions of technology center on "control" over the "human-made and natural environment" to better meet "human needs and wants." For example, Wright and Lauda (1993>) include these elements in their definition of technology as "a body of knowledge and actions, used by people, to apply resources in designing, producing, and using products, structures and systems to extend the human potential for controlling and modifying the natural and human-made environment" ( pp. 3-5 ). This is a shift in meaning from the days of the pump handle lamp and other woodshop projects. Back then, the student often began with a project idea, not with a problem to solve. As this shift in approach occurs, one problem faced by today's teachers of product design is that students tend to subvert a prescribed design process. For example, a typical teacher may ask a student to engage in such a design process, beginning with the student identifying a problem to solve. Often this is a need or want. Next, the student may be asked to gather information and then to formulate many possible solutions to the problem, eventually choosing the best. In reality, some students approach the activity with the thought, "I want to get a CD rack out of this class," or some similar sentiment that begins with one particular solution. In order to satisfy the teacher's requirements, they then craft a need to fit this product idea. While most of their designs are fanciful and lack practical application, a few do, in fact, make sense. However, the entire approach of asking students to design yet another product to satisfy our needs and wants may be misguided, for two reasons. First, few, if any, of today's products are designed (by technology students or professional product designers) to meet actual needs. They are almost always designed to meet open markets, and then human wants can be engineered to meet the product availability. A common joke asks, "If necessity is the mother of invention, how come so many inventions are unnecessary?" The phrase, "The customer is always right," and its more cynical corollary, "Give the customers what they think they want," are not without merit, and have led to economic success for many capitalists. However, the result of product design activities for technology students is that these students learn materialism to an extreme. They are taught that just because something can be invented or produced, it should be. They are taught that creatively designing products is a good thing, regardless of the outcomes. The ultimate criterion for success is money. Second, problem solving and product design are not the same; the best result of a sound problem solving process is often something other than a new product. Maybe the solution to a problem would be a change in corporate policy, new legislation, a consumer education program, or changes in how a product is marketed. These are each examples of design, but it is a system, not a product, that is designed or redesigned. Maybe the best solution is non-action, and acceptance of the situation without change. There have been numerous examples of technological products or "fixes," such as DDT, that have backfired. We need a global citizenry that can entertain a wider variety of solutions than merely a new technological product. Yet if students are told (even tacitly) that their solution must be a physical product or model, then we are restricting their diversity of solutions, and thereby asking them to choose what may not be the best solution. Maybe that approach to problem solving is part of how teachers are taught. Boser ( 1993 ) compared problem solving educational specialists in two groups, technology teacher educators (TECH) and other researchers who were not technology teacher educators (EXT). "Members of the TECH panel tended to rate most highly those procedures practiced within the field, such as design-based problem solving, R & D experiences, and innovation activities. EXT panelists considered techniques such as simulation and case study, which are perhaps more widely used in content areas outside of technology education, as appropriate delivery vehicles for the recommended problem solving procedures," stated Boser. Some might point to a definition of technology and argue that the goal of technological acts is control over the environment to meet our needs and wants. But does technology really give control over the environment? Or is this just one western (or stereotypically male) approach? Surely technology education should accommodate people of different religions and belief systems. Yet, there may be a bias against certain belief systems because of the underlying and unquestioned assumptions inherent in a definition of technology and a rationale of technology education. A Taoist philosophy is summarized in the Tao Te Ching, translated here from Lao Tsu's words ( 1972 ) from 6th Century BC China. The numbers in parentheses correspond to the reference numbers in the actual document. Lao Tsu suggested that less and less should be done "until non-action is achieved. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. The world is ruled by letting things take their course. It cannot be ruled by interfering" (#48). The philosophy of Taoism, like some other belief systems, does not put humans on an adversarial battleground with nature. Instead, a harmonious existence is thought to be a proper relationship. "Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it? I do not believe it can be done. The universe is sacred. You cannot improve it. If you try to change it, you will ruin it. If you try to hold it, you will lose it" (#29). It is difficult to delineate the separation between human and nature, and just as difficult to find the real difference between the human-made and natural environments. It is nearly impossible to name any terrestrial environment that is all human-made (without having been affected by the sun, for example), or one that has not been influenced by humans. These distinctions seem to isolate people from the world around them in an "unnatural" way. Yet, definitions of technology often attempt to make just such a distinction. From a Taoist perspective, some definitions of technology seem more like creeds about the nature and purpose of humans. A host of values dominant in much western culture are de-emphasized in Taoist texts, including materialism: "Having and not having arise together" (#2); "One gains by losing and loses by gaining" (#42); one "who knows that enough is enough will always have enough" (#46); and one "who is attached to things will suffer much" (#44). It is common for western students to strive to improve, to take pride in their work, and to expect and receive praise. Yet, Lao Tsu suggests, "Working, yet not taking credit. Work is done, then forgotten. Therefore it lasts forever" (#2), and "Not exalting the gifted prevents quarreling" (#3). Technology students are especially encouraged to be innovative, and to want to improve the current situation (or solve the problem): "Give up ingenuity, renounce profit, and bandits and thieves will disappear" (#19); "Without desire there is tranquility" (#37). It is especially difficult for educators to question the value of education itself, but Taoism does: "In the pursuit of learning every day something is acquired. In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped" (#48); and "Give up learning and put an end to your troubles" (#20). While some Taoist doctrines may cause some to discount the entire philosophy, that would be a mistake. Instead, it would be better to see what questions are raised by such a stance. The emphasis on design in technology education may be related to the current abundance and diversity of technical artifacts. Would more artifacts be an improvement? While there are positive and negative outcomes of nearly any technological change, we should question the assumption that more is better. Does a major league pitcher concentrate on new baseball prototypes? No. The pitcher practices and experiments with the art of pitching, often hoping to achieve just a fraction of the skill enjoyed by some of the great pitchers in the history of the game. The aim is "the essence of pitching." However, technology is an important factor. As the clap-skate was introduced to Olympic speed skating competitions in 1998, the athletes altered their notion of "the essence of speed skating." As technology becomes more transparent to the end user, the user is required to know less technical information to use the technology. A few decades ago, computer programming was being pushed in the public schools. Now, the emphasis is more on the use of professionally prepared programs. Software is updated so often that it can be difficult to develop comfort with one particular version. This has let to some computer users feeling more comfortable with an older, and sometimes more reliable, version of a program. Their goal may not be to use the most advanced word processing program, but to write. Is the goal to achieve a sustainable future, or to keep accelerating? "There is no greater sin than desire, no greater curse than discontent, no greater misfortune than wanting something for oneself. Therefore [one] who knows that enough is enough will always have enough" (#46). Are there enough designs? Is there enough technology? Would it be possible to reconcile technology, technology education, and a Taoist perspective? Yes. But technology would not be the essence of human control over others and the environment. It would not be a master, but a tool. The goal would not be materialistic or technological, but to live life on a harmonious path. Will that entail problem solving and technology? Yes, but the goal of the problem solving activity may not be what it seems. Recommendations Therefore, I suggest a different approach to teaching problem solving in technology education. Students should be encouraged to concentrate not on whimsical wants or fanciful products. They should apply their considerable problem solving skills to improving the human condition, and the condition of non-humans, sometimes in spite of what some people want or think they want. They should be encouraged to find solutions from a broad range of technological and non-technological realms. Effective and responsible national leaders and corporate executives are those with enough backbone to do what they believe is best for the nation or corporation, in spite of mass opinion. They are not afraid to upset people, even friends, if these people had to be upset by the leader's pursuit of their course. While they may be mindful of the concerns of the workers, citizens, consumers, etc., they are willing to lose their job because they did what they thought was best, in spite of common opinion. The solutions (i.e., way) they choose are holistic, sometimes relying more on technology, other times involved with laws, communication, and other social arenas. They do not blindly accept the premise that their current product or service is the single best solution to a problem. They "know when enough is enough," and when the choice to not pursue a technological avenue is the wisest choice. If this is the type of person a technology teacher hopes their students will become, then specific educational experiences should be designed to empower students with those independent, risk-taking abilities where the goal is what is best, not necessarily only what the clients want or think they want. They must practice the skills involved in deciding when the best path may not be a new technological product. Teaching problem solving in technology education will continue to offer students invaluable learning experiences. The suggestion is that the focus and procedure be allowed to shift. This can be directed by how the teacher helps the student select a problem and frame the context of a problem. Here are four examples of situations a teacher may pose for students. In Costa Rica, some of the urban-dwellers move into the dwindling tropical rainforest, clear an area of trees, and try to live a better life than they had in the city. In Ghana, there is a shortage of skilled industrial workers, yet many of the students in Ghana's trade schools consider such jobs beneath their qualifications. In New York, a woman who played guitar and piano for many years has to give up these instruments because the guitar causes problems with her neck and back, and both instruments have resulted in carpal tunnel syndrome. In Delaware, a wife and husband in their seventies were given their first VCR, but the instructions sounded too intimidating for them to actually play or record a tape. In each example, there is a statement of a situation that might (or might not) be improved by a creative solution. Some solutions may be technological, but maybe the best solution is not technological. Students should examine such situations (both big and small, near and far, individual and societal) and use their creative problem solving abilities to try to plan what is best. This means weighing short-term gains and costs with long-term gains and costs. It means asking what is best: best for the individual, for the culture, for future generations, and for the environment. It means considering educational reform, personal lifestyle changes, new technology, and governmental action. The Japan External Trade Organization (1998) concluded that "a fundamental gap exists between the way Japanese companies and many of their overseas partners, especially in the West, view problems." Greater attention to both the diverse views of problem solving and to holistic approaches may improve the benefits of education in problem solving. Oddly, this more holistic approach to problem solving is contrary to popular belief and some research results: The tendency in education has been to employ the term "problem solving" generically to include such diverse activities as coping with marital problems and trouble-shooting electronic circuits. The results of this study suggest that such generalization may be inappropriate. Instead, problem solving should be viewed as nature specific. In other words, different types of problem situations (e.g., personal or technological) require different kinds and levels of knowledge and capability. This is substantiated by this study's findings that individuals manifest different style characteristics when addressing problems of different natures. (Wu, Custer, & Dyrenfurth, 1996, p.69) However, the best solution to a technological problem may be non- technological. Students who are practiced in considering this wider range of alternatives will be better prepared to face the demands of global citizenry than those who merely make yet another CD rack. A technology teacher can incorporate elements of a Taoist approach in subtle ways. These may include less emphasis on the product, less praise (from an external source), acceptance of some situations as they are, and an attitude of doing something because it needs to be done, and then moving on. There would certainly be less emphasis for some on solving problems by designing new products. Finally, it is critical for a technology teacher to revisit their definition and philosophy of technology, analyzing its assumptions and bias. That definition should be individually crafted by that teacher, so that it is honest and accurate, and accommodates a variety of belief systems. That definition can lay the path for a wondrous technological journey for the student and teacher. References Boser, R. (1993). The development of problem solving capabilities in pre-service technology teacher education. Journal of Technology Education, 4(2). Dyrenfurth, M. J. (1991) . Technological literacy synthesized. In M. J. Dyrenfurth & M. R. Kozak (Eds.), Technological literacy. 40th Yearbook, Council on Technology Teacher Education. Peoria, IL: Glencoe. Edwards, D. (1996). Design technology exhibit. The Technology Teacher, 55(8), 14-16. Foster, P. (1994). Technology education: AKA industrial arts. Journal of Technology Education , 5(2). Hutchinson, J., and Karsnitz, J. (1994). Design and problem solving in technology. Albany, NY: Delmar. International Technology Education Association. (1996). Technology for all Americans: A rationale and structure for the study of technology. Reston, VA: Author. Japan External Trade Organization. (1998). Problem solving. Retrieved April 23, 1998 from the World Wide Web: http://www.jetro.go.jp/ Negotiating/6.html Lao Tsu. (1972). Tao te ching (Gia-Fu Feng & J. English, Trans.). Westminster, MD: Random House. (Original work 6th Century BC) Ritz, J. R., & Deal, W. F. (1992). Design briefs: Writing dynamic learning activities. The Technology Teacher, 54(5), 33-34. TIES. (1998). Ties - The magazine of design and technology. Retrieved on February 12, 1998 from the World Wide Web: http://www.TCNJ.EDU/ ~ties/ Virginia Department of Education. (1992). Design and technology: Teacher's guide for high school technology education. Richmond, VA: Author. Wright, R. T. , & Lauda, D. P. (1993). Technology education - A position statement. The Technology Teacher, 52(4), 3-5. Wu, T., Custer, R. L., & Dyrenfurth, M. J. (1996). Technological and personal problem solving styles: Is there a difference? Journal of Technology Education , 7(2), 55-71. Jim Flowers is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industry and Technology, Ball State University, Muncie, IN.

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Jessica Grose

Every tech tool in the classroom should be ruthlessly evaluated.

By Jessica Grose

Opinion Writer

Educational technology in schools is sometimes described as a wicked problem — a term coined by a design and planning professor, Horst Rittel, in the 1960s , meaning a problem for which even defining the scope of the dilemma is a struggle, because it has so many interconnected parts that never stop moving.

When you have a wicked problem, solutions have to be holistic, flexible and developmentally appropriate. Which is to say that appropriate tech use for elementary schoolers in rural Oklahoma isn’t going to be the same as appropriate tech use in a Chicago high school.

I spent the past few weeks speaking with parents, teachers, public school administrators and academics who study educational technology. And while there are certainly benefits to using tech as a classroom tool, I’m convinced that when it comes to the proliferation of tech in K-12 education, we need “ a hard reset ,” as Julia Freeland Fisher of the Christensen Institute put it, concurring with Jonathan Haidt in his call for rolling back the “phone-based childhood.” When we recently spoke, Fisher stressed that when we weigh the benefits of ed tech, we’re often not asking, “What’s happening when it comes to connectedness and well-being?”

Well said. We need a complete rethink of the ways that we’re evaluating and using tech in classrooms; the overall change that I want to see is that tech use in schools — devices and apps — should be driven by educators, not tech companies.

In recent years, tech companies have provided their products to schools either free or cheap , and then schools have tried to figure out how to use those products. Wherever that dynamic exists, it should be reversed: Districts and individual schools should first figure out what tech would be most useful to their students, and their bar for “useful” should be set by available data and teacher experience. Only then should they acquire laptops, tablets and educational software.

As Mesut Duran — a professor of educational technology at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, and the author of “Learning Technologies: Research, Trends and Issues in the U.S. Education System” — told me, a lot of the technology that’s used in classrooms wasn’t developed with students in mind. “Most of the technologies are initially created for commercial purposes,” he said, “and then we decide how to use them in schools.”

In many cases, there’s little or no evidence that the products actually work, and “work” can have various meanings here: It’s not conclusive that tech, as opposed to hard-copy materials, improves educational outcomes. And sometimes devices or programs simply don’t function the way they’re supposed to. For example, artificial intelligence in education is all the rage, but then we get headlines like this one, in February, from The Wall Street Journal: “ We Tested an A.I. Tutor for Kids. It Struggled With Basic Math. ”

Alex Molnar, one of the directors of the National Educational Policy Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said that every school should be asking if the tech it’s using is both necessary and good. “The tech industry’s ethos is: If it’s doable, it is necessary. But for educators, that has to be an actual question: Is this necessary?” Even after you’ve cleared the bar of necessary, he said, educators should be asking, “Is doing it this way good, or could we do it another way that would be better? Better in the ethical sense and the pedagogical sense.”

With that necessary and good standard in mind, here are some specific recommendations that I’ve taken away from several discussions and a lot of reading. It’s unrealistic — and considering that we’re in a tech-saturated world, not ideal — to get rid of every last bit of educational technology. But we’re currently failing too many children by letting it run rampant.

At the State and Federal Levels: Privacy Protections and Better Evaluation

A complaint I heard from many public school parents who responded to my March 27 questionnaire and wanted a lower-tech environment for their kids is that they’re concerned about their children’s privacy. They couldn’t opt out of things like Google Classroom, they said, because in many cases, all of their children’s homework assignments were posted there. Molnar has a radical but elegant solution for this problem: “All data gathered must be destroyed after its intended purpose has been accomplished.” So if the intended purpose of a platform or application is grading, for example, the data would be destroyed at the end of the school year; it couldn’t be sold to a third party or used to further enhance the product or as a training ground for artificial intelligence.

Another recommendation — from a recent paper by the University of Edinburgh’s Ben Williamson, Molnar and the University of Colorado, Boulder’s Faith Boninger outlining the risks of A.I. in the classroom — is for the creation of an “independent government entity charged with ensuring the quality of digital educational products used in schools” that would evaluate tech before it is put into schools and “periodically thereafter.” Because the technology is always evolving, our oversight of it needs to be, as well.

At the District Level: Centralize the Tech-Vetting Process

Stephanie Sheron is the chief of strategic initiatives for the Montgomery County Public Schools, the largest district in Maryland, and all the district’s technology departments report to her. She likened the tech landscape, coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic remote school period, to the “Wild West.” School districts were flooded with different kinds of ed tech in an emergency situation in which teachers were desperately trying to engage their students, and a lot of relief money was pouring in from the federal government. When the dust settled, she said, the question was, “Now what do we do? How do we control this? How do we make sure that we’re in alignment with FERPA and COPPA and all of those other student data privacy components?”

To address this, Sheron said, her district has secured grant funding to hire a director of information security, who will function as the hub for all the educational technology vending and evaluate new tech. Part of the standardization that the district has been undergoing is a requirement that to be considered, curriculum vendors must offer both digital and hard-copy resources. She said her district tried to look at tech as a tool, adding: “A pencil is a tool for learning, but it’s not the only modality. Same thing with technology. We look at it as a tool, not as the main driver of the educational experience.”

At the Classroom Level: Ruthlessly Evaluate Every Tool

In my conversations with teachers, I’ve been struck by their descriptions of the cascade of tech use — that more tech is often offered as a solution to problems created by tech. For example, paid software like GoGuardian, which allows teachers to monitor every child’s screen, has been introduced to solve the problem of students goofing off on their laptops. But there’s a simple, free, low-tech solution to this problem that Doug Showley, a high school English teacher in Indiana I spoke to, employs: He makes all his students face their computer screens in his direction.

Every teacher who is concerned about tech use in his or her classroom should do a tech audit. There are several frameworks ; I like the worksheet created by Beth Pandolpho and Katie Cubano, the authors of “Choose Your Own Master Class: Urgent Ideas to Invigorate Your Professional Learning.” In the chapter “Balancing Technology Use in the Classroom,” they suggest that teachers list every tech tool they are using and evaluate its specific functions, asking, “Are these novel or duplicative?” They also encourage teachers to write out a defense of the tool and the frequency of use.

I like these questions because they make clear that the solutions are not going to be one size fits all.

Students Deserve Authentic Connection

As I close out this series, I want to return to what Fisher said about the importance of student connection and well-being. Of course academic outcomes matter. I want our kids to learn as much about as many different topics as they can. I care about falling test scores and think they’re an important piece of data.

But test scores are only one kind of information. A key lesson we should have learned from 2020 and ’21 is that school is about so much more than just academics. It’s about socialization, critical thinking, community and learning how to coexist with people who are different from you. I don’t know that all of these are things that can be tracked in a scientific way, which brings me back to the idea of tech in schools as a wicked problem: These aren’t easily measurable outcomes.

Jeff Frank, a professor of education at St. Lawrence University, expresses a sense that I’ve had very well in a paper , “Sounding the Call to Teach in a Social Media Age: Renewing the Importance of Philosophy in Teacher Education.” He says students are “hungry for experiences that make them feel alive and authentically connected to other people and to deeper sources of value. Though filtering and managing life through technologies offers safety, predictability and a sense of control, it also leads to life that can feel extremely small, constraining and lonely. Teaching can offer a powerful way to pierce this bubble.”

Ultimately, I believe the only way kids will be able to find that deeper meaning is through human relationships with their peers and teachers, no matter how shiny an A.I. tutor appears to be at first blush.

Jessica Grose is an Opinion writer for The Times, covering family, religion, education, culture and the way we live now.

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Gen Z Students Declare “This Is The Way” to Champion Accessibility, Preserve Endangered Indigenous Languages & Save the Planet

Three schools named national winners in samsung solve for tomorrow stem competition for using ai, 3d printing & robotics to address community challenges, each winning $100k in prizes.

samsung-solve-for-tomorrow-group-photo-2024

Today, Samsung Electronics America named the three National Winners in the 14 th annual Samsung Solve for Tomorrow competition. The competition challenges public school students in grades 6-12 to apply science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills to address pressing local issues and create positive change within their communities. The National Winners are Brandywine High School from Wilmington, DE; Hoover High School from Hoover, AL; and Princeton High School from Princeton, NJ, as announced by Samsung Electronics America President and CEO KS Choi at a celebration held at the Samsung DC office.

Every year, Solve for Tomorrow awards more than $2 million in Samsung technology and classroom supplies to participating public schools throughout the U.S. The National Winners, selected from the 10 National Finalists , each received a prize package worth $100,000, while the remaining seven National Finalists were awarded $50,000 packages. Four additional Solve for Tomorrow awards were presented to the Gen Z student teams.

Bipartisan Leaders Rally for STEM Education

Three members of Congress participated in the ceremony, championing the students’ community solutions, and displaying refreshing bipartisan support for STEM education: Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Congressman Jay Obernolte (R-CA), and Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE). These distinguished lawmakers were also honored with STEM Champion Awards from Samsung in recognition of their efforts to advance STEM pursuits in their states.

Panel Explores the Intersection of Technology, Accessibility & Inclusive Design

Expanding on the accessibility theme prevalent in some of the students’ STEM solutions, Samsung Electronics America CMO Allison Stransky hosted a discussion about inclusive design featuring distinguished guests Anna Johannes , U.S. Paralympic Bronze Medalist and Inclusive Design Strategist at Interbrand, and Rachel Sanford Nemeth , CTA Senior Director of Regulatory Affairs. The session underscores Samsung’s belief that with approximately 1.3 billion people worldwide experiencing significant disabilities, the imperative for inclusive design has never been more crucial.

Students & Teachers Joined by Other Notable Guest Speakers & Judges

Joining Choi, the government officials, and the panelists were guest speakers Mark Lippert , Executive Vice President of Public Affairs at Samsung Electronics North America; Alix Guerrier , CEO of DonorsChoose – a longtime Samsung Solve for Tomorrow nonprofit partner ; Ryan Harper , Deputy Chief of Staff, White House National Security Council; Meghan Conklin , Chief Sustainability Officer to Maryland Governor Wes Moore; Kevin O’Hanlon , Senior Director, Government Relations, Samsung Electronics America; and Rameen Rana , Investor, Samsung Next. Additionally, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow competition judges included Gene Irisari , Vice President, Public Affairs and Head of Semiconductor Policy, Samsung Electronics America; Dan Kaufman , Director, U.S. Program Policy and Communications, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ; Kevin Lay , Samsung Solve for Tomorrow-winning alum and Lead Physics Instructor, Allen D. Nease High School (Ponte Vedra Beach, FL); Sukhmani Mohta , Vice President, Chief Marketing and Partnerships Officer, Display, Samsung Electronics America; and Rupa Shah , Board Member, App Inventor Foundation .

community-choice-winners-stillwater-middle-school-sft

Stillwater Middle School, 2023-2024 Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Community Choice Winner

“Samsung Solve for Tomorrow provides a unique window into the issues that concern Gen Z, as well as the empathy, dedication, and sheer brilliance they bring to addressing them,” said Ann Woo , Head of Corporate Citizenship, Samsung Electronics America. “I know our judges faced tough choices in picking just three of ten extraordinary solutions to community issues. While the National Winners’ innovations carried the day – equally important were the common threads of compassion, inclusivity, and problem-solving skills displayed in all ten National Finalist pitches.”

Introducing the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2023-2024 National Winners

The three National Winning Gen Z student teams showcased a forward-looking approach to problem-solving through STEM. Their solutions incorporated emerging technology like artificial intelligence (AI), 3D printing, and robotics.

In addition to the National Winners, four other honors were awarded:

Princeton High School, 2023-2024 National Winner

Brandywine High School, 2023-2024 Rising Entrepreneurship Award

Green Street Academy High School, Sustainability Innovation Award Winner, with Meghan Conklin, Chief Sustainability Officer to Maryland Governor Wes Moore

cy-middle-school-employee-choice-award-samsung

CY Middle School, 2023-2024 Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Employee Choice Winner

Hoover High School, 2023-2024 National Winner

Brandywine High School, 2023-2024 National Winner and Rising Entrepreneurship Award, with Congresswoman Lisa Blunt, Rochester

Samsung Solve for Tomorrow launched in 2010 as a way to boost interest, proficiency, and diversity in STEM. The education-based citizenship program has become a catalyst for a change in the perception of STEM, a crucial aspect in fostering a skilled future workforce and informed citizens of the modern world. To date, Solve for Tomorrow has awarded more than $27 million in Samsung technology and classroom supplies to 4,000-plus public schools across the United States.

To learn more about Samsung Solve for Tomorrow, please visit www.samsung.com/solve or follow us on Instagram and Facebook . Applications for the 2024-2025 national STEM competition will open in August.

10 Gen Z Student Teams Present Solutions for Social & Environmental Challenges

*$2 million prize is based on an estimated retail value., media contact.

Corporate Communications (US) [email protected]

Samsung and ScoreVision Elevate Team Sports at Millard Public Schools

Educator Myesha Wallace Outlines 3 Steps to Enhance STEM Inclusivity in Classrooms

Fast Company: Ann Woo on Aligning Your Company's Future of Work with Gen Z’s Preferences

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Women of color still lag behind in STEM jobs, despite efforts to change

Marisa Peñaloza

A mural at the first National STEM Festival held in Washington, D.C., this month shows the purpose of the gathering. High school students from around the country were celebrated for winning a science challenge. Dee Dwyer for NPR hide caption

On a recent Spring weekend 126 high school students from around the country gathered at the first National STEM Festival in Washington, D.C. They are winners of a science challenge organized by EXPLR , an organization that produces and distributes educational materials, including videos and curriculum, for high school students in the U.S.

The winners were here to showcase their projects in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to government and industry leaders.

At the National STEM Festival, 12th-grader Treyonna Sullivan talks with visitors about her "Project Poop," created to encourage pet owners in her community to dispose of their pet's waste. Dee Dwyer for NPR hide caption

At the National STEM Festival, 12th-grader Treyonna Sullivan talks with visitors about her "Project Poop," created to encourage pet owners in her community to dispose of their pet's waste.

There were students like Treyonna Sullivan. She's 17 and a senior at Renaissance High School for Musical Theater in the Arts in the South Bronx, New York.

"My project is called Project Poop," she says, with a big smile. It's a smart trash can that counts the poop dumps put in it. It's a metal, ruby red bucket — when you press the handle the lid opens up and the computer counts the dump.

"We have a huge poop problem in my community," Sullivan says, and she believes that if people could see the daily number of dumps collected, perhaps people would start changing habits and clean up after their pets.

Treyonna Sullivan, 17, is a winner in a national science challenge. She created "Project Poop," a smart trash can that counts the poop dumps put in it. She's from the South Bronx in New York. Dee Dwyer for NPR hide caption

"It's like playing hopscotch to get everywhere, and it sucks because when you step on it, you carry it everywhere. It's just a mess," she says, adding that it's also bad for the environment. "It's not sanitary. And the more that we leave it out there, the more that it pollutes the air." It can also contaminate water when it rains and parasite and pathogen transmission can cause disease, she says.

Sullivan, dressed in a soft pink work suit, shows visitors her prototype of the can.

"It's coded in Python and it has a Raspberry Pi," she says.

Seventh-graders attended the National STEM Festival in D.C. They are, left to right, Makayla Warren, Morgan Locke, Maleah Johnson, Taryn Ward and Jordan Krull. They are part of an after-school STEM program in North Carolina. Dee Dwyer for NPR hide caption

Python is a computer programming language and a Raspberry Pi is a computer the size of a credit card, but with the features of a full computer, she says.

Her plan is to place the trash cans all over the South Bronx, she says. But first Sullivan needs to fundraise to be able to mass produce the smart can.

The South Bronx is known as the birthplace of hip-hop and graffiti. But Congressional district 15 is also the poorest in the country with a 27.7% poverty rate while the national rate is 11.5%, according to the U.S. Census.

Sullivan attends after-school classes at the Renaissance Youth Center , where she learned to code about three years ago, "and I fell in love with it even though it was frustrating at first and it was hard for me to understand everything."

Encouraged by the youth center's director, Sullivan entered the science challenge and she's still pinching herself to be a winner.

"It's incredible!" she says.

Attendees at the festival in Washington, D.C., checked out the science challenge's winning projects. Dee Dwyer for NPR hide caption

She looked up some of her competitors' backgrounds and she thought she didn't have a chance, she says.

"I feel like being able to have Black mentors and see more Black youth like me doing things that aren't really in our comfort zone — that really inspired me."

Sullivan has applied to college, and has already been accepted to several, she says, but she's waiting to hear about financial aid. She plans to study interior design with some aspects of STEM incorporated in design and construction, she says.

Science challenge-winner Nikita Prabhakar from Madison, Alabama, developed a non-invasive integrated sensor to monitor menorrhagia, a type of abnormal bleeding in a menstrual cycle. Dee Dwyer for NPR hide caption

It's hard to break stereotypes

Amid longstanding efforts to increase diversity in these fields, and as STEM jobs are expected to rise in the coming years, women of color remain underrepresented and underpaid in the STEM workforce, according to a Pew Research Center study .

Kuheli Dutt is Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science in Cambridge, MA.

"In STEM fields, research shows that women of color face the most challenges and harassment, both explicit and implicit," Dutt says.

She's the lead author in a 2016 study that looked at gender disparity in recommendation letters and found that regardless of the gender of the letter writer, male applicants were more likely to receive outstanding letters compared to female applicants.

Hannah Coley, an 11th-grader from Stockbridge, Georgia, shows off her project, "The Effect of Fabric in Soil." Dee Dwyer for NPR hide caption

"There is a perception that men are smarter and therefore better at science. Unconscious biases can play out like that," Dutt says. "It starts really early on, and these messages keep getting reinforced over time."

Dutt mentions a 2018 study of children who were asked who was smarter, girls or boys? She says that 5-year-old kids were more likely to respond that their own group was smarter, but at 6, already both girls and boys were more likely to say that boys are smarter.

According to the latest National Science Foundation report, Diversity and STEM: Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities , the workforce in STEM careers is made up of 61% white, 21% Asian, 8% Black, 8% Latino.

Naya Ellis, a 9th-grader, is a native of New Orleans. She developed a stroke detector. Dee Dwyer for NPR hide caption

Now, says Dutt, it's even more important to address equity in STEM early on because of the current backlash against DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) efforts — policies and practices that many schools and companies have adopted to make these spaces more equal for all.

For example, she says, students who come from under-resourced schools don't have the access to opportunities and resources that students from well-resourced schools do, "regardless of their race/ethnicity, there is an equity issue here that needs to be addressed."

Kara Branch, a chemical engineer by training, is the founder and CEO of Black Girls Do Engineer, an organization that empowers and inspires Black girls to go into STEM fields. Dee Dwyer for NPR hide caption

Kara Branch, a chemical engineer by training, is the founder and CEO of Black Girls Do Engineer, an organization that empowers and inspires Black girls to go into STEM fields.

Struck by impostor syndrome: Do I belong here?

Kara Branch is trained as a chemical engineer in Houston. Branch worked in the oil and gas industry as well as in the space industry for several years. She quit because she couldn't shake imposter syndrome.

"I felt like I wasn't wanted. I didn't feel comfortable," says the 34-year-old mother of three daughters. "I went to work every day just feeling like, 'Do I belong here?'"

Branch was raised by a single mother in Port Arthur, Texas, a predominantly disadvantaged Black community that's home to some of the world's largest refineries .

She says that she loved working as a chemical engineer, but she found the industry wasn't very welcoming to her.

A mural at the National STEM Festival in D.C. earlier this month is meant to inspire young people to think how science, technology, engineering and math can create a better world. Dee Dwyer for NPR hide caption

"I feel like I could not be myself," Branch says. "I had to change everything about me to fit in the environment."

"I was used to being myself, being free, being who I was," says Branch, who attended Prairie View A&M University, an HBCU. "But being myself in a corporate environment wasn't really always accepted. And so it was always very hard."

Branch says she's still passionate about the possibilities STEM careers can offer to women of color, but she felt a jolt when one of her daughters expressed interest in these fields.

"When my oldest daughter told me she wanted to come into this space, I wanted to be able to create a space not just for her, but for girls who look like her."

In 2019, Branch left her industry job and created Black Girls Do Engineer . It's a membership-based nonprofit that promotes STEM education and careers for girls.

It's important for Black girls to see professional Black women in the STEM workforce as well as to seek out mentors and allies to succeed, says Branch.

"When you're working on projects, you need to have everybody's perspective, everybody's ideas," she says. "And that comes from diversity."

"How are we going to make technology good for all?" she asks.

Archi Marrapu, 17, excitedly tells visitors about her project. "I usually get ideas based on problems that my family faces," says Marrapu, a junior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology , a magnet school in Alexandria, VA. Dee Dwyer for NPR hide caption

Finding inspiration in solving family problems

Back at the National STEM Festival in D.C., organized by the U.S. Department of Education and EXPLR, 17-year-old Archi Marrapu excitedly tells visitors about her project.

It's an artificial intelligence, or AI-based, system to help people track their daily medicine intake, especially people who take a large amount of pills a day, she says. The focus is on people with a condition like arthritis who may not be able to open a bottle or who have cognitive problems and may forget to take medications, she says.

"I usually get ideas based on problems that my family faces," says Marrapu, a junior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology , a magnet school in Alexandria, VA.

Marrapu's parents emigrated from Hyderabad in South India in the early 2000's, she says. She got interested in robotics and technology in elementary school, where she joined science clubs and competitions.

But it was on a trip to India in 2022 to visit family that Marrapu got the pill tracker idea.

"I was inspired by my grandfather who suffered from a series of heart and brain strokes," she says. "He had so many pills that he couldn't manage it. My grandmother couldn't manage it. It was like a small pharmacy. And I just thought about how important it was for him to make sure he was taking each of those pills."

Archie Marrapu, from Northern Virginia, created a "pill tracker". It's a plastic bottle fitted with ultrasonic sensors and an AI engine that tracks when/if a patient has taken his/her medication, among other things. Dee Dwyer for NPR hide caption

Marrapu's father takes medication to keep his diabetes in check. The pill tracker is designed to include an information section that was inspired by him.

"He really didn't know what other pills he could take with that medication, or if he had any dietary restrictions," she says.

Marrapu says there was a lot of confusion during the first weeks after her dad was put on the medication. The family relied on Google and multiple doctor visits, she says.

"I created a system that would send the user notifications, like, 'you've just taken your pill, please don't consume antacid until 2 hours have passed.' It's a guidance system so that people avoid compromising their medications," she says.

Marrapu knows she wants to study biomedical engineering with a minor in entrepreneurship when she goes to college, and her dream is to work in healthcare, she says.

"To make it more equitable, affordable and accurate as a whole," she says. "Healthcare is something that everyone deserves equally regardless of ethnicity or socioeconomic status."

She exudes self-assuredness and says she is aware of the disadvantages women of color face in STEM, but she's confident her generation will push for change.

"Whether it's talking to industries about hiring more women, giving women more opportunities with more pay, I think that's something women can change. I think women need to believe that they are enough," Marrapu says, emphasizing the word enough . "They can do whatever men can do, and they deserve whatever men do too."

Susie Cummings contributed research to this story.

Cultivating change: TU courses exploring innovative solutions to global problems

Using technology to solve social and environmental issues is one of the world’s greatest social challenges.

Dr Deirdre Garvey: 'We are cognisant of the wider global challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, increasing social inequalities and increased migration and our role as a third-level education provider, in creating awareness, developing agency, and leading by our actions.'

Courses at technological universities have always had a particular focus on hands-on, practical learning that addresses the needs of industry and society.

At this moment in time, one of the greatest social challenges is how we can use technology to address social and environmental challenges, particularly in areas such as sustainability and healthcare.

Unsurprisingly, technological universities have a number of courses that are providing the next generation of key workers.

Courses focused on social good

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“At TU Dublin we believe it is our duty to educate the next generation on both the technological and societal challenges that they will face as graduates,” she says.

“There is an element of technology used for social good across all our programmes. For example, our school of computer science teaches artificial intelligence [AI], and while students learn how to build and apply AI, they also learn how to deal with the societal choices that come with it, and [explore] how AI can be socially harmonious.”

TUS: Renewable and electrical energy engineering is among the courses at TUS that use technology to address social and environmental challenges. Indeed, the majority, if not all, of the sustainability and environmental courses at TUS rely, at least in part, on technology.

One example is TUS’s renewable and electrical energy engineering course, which is offered as a three-year level seven degree or a four-year level eight, with progression facilitated for students who want to gain that honours degree.

The programme equips students with the knowledge and skills related to producing energy, and in particular electrical energy, from renewable sources. The course is a mixture of theory and practical hands-on learning in all aspects of renewable energy technology, electrical technology and automated monitoring and control of energy systems.

The students also learn about the challenges of utilising and maximising renewable electricity on the electricity grid – critically important for meeting our ambitious energy, climate and sustainability targets and goals.

There is a paid work placement in year three of the programme, with many students offered jobs with their placement employer (see panel: Méabh Hourigan). Graduates go on to work in areas such as design, implementation and optimisation of renewable energy systems, management of energy in buildings, design and control of electrical engineering systems. There is a 100 per cent employment record from the course.

SETU: SETU currently delivers courses across multiple disciplines with the largest concentrations across health and welfare, business and engineering.

It runs a number of courses that contribute to social good including, at undergraduate level, a level eight BEng in sustainable farm management and agribusiness, and a level eight BSc in sports rehabilitation and athletic therapy.

ATU: ATU, with campuses throughout the west and northwest, formed the department of environmental humanities and social sciences in 2021.

“It has distinctive strengths in cross-disciplinary collaboration, sustainability leadership, place-based learning, experiential learning and community development,” says Dr Deirdre Garvey, head of the department.

“We are cognisant of the wider global challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, increasing social inequalities and increased migration and our role as a third-level education provider, in creating awareness, developing agency and leading by our actions.

“Our long-established programme in outdoor education has been refocused to a new outdoor and environmental education common entry degree, offering different degree award options including geography and therapeutic applications. A philosophy of stewardship and care for the environment is woven into the programme and is especially evident in all the practical elements of the programme when the students are outdoors. Students develop empathetic approaches to the natural world and to find a sense of place, connection and belonging with nature,” Garvey says.

Meanwhile, Prof Graham Heaslip, head of the school of engineering at ATU Galway-Mayo, says technology is already shaping learning in higher education but will become more influential.

“There are countless examples where technology has had a positive impact on the communities we live in by addressing the very real-world problems of poverty, hunger, sanitation and clean drinking water,” Heaslip says.

“One innovative course in ATU is the certificate in sustainable development goals, partnership, people, planet and prosperity. The aim of the programme is to introduce the theory and application of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) with a particular focus on their application in the regional context.

“A recent development is the BSc in sustainable engineering technologies, a tertiary programme [where students begin at further education and progress to higher education] where graduates will lead the integration of sustainability issues at all levels and sectors of the organisation, from product/service and process design to infrastructure management.”

MTU: At MTU, meanwhile, there is also a range of courses which use technology for good.

“We have a dedicated research unit which leads a number of European projects in regenerative tourism as well as offering the first masters of its kind in this area,” says Michael Loftus, vice-president for external affairs at MTU.

“MTU offers a level-eight BEng in sustainable energy engineering, a level-eight BSc in environmental science and sustainable technology and a BEng in environmental engineering, as well as incorporating a wide range of sustainability-focused modules across its academic portfolio.

“These courses feature high levels of laboratory time, strong engagement with industry-related project work and strong input from industry in relation to course design,” Loftus says.

“Interest in these courses has remained strong over a period of several years. MTU envisages that this will remain to be the case over coming years as global sustainability challenges will continue to feature centrally.”

This year will also see the first offering of the new masters in arts in regenerative tourism, says Loftus.

“Regenerative tourism offers tourism businesses and destinations a new mindset of tourism development through a regenerative lens, and is a more balanced, holistic approach that includes championing local places, tackling climate action, benefiting host communities, empowering visitors to be responsible and ensuring long-term sustainability,” he says.

Progression and pathways

Technological universities have blazed a trail in forging stronger links and pathways between the further and higher education sectors.

TU Dublin: “TU Dublin’s breadth of courses means we offer everything from apprenticeships to PhDs with access points at levels six, seven and eight across all faculties,” says Young. “We make more offers to QQI applicants than any other Irish third-level institution – 21 per cent of all offers nationwide.

“Our aim is to welcome a greater number of students at level six and seven, taking advantage of all the diverse pathways on offer.

MTU: From a student progression perspective, students who join MTU through the engineering common entry route have the option to join the level eight BEng (Hons) in sustainable energy engineering, says Loftus.

“Meanwhile, students from all of these programmes can exploit the MTU ladder system to progress to cognate programmes at higher NFQ levels offered by MTU and other higher education institutions,” he says.

TUS: Students can enter and exit courses at various levels, and the university has long recognised and accredited skills and knowledge obtained on further education and training (FET) programmes. Students can use their level five or six major award to apply, through the CAO, for a place in the first year of a higher education course.

TUS has established links with several partner colleges of further education, offering preferential entry to applicants that hold a QQI level five or level six award from one of the university’s partner colleges, once the applicant satisfies entry criteria.

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New Data Reveal How Many Students Are Using AI to Cheat

AI-fueled cheating—and how to stop students from doing it—has become a major concern for educators.

But how prevalent is it? Newly released data from a popular plagiarism-detection company is shedding some light on the problem.

And it may not be as bad as educators think it is.

Of the more than 200 million writing assignments reviewed by Turnitin’s AI detection tool over the past year, some AI use was detected in about 1 out of 10 assignments, while only 3 out of every 100 assignments were generated mostly by AI.

These numbers have not changed much from when Turnitin released data in August of 2023 about the first three months of the use of its detection tool, said the company’s chief product officer, Annie Chechitelli.

“We hit a steady state, and it hasn’t changed dramatically since then,” she said. “There are students who are leaning on AI too much. But it’s not pervasive. It wasn’t this, ‘the sky is falling.’”

The fact that the number of students using AI to complete their schoolwork hasn’t skyrocketed in the past year dovetails with survey findings from Stanford University that were released in December. Researchers there polled students in 40 different high schools and found that the percentage of students who admitted to cheating has remained flat since the advent of ChatGPT and other readily available generative AI tools. For years before the release of ChatGPT, between 60 and 70 percent of students admitted to cheating, and that remained the same in the 2023 surveys, the researchers said.

Turnitin’s latest data release shows that in 11 percent of assignments run through its AI detection tool that at least 20 percent of each assignment had evidence of AI use in the writing. In 3 percent of the assignments, each assignment was made up of 80 percent or more of AI writing, which tracks closely with what the company was seeing just 3 months after it launched its AI detection tool .

Experts warn against fixating on cheating and plagiarism

However, a separate survey of educators has found that AI detection tools are becoming more popular with teachers, a trend that worries some experts.

The survey of middle and high school teachers by the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit focused on technology policy and consumer rights, found that 68 percent have used an AI detection tool, up substantially from the previous year. Teachers also reported in the same survey that students are increasingly getting in trouble for using AI to complete assignments. In the 2023-24 school year, 63 percent of teachers said students had gotten in trouble for being accused of using generative AI in their schoolwork, up from 48 percent last school year.

Close-up stock photograph showing a touchscreen monitor with a woman’s hand looking at responses being asked by an AI chatbot.

Despite scant evidence that AI is fueling a wave in cheating, half of teachers reported in the Center for Democracy and Technology survey that generative AI has made them more distrustful that their students are turning in original work.

Some experts warn that fixating on plagiarism and cheating is the wrong focus.

This creates an environment where students are afraid to talk with their teachers about AI tools because they might get in trouble, said Tara Nattrass, the managing director of innovation and strategy at ISTE+ASCD, a nonprofit that offers content and professional development on educational technology and curriculum.

“We need to reframe the conversation and engage with students around the ways in which AI can support them in their learning and the ways in which it may be detrimental to their learning,” she said in an email to Education Week. “We want students to know that activities like using AI to write essays and pass them off as their own is harmful to their learning while using AI to break down difficult topics to strengthen understanding can help them in their learning.”

Shift the focus to teaching AI literacy, crafting better policies

Students said in the Stanford survey that is generally how they think AI should be used: as an aid to understanding concepts rather than a fancy plagiarism tool.

Nattrass said schools should be teaching AI literacy while including students in drafting clear AI guidelines.

Nattrass also recommends against schools using AI detection tools. They are too unreliable to authenticate students’ work, she said, and false positives can be devastating to individual students and breed a larger environment of mistrust. Some research has found that AI detection tools are especially weak at identifying the original writing of English learners from AI-driven prose.

“Students are using AI and will continue to do so with or without educator guidance,” Nattrass said. “Teaching students about safe and ethical AI use is a part of our responsibility to help them become contributing digital citizens.”

AI detection software actually uses AI to function: these tools are trained on large amounts of machine- and human-created writing so that the software can ideally recognize differences between the two.

Turnitin claims that its AI detector is 99 percent accurate at determining whether a document was written with AI, specifically ChatGPT, as long as the document was composed with at least 20 percent of AI writing, according to the company’s website.

Chechitelli pointed out that no detector or test—whether it’s a fire alarm or medical test—is 100 percent accurate.

While she said teachers should not rely solely on AI detectors to determine if a student is using AI to cheat, she makes the case that detection tools can provide teachers with valuable data.

“It is not definitive proof,” she said. “It’s a signal that taken with other signals can be used to start a conversation with a student.”

As educators become more comfortable with generative AI, Chechitelli said she predicts the focus will shift from detection to transparency: how should students cite or communicate the ways they’ve used AI? When should educators encourage students to use AI in assignments? And do schools have clear policies around AI use and what, exactly, constitutes plagiarism or cheating?

“What the feedback we’re hearing now from students is: ‘I’m gonna use it. I would love a little bit more guidance on how and when so I don’t get in trouble,” but still use it to learn, Chechitelli said.

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NetApp’s Astra Program is looking for talented software engineers to join our team. We are looking for someone who can thrive as part of a high-performance team delivering creative solutions to the most profound data challenges that customers face. You will develop and test managed services to be deployed as containers in Kubernetes and work with various public and private cloud providers.

NetApp nurtures your ambition and career goals thereby enabling ownership of customer problems and design challenges that challenge your abilities eventually leading to world class products in cloud Native space. In this role, you will need to be a leader, a visionary, and the voice of the customer.

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Toward a design theory of problem solving

Development
Published: December 2000
Volume 48 , pages 63–85, ( 2000 )

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David H. Jonassen 1

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Problem solving is generally regarded as the most important cognitive activity in everyday and professional contexts. Most people are required to and rewarded for solving problems. However, learning to solve problems is too seldom required in formal educational settings, in part, because our understanding of its processes is limited. Instructional-design research and theory has devoted too little attention to the study of problem-solving processes. In this article, I describe differences among problems in terms of their structuredness, domain specificity (abstractness), and complexity. Then, I briefly describe a variety of individual differences (factors internal to the problem solver) that affect problem solving. Finally, I articulate a typology of problems, each type of which engages different cognitive, affective, and conative processes and therefore necessitates different instructional support. The purpose of this paper is to propose a metatheory of problem solving in order to initiate dialogue and research rather than offering a definitive answer regarding its processes.

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Developing real life problem-solving skills through situational design: a pilot study

Problem Solving from a Behavioral Perspective: Implications for Behavior Analysts and Educators

What Problem Solvers Know: Cognitive Readiness for Adaptive Problem Solving

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This paper represents an effort to introduce issues and concerns related to problem solving to the instructional design community. I do not presume that the community is ignorant of problem solving or its literature, only that too little effort has been expended by the field in articulating design models for problem solving. There are many reasons for that state of affairs.

The curse of any introductory paper is the lack of depth in the treatment of these issues. To explicate each of the issues raised in this paper would require a book (which is forthcoming), which makes it unpublishable in a journal. My purpose here is to introduce these issues in order to stimulate discussion, research, and development of problem-solving instruction that will help us to articulate better design models.

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Jonassen, D.H. Toward a design theory of problem solving. ETR&D 48 , 63–85 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02300500

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