Problem solving is not trivial (Beaumont and Fox, 2003). In fact, if we think about Bloom’s Taxonomy’s (Bloom 1956) and the Cognitive Domain, problem-solving involves the high-level skills of synthesis, evaluation, analysis and applications, so perhaps it is not surprising that student’s often struggle in this area and with subjects based around problem-solving (such as programming). A much discussed and related area of Computational Thinking ( Wing, 2006) has raised the profile of areas such as problem-solving, by highlighting the importance of “ thinking like a computer scientist ” (Wing 2006). The thought processes involved in being a computer scientist are more complicated than just being able to program, “ Computational thinking is reformulating a seemingly difficult problem into one we know how to solve, perhaps by reduction, embedding, transformation, or simulation. ” (Wing, 2006). The skills of computer scientists are applicable to a much wider range of areas or as W...
Practical problem-solving in Higher Education and outreach for computing and engineering subjects