Tag Archives: problem solving

Skills

Tips for Improving a Child’s Problem-Solving Skills

It’s important that kids know how to solve problems yet many adults aren’t sure exactly how to teach them. For many people, problem-solving is something that’s simply done – we don’t always think about the processes we follow. Here are some tips to help get your kids on the right track with essential problem-solving skills.

Start by teaching your child to evaluate problems

Before a problem can be solved, it must be identified. Just stating what the problem is can help a child develop. Once they’ve identified the problem, the next step is for the child to think of several possible solutions. Look to brainstorm three or more possible solutions, discuss each solution’s pros and cons, and then together work with your child to decide which of the solutions is best. Stress that if they choose a solution that doesn’t work, they can try another solution.

Discuss problems with your child

When your child encounters a problem, avoid the urge to solve it for them. If you see them struggling, allow them the chance to solve it on their own. If they aren’t able to do so, then step in and help them find the solution themselves. Try role modeling problem-solving to give your child ideas on what to do in real life. Work together with your child on the solution. Praise them when they do well. Talk about their progress and go back to solutions if one doesn’t work.

Allow your child to experience consequences

When a child has to deal with natural consequences, they’ll have to make a choice and face the consequences themselves. Obviously you don’t want to make them face any consequences that put their safety at risk, but if they want to spend all their money, or they want to skip their homework, allowing them to do so and then not bailing them out will teach them more than punishing them.

Enroll your child in classes that promote problem-solving

There aren’t problem-solving classes but there are great options that naturally teach kids how to identify and solve problems. CodeREV Kids offers coding and robotics classes that help kids gain confidence, learn useful skills, and yes, improve their problem-solving skills. Learn more about why coding is a great choice for kids and then reach out to us with questions. We look forward to helping your child learn how to solve problems on their own.

Coding Education

There Are Many Ways to Teach Kids Problem-Solving Skills

At CodeREV, we believe it’s important to teach kids how to solve problems. While sometimes it’s important to give them the right answer, most of the time they’re going to learn a lot more if they discover how to actually solve the problem on their own. There are a lot of ways to give them these valuable skills, as evidenced in a recent article in Teacher Magazine titled Developing problem-solving skills.

Jo Earp writes, “When Teacher shares examples of how evidence is being used to inform future action it’s usually educators who are doing the analysis and reflection, but in this case it’s students who’ve been digging into school data while developing their problem-solving skills. The Year 5 and 6 students at Sydney’s Curran Public School have been taking part in the Future Problem Solving Program. ‘Originally, when we started, it was just an idea of trying to build some social conscience and some commitment to the community within my kids,’ Principal Michael Strahan explains. They ended up representing Australia at the international finals in the US, placing third.

Under the guidance of ‘team coach’ Kylie Ring, the youngsters competed in the community problem-solving category and narrowed down their focus to education. Their project was called Kids Helping Kids and aimed to support early years transition. Strahan takes up the story again: ‘It was all about giving kids who are going to come to the school the fundamentals and the foundations to succeed and put them on a pathway to success. The [team of students] sat down with teachers and analysed the entry data that kids were coming into school with. … They did some research and [thought about] the best possible way of making an impact, then developed a plan and put that plan into action.’

Part of the plan was to create care packages that were distributed to pre-Kindergarten students and their families that contained resources to support early learning. The first care package included resources like pencils, pens and tracing cards. Strahan says the new starters and their parents loved the fact they were getting a box from Curran Public School to help them prepare, but adds the real strength of the project for the 12 members of the competition team was what happened next.

‘They then did a comparison analysis against what the kids came into school with this year after distributing the first package, celebrated some successes in the kids’ improvement but also found where there were areas of need and then plugged those up, so it was really evidence-based.’”

This is truly an innovative way to get kids excited about problem solving. At CodeREV we have a series of classes and camps that are designed specifically to show kids that they already have the skills they need, they just need to learn to hone them.

Coding Curriculum, Coding Education

New App Helps Developers Locate Coding Problems

Often times, we think of coding in terms of creating things to make life easier for consumers. Recently, SourceDNA decided to offer up a product to aid developers. Venture Beat explores this in a recent article titled “SourceDNA launches Searchlight, a developer tool to find coding problems in any app.”

Ken Yeung of Venture Beat writes, “‘People think about the most obvious ways to solve problems. With developers, it’s solving a problem when they’re writing the code,’ said Lawson. ‘Most people don’t think about reviewing their work after the code has been written. You have to do a lot of detective work.’ What Lawson is referring to is that developers aren’t always looking deep into their code to find out what’s broken and needs to be fixed. Often it might just be a referral to a code library and if something is broken, it can be difficult to find out which customers are affected by the bad code. This is something SourceDNA wants to showcase — its ability to give developers the tools to build better apps than are currently out in the marketplace. Lawson explained that the company is already scanning through 60,000 apps a day, but is still playing catch-up. However, the service is something existing marketplaces don’t provide: When you submit an app to Apple or Google, the reviewers are going to make sure that the app doesn’t violate any of its standards. They won’t examine the code to see if there are any potential problems in the code itself. SourceDNA takes things one step further. Originally geared as a business intelligence service (think Nielsen for apps), SourceDNA has moved beyond telling companies about app trends to helping developers figure out what’s wrong with their apps. Lawson and his team have spent more than three years working on SourceDNA and seem to have found success with its BI unit. Today, it’s also targeting developers as a new audience, so now the company is addressing both sides of the ecosystem.”

In order to put your child in a position to build a career as a developer, you need to start with early coding education. When it comes to coding education, your best bet is CodeRev Kids.

At CodeRev Kids, we emphasize computational thinking, which encompasses a wide range of programming concepts and languages. The lessons build upon one another and we adjust starting points to each student’s level of expertise. Thus, the entire curriculum is customized.

Furthermore, while we are known for saying we are the most educational tech camp out there, we also keep the focus on having fun. By doing this, our students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology.

If you’re looking to begin or further your child’s coding education, there’s no better choice than CodeRev Kids!