Problem Solving

Problem Solving

So today I went to the grocery store with my almost 2 year old daughter.  We went down an isle that contained kid toys to get to the back of the store.  And I am sure I am like many other parent to travel down the one isle in the store with a kid.  As we passed by the balls, my daughter starts saying, "ball, ball, ball."  So I reached into the ball pen to let her choose a purple or pink ball to take home.  She was very happy, smiled throughout the store and played with it for hours that day. I am glad I bought the ball for my daughter today because it made her happy, so it made he happy for her.   

In this short story, I wanted to suggest the idea of how I could have avoid buying the ball (had I needed to or wanted to not buy it).  I could have read the sign above the isle to see that it was the toy isle. I could have looked down the isle instead of laughing with my daughter.  I could have done many different things in reflection to have avoided the toy isle.  

When we reflect about how we can improve we are problem solving to find new, better, or different solutions to situations in our current life. 

Now lets bring problems and reflections into the mathematical classroom.  Teachers should be creating the mathematical problems that students will reflect on throughout the class period and later that night because during the time of thinking back about the math problem our brains are finding new and better ways to obtain a solution, which is also know as problem solving.