6.1

Problem solving is analogous to learning because much of learning involves problem solving.  The way teachers teach is often by having students solve problems.  Learning is also necessary to have good problem solving skills.  Through learning, students learn how to approach problems in a productive way using prior knowledge.  I do not believe that all learning is problem solving.  I believe that we can learn without solving problems.  I think of learning from reading a book.  I would not call reading problem solving; however, we often learn from what we read.

Most of the problems I try to solve recently involve evaluations at school.  Recently, I have been working on a Functional Behavior Assessment for a high school student who got into a fight.  Since I am probably not going to observe him getting into another fight, I had to problem solve to determine what kind of data would be useful to me.  I tend to always approach problems conventionally and have difficulty approaching them in the non-conventional way that the article mentioned was so important.  I rely heavily on prior knowledge and making connections to other situations.  The more experience I gain in school psychology, the more I have to pull from.  However, when my experience in insufficient, I seek out help from someone who has more experience.  I related much more to the discussions of logical problem solving relying on connections, prior knowledge, and prior experience than the discussions of how people can approach a problem in a creative way.  I cannot think of any examples of times when I approached a problem in a creative way as defined by the reading.  Maybe that is something I should work on.