Fostering creative problem solving in chemistry through group work

Although problem solving is a very important higher-order cognitive skill, our students seem to believe that this activity does not deserve too much effort and they develop the attitude that arriving at the answer is more important than understanding the process of solution. This is due in part to the way we teach problem solving. Usually, when teaching, we show them only some stages of the process, neglecting the analysis stage, because as experts we are now no longer able to recall the effort we had to expend the first time we tried to solve a problem, since it is now familiar to us. From our presentation, students see a clean, even elegant solution, having little in common with the uncertainty and the fuzzy thinking that they experience when they try to solve a problem by themselves. From research we know that it is quite difficult for students to develop creative solutions to problems. The results reported here are promising in making students active developers of original solutions. These results are tentatively attributed to the use of an active method of learning and to the students’ motivation. [Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2006, 7 (2), 131-140]