How to Teach Kids Better Problem Solving | Michael Arnold | TEDxGreenville

[Music] [Applause] so what did you want to be when you grew up I don't remember my grandfather he passed away when I was nine months old when my grandmother told me that I sat on his knee and watched the alarm strong step onto the moon now every time I see that black and white video I picture that moment the smell of his Aqua Velva hearing one small step for man and I can feel the moondust crunch under my boot I am an astronaut I studied a astronomy geology and physics in high school and I was on my way to space I started checking into the requirements of what it would take to become an astronaut when I realized that I'd been lied to I'd been told whatever you set your mind to work hard and you will reach it but there it was in black and white maximum height six foot one inches tall at six four I couldn't reach my goal I couldn't be three inches shorter so I decided to become an engineer and design taller spaceships and I discovered my new mission solving problems by changing the status quo working as an advanced problem-solving manager with a black belt I came home from teaching a class one day and my son asked me papa what is it you do exactly and I said that I teach and coach people to solve problems using statistics yeah but what does that mean I don't understand now I could have told him google it but that would have given him knowledge not understanding so my solution I offered to teach him statistical problem-solving that was his reaction to until I told them we get to use a catapult then I realized this is exactly what we need to do teach our kids better problem-solving tools why do we need to do this the World Economic Forum reports the number one skill that employers are seeking today and in the future is complex problem-solving why problem-solving because it provides the power to change things for the better we teach kids the scientific method Socrates invented this over 2,000 years ago what kind of problems did they have Leonidas and his 300 men were battling xerxes and Epocrates was trying to figure out what causes the plague big problems at the time but how do those compared to potential problems of tomorrow computers that think for themselves cars that drive themselves and antibiotic resistant bacteria so we might still need to worry about that plague thing we are in the Information Age Google's Eric Schmidt said every two days we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003 that is a lot of data and it requires statistics to analyze so data analytics will become part of every job this is a map of where the Lost Einsteins live what is a lost Einstein they're the kids that have the intellect to patent an invention but lack the opportunity notice what's missing where we live innovation we are raising lost Einsteins so why is innovation important because it provides the solutions to our problems so how do we find our lost Einsteins research indicates exposure to innovation within their own communities has the biggest impact a good example my youngest son was assigned a project to invent something he created an invention for my 94 year old grandmother to clip her cane to a table so it wouldn't fall over when she sat down peyton manning Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods were not born great at sports they started early and they practiced a lot we can develop great problem-solving experts by teaching them and having them practice problem solving from kindergarten to high school graduation we need to teach them hands-on statistically based problem solving with innovative solutions to solve technical and non-technical problems let's think about this we could start with a grassroots approach but maybe say after-school programs but that only impacts a small portion of our kids Google has designed their entire company to innovate they hire smart creative people and they give them 20% of their time to solve other people's problems we need to take the same approach and make problem-solving part of the DNA of the education curriculum let's look at what I mean my oldest son for his senior high school project he developed an innovative solution to measure his level of essential tremors a condition that gives him uncontrollable shaking of his limbs he was frustrated when the doctor told him that they were mild and would get worse over time because he couldn't objectively measure their severity so he built a measurement device and a computer program to collect the data and then used his prototype to effectively measure his level of tremors compared to others without tremors he then presented his results to parents teachers and classmates so they understood his problem and the solution he did this an English class this is what we need more of in our kids education now my wife and I are engineers and as you can tell our sons are following in our footsteps and yes I do believe the world would be out of better place if everyone became an engineer and aren't you glad you don't have to ride a horse to work kids in Japan are taught problem-solving based on visual hands-on methods we can do the same Julie smart a former elementary school teacher and now a professor at Clemson taught her kids how birds eat using spoons straws toothpicks and tweezers as beaks deep raising grubs gummy worms M&M beetles and shell pasta snails they then visually separated the data for analysis as our kids become better at data collection we need to increase their exposure to data analytics teaching them to display data and tables and graphs developing their basic understanding of statistics middle schoolers and Russia are taught problem-solving based on innovative design concepts we can teach our middle schoolers the same problem-solving language by having them work in teams like co-workers picture a classroom with English students writing a story art students creating storyboards and computer programmers all developing a videogame together next we add in advanced statistics in high school which research shows is based on a subconscious understanding of probability and statistics developing their gut instincts next have them describe their problem-solving journey throughout their education starting with elevator pitches to classmates and growing into ted-like talks to parents and teachers how many of you have kids at home on a man's night out with my son's I warned them not to touch the hot sauce but they had to learn from hands-on experience that insanity sauce was hot like fire my son said they should put a warning on the bottle so I read him the label keep away from pets and children also great for stews and removing driveway stains but we expect our kids to listen and do what a teacher tells him to do in a classroom Jeff Charbonneau was 2013 National Teacher of the Year for teaching his students how to do math science and engineering but he didn't do this by lecturing and we need to change from lecturing to project-based hands-on learning in classes without the hot sauce so helicopter parents don't solve the problems for them we will be creating expert problem solvers in all subjects by giving them 20% of their time just like the Googlers let me tell you a secret if you're really good at problem solving you honestly don't have to know anything else look at me I'm not an educator but I am a problem solver and a parent that's all a problem looked at the data and saw what worked for my kids now I'm standing up here proposing a creative solution on how we can find as many of our lost Einsteins that's possible just over 10 years ago we didn't need app or cloud developers now we can't find enough of them and we didn't know who Syrian Alexa were now we talked to them more than our parents today's job landscape is changing so rapidly that 65% of the jobs in 2030 don't exist yet and over 30% will be done by artificial intelligence we need to make sure kids can solve complex problems because jobs will still have problems and we need to make sure they're prepared for the challenges that are coming such as attacking aliens killer robots and of course plague infected zombies now I haven't given up on reaching space I have Elon Musk and Richard Branson working on that for me but if we're successful one of our Lost Einsteins will solve my problem and build me my taller spaceship thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 147,893

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Education, AI, Creativity, Design, Rocket science, Schools, Teaching

Id: vkF7sHjI7_A

Length: 11min 52sec (712 seconds)

Published: Thu May 17 2018