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Critical Analysis of Children Solving Problems

Alyssa Healey

Boston College

EDUC2108.01 Fall 2022 Teaching Mathematics and Technology

Professor Albert

September 14, 2022

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Critical Analysis of Children Solving Problems

“Social interactions play a critical role in the child’s progress: skills are transmitted

through social interactions particularly through sharing the process of problem-solving with a

more skilled adult; and the social world structures and controls the child’s access to opportunities

to gain new expertise” (Thorton, 1995, p. 124). While Jean Piaget is notorious for being the

“father of developmental psychology”, his views have since been challenged by many; in her

book, Children Solving Problems, Thornton (1995) highlights the research done by Glachan,

Light, Hartley, and Vygotsky which often contradicts Piaget and overall continues to provide

great insight into children’s problem solving abilities. As I will discuss in this paper, Thornton

views problem solving as much more interactive, with both peers and adults, as well as with their

environment and learning context. In this paper, I will examine Thornton’s perspective on

children as problem solvers and her suggestions, while also incorporating and discussing my own

experiences as a learner and how the views put forth by Thornton will influence my teaching in

the future. While I have been a student for nearly my entire life and recently started stepping into

the role of an educator, I still found it important to reflect on my own past experiences when

reading Thornton’s text and the research she references.

Thornton argues that children largely determine their own learning, although the

influences from parents, teachers, and the environment may also guide or inhibit the problem

solving abilities of the children. In her writing, Thornton highlights the importance of shared

learning when developing problem solving skills, both in terms of children collaborating with

other children, as well as collaborating with adults. When two students come together to solve a

problem, they may attempt to use different strategies to solve it, demonstrating the “conflict”

between their views; it is through this collaboration and conversation that the students may
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discover new problem-solving strategies that they may not have explored on their own. While

Jean Piaget was one of first to acknowledge this notion “conflict” in order change and advance

children’s skills, educational researchers Martin Glachan and Paul Light expanded on this notion

and argued that it was not necessarily the conflict between views on its own that advanced

children’s skills, but rather it is the type of the interaction between children (Thornton, 1995, p.

95). Thus, Thornton highlights that similarly to Vygotsky, Glachan and Light emphasize the

importance of the social interactions themselves in order to further develop children’s problem

solving skills. Thornton also discusses the role adults play in children’s development, especially

regarding the utilization of the zone of proximal development and guided participation, a term

coined by Barbara Rogoff (Thornton, 1995). Furthermore, Thornton describes the research

behind the influence of students’ confidence, motivation, and physical environment, on their

development of their problem solving and higher functioning skills.

As aforementioned, Thornton emphasizes her belief that confidence, or the lack of it, can

have an immense influence on a child’s problem solving. Thornton references the research done

by Robert Hartley, which highlighted that students had greater success in solving problems and

planning when they pretended to be the “brightest child in the class”, demonstrating the

influence confidence has on higher cognitive functioning skills (Thornton, 1995, p. 110).

Thornton also referenced other studies that found that students who solved a number of anagrams

in the past will experience more success than those who experienced a failure (Thornton, 1995). I

have found this to be very true as well in my own learning as well; throughout high school, I was

usually successful when it came to calculus, and my teacher would often ask me to demonstrate

how I got the correct answer on the board. However, I remember for one unit, I was struggling to

understand the concept being taught and I continued to come up with the incorrect answer; thus,
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I immediately felt less inclined to continue trying on the problem and convinced myself that I

wouldn’t be successful doing it. Thus, Thornton (1995) suggests that teachers may need to “bias”

their reactions in order to provide feedback that will have the most positive impact, such as

giving praise whenever possible and offering constructive criticism lightly. Thornton again

demonstrates the significance of adult scaffolding and the influence adults, especially parents and

teachers, can have on a child’s problem solving development; with this confidence, children may

have more trust in their abilities and push themselves to solve problems beyond what they

originally thought was possible. As a student who was immensely encouraged by positive

feedback and got upset with negative feedback, I find that this is a strategy I will also employ in

my own classroom to assist students in becoming better problem solvers.

Thornton also believes and argues that the tasks and context in which students learn the

tasks are vitally important for children’s problem solving development. Specifically, the section

that I found most resonated with my past experiences, and something I plan to continue

considering in the future, is that it is easier to teach children and for children to learn in a context

that has clear purpose and meaning, as it motivates them. In sophomore year of high school, I

took an SAT prep course in which we spent a class discussing complex algorithmic problems.

However, at the start of the class, my teacher explained that this type of problem was not going

to be on the SAT, and therefore I did not see the purpose of learning the concept in this context.

This obstacle was not uncommon in my experiences as a student; I was often found less

motivated by subjects I did not view as “important”, and I realized that when I entered college, I

found a greater purpose in all the courses I was taking, which motivated me to persevere through

problem solving. Thornton highlights the research done by Gauvain and Rogoff, which found

that students remembered a room layout more accurately and in depth when they were given the
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specific purpose as to why they were looking at the room layout (Thornton, 1995). Overall,

having a sense of purpose to assignments and concepts motivates students not only to persist, but

to pay attention to the details of the problem, which are both important components of higher

cognitive functioning.

As argued by Thornton throughout the text, children’s problem solving skills are greatly

impacted by the children and adults with which they work, as well as the environments and

contexts in which they learn this information. Thornton highlights the significance of

collaborative learning and achieving conflict in points of views in order to reach a solution and

understanding with others. Furthermore, the confidence and sense of purpose that a child feels

when learning material is highly significant in their development as problem solvers, as it can

encourage them to plan more thoroughly and pay more attention to the problem, thus further

developing their higher cognitive abilities as well. As a teacher, it is important to consider how I

can help my students build not only their problem solving skills, but their confidence and sense

of purpose in the content as well, which will then push them to be greater problem solvers as a

whole.
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References

Thornton, S. (1995). Children solving problems. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.