Every computer science student has had to program HelloWorld, TowersOfHanoi, and Nim. They are canonical problems that most students are likely to encounter and study in the classroom. Similarly, most math students will study the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. And most English students are likely to encounter Shakespeare in their education.
But those problems don’t really exist in the wild for computer scientists. And ask yourself how many students could answer the following questions:
If every locker was completely packed with Jell-O, how long would it take an average human to consume every morsel of this delicious locker Jell-O?
How many trees are necessary to create a linoleum floor at any given Walmart?
For how long and at what rate would it have to snow at FLCC so that, when melted, the water would fill the volume of Canandaigua Lake?
Imagine you wanted to leave a trail of french fries (end-to-end) from the FLCC campus in Canandaigua to the one in Victor. How many potatoes would be needed for this venture, and how many swimming pools could you fill up with used vegetable oil?
How much human hair has been on this planet since January 1, 1970?
In a Jurassic Park inspired move, scientists have cloned William Shakespeare. What is the elevator pitch for his first hit Netflix series?
These are known as messy problems; problems that diverge from contained, constrained, well-defined problems. They require some discomfort and a brave departure from classic classroom problem solving. The solution for any one of these problems requires an examination of assumptions. How big is an average potato? Do they shrink when fried? What route am I taking from Canandaigua to Victor? How many fries can I even get from one potato – and won’t some of the fries be shorter and some longer?
Assessing solutions to these problems is not easy either; there most likely is not any clear, definitive answer to any of these problems. There are probably multiple solutions that are right but produce wildly different results – so which solution is the best one? Is there even a best solution?
Handstedt goes a step beyond messy problems and posits wicked problems. These are problems that are so complex, the problem itself might not even be easily defined. There are multiple systems competing for resources, conflicting ethos, and moving targets. Students who can work with these vague constraints and can contribute to solutions are wicked students.
In the interview, Handstedt provides this example:
So the best example, and it’s a horrible example, but everyone will understand it immediately, is COVID. COVID is the perfect, horrible, wicked problem. The dynamics have been changing constantly. Even now, we’re still waiting to get around the bend and say, “Oh, okay now we’ve arrived.”If it were purely a science problem we’d be in great shape because we would have been done early this summer. But there’s politics in play, there’s economics in play, there’s culture in play, there’s religion in play. There’s messaging and communication and images and memes and social media and technology. All of these things are creating a dynamic quality to COVID that makes resolving it very, very difficult. And, of course, we must resolve it. So that’s a wicked problem.
Similarly, climate change is a wicked problem. And the healthcare system. And sustainability. They’re all organic, evolving things that make defining the problem difficult.
And these are problems that are not existential – they create a clear and present danger to our survival. And they demand knowledge that extends well outside of declarative knowledge. These are the problems that our students will be solving some day.
Challenging students with messy and wicked problems can give them an edge. Learning to pull threads, iterate on ideas, and considering alternative solutions are healthy. And this doesn’t reside solely in STEM disciplines. Paul gave a number of other examples in his interview:
I can, in a literature class, give students a poem and say, “We’ve been studying the Romantic poets, which one of the Romantic poets wrote this poem?” The fact that they’ve never seen the poem isn’t the point. Actually, I might choose to include a poem from a poet they’ve never read. In fact, I might include a poem from a poet who’s not even a Romantic. Thing is, can they analyze? Can they think? Can they explore? Are they being deliberate about their exploration? And what I’m grading them on is not their ability to get to the answer, it’s their ability to travel to make that journey.
He also provided some great ways to encourage broadening the scope of problem solving in a semester-long class (for instance, scaffolding the problems). The second edition of his book, Creating Wicked Students: Designing Courses for a Complex World will be out soon.
In the meantime, you can listen to his interview on the Tea for Teaching podcast.
Rubiks Cube image CC-0 by Karla Hernandez via Unsplash
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