Art of Problem Posing- Reflection 2

This section of the book dealt with the problem posing technique, using the “What-if Not” question. Asking “What-If-Not” questions are technique that can help us to look at the concepts and theorems in different perspectives and give us chance to obtain the broader sense of the phenomenon. By cycling through the five levels of the “What-If-Not” strategy, one can get in to the habit of posing creative problems and strive to learn more than just the given theorem. However, “What-If-not” technique may not always be beneficial. For some people, asking too many ambiguous questions may make them extremely confusing. It is important that the person understands the given theorem to certain extend, before posing so many different questions. Also, following each of the steps may be difficult and time-consuming. Even if we pose problems after “What-If-Not-ing”, it could be difficult to analyze the problem well enough to come to a useful conclusion. Thus, it may take some practice of using this strategy, in order to use it in the most effective way.

I think that the “What-If-Not” strategy can be very useful for the next week’s microteaching in helping students develop a problem solving technique. For my microteaching, I will first introduce my topic to the class and give brief explanations of the theorems. Then, I will have the class to look at the concepts from different perspectives and come up with some interesting questions. Following the steps of the “WIN” strategy, we will carefully analyze the problem to lead the class to understand the theorems better. (Our group didn’t pick a topic yet, so it’s hard to answer this question in detail..)