Wicked Problem - Reinventing Education

During one of my classes in my master's coursework we were assigned to address a wicked problem. In my case, the group I was in focussed on the general issue of completely re-inventing education.  No small task.  However, while we were provided that general prompt, we spent days trying to dig into what the actual problem with education is.  Before any problem could be solved it had to be identified.  This is a crucial issue with the education system as educators consitently want students to be "problem solvers" and this is easier said than done - as before students can learn to solve a problem they need to know how to find one.

 

As my group worked on the problem, we created a website to document our findings, our feelings, and our solutions.  We may have never created a perfect solution - the actual constraints of the assignment didn't afford more than a few days of work - but we were put through the paces of really unraveling giant issues and we tried to abstract the true root causes of the problem.  While this type of task is can be daunting, it isn't far removed from the types of work that students should be exploring in the future world of education.