Problem Statements
The problem statement at a glance
The level question
- Too deep: chasing final causes, you reach conclusions you cannot use
- Too shallow: missing the actual driver of the problem
- Right level: enough understanding to act in a timely way
Two levels of work for a reflective practitioner
| Level | What happens |
|---|---|
| Cognitive level | Understanding the problem |
| Action level | Doing something about it |
Working with unsatisfactory understanding
The reflective practitioner accepts that understanding will never feel complete. They act anyway, then improve the understanding through the action.
Conceptual innovation
- Concepts are abstractions of patterns from many situations
- Without concepts, complex realities cannot be perceived
- Changing the concepts you use changes the connections in your thinking
A teacher writes, “the problem is that students are not motivated.” The statement sounds reasonable. It is also useless. It is too vague to act on, too sweeping to test, and it points the teacher at students instead of at any factor the teacher can change. A useful problem statement sits at a specific level and lets the teacher act and learn at the same time.
The first move in concept-based teaching is learning to write a better problem statement.
The level question
A problem can be stated at many levels of depth. Each level produces a different kind of solution.
Going too deep
If you keep asking why, you eventually reach final causes. “Students are not motivated because the education system is broken because society does not value teachers because of historical and economic factors.” This is not wrong, but it is not useful for next Monday’s lesson. Conclusions that reach this depth are too far from action to help.
Going too shallow
If you stop too early, you miss the driver of the problem. “Students are not motivated because they did not eat breakfast.” Maybe, but probably not enough to explain the pattern.
The right level
Pick a level where you have enough knowledge about the problem to act in a timely way. The right level is the one where you can do something this week that will tell you whether your understanding is correct.
For the unmotivated-class example, a useful problem statement might be: “Students in my Class 9 morning section disengage when I introduce abstract concepts before giving them a concrete example.” This is testable. It can be acted on this week. The result of the action will sharpen the next problem statement.
Two levels of work
A reflective practitioner operates on two levels at once.
The action level
The action level is where the teacher does things. Plans, teaches, marks, talks to students. Action is what students experience.
The cognitive level
The cognitive level is where the teacher thinks about what they are doing. Understanding, hypothesis, framing, theorising.
The two levels feed each other. Cognitive work without action stays academic. Action without cognitive work stays unreflective. A reflective practitioner runs both.
Working with unsatisfactory understanding
A reflective practitioner should always be working with unsatisfactory understanding of the problem. This is not a flaw in the practitioner. It is the nature of teaching.
Real classrooms are too complex for full understanding. By the time you have understood the problem completely, the class has changed, the term is over, and the students have moved on. Waiting for full understanding is the same as never acting.
The reflective practitioner works with unsatisfactory understanding because they have to combine action with improving understanding. Action produces new data. Data improves understanding. Improved understanding produces better action. Each round is built on a less unsatisfactory base than the previous one.
The method you actually use depends on the knowledge you currently have, the conditions you face, and other factors particular to the situation. There is no universal method. The work of the reflective teacher is to design a cognitive strategy for each case.
Combining your experience with the experience of others
Knowledge from your own experience is necessary but limited. You teach a few classes. You see a slice of the work. The blind spots are large.
Knowledge from other people’s experience widens the base. Colleagues, mentors, the literature on teaching, books written by experienced practitioners. A reflective teacher combines knowledge from their own experience with knowledge from other people’s experience and forms a richer base for problem statements.
A practical habit: when you write a problem statement, ask whether anyone you trust has met a similar problem. If yes, talk to them before drafting the statement. The statement is usually better for the conversation.
Conceptual innovation
Once a problem statement is written at the right level and informed by other voices, the next move is conceptual innovation. This is where new thinking gets in.
Why concepts matter
The connections we have in our brains are related to the concepts we use. When we change our concepts, we create new areas of relations.
A teacher who only uses the concepts “discipline”, “syllabus”, and “homework” thinks in a small space. A teacher who has added the concepts “scaffolding”, “formative assessment”, “cognitive load”, “frame”, “theory-in-use” thinks in a larger one. The new concepts do not replace the old ones. They add new connections.
What a concept actually is
Concepts are abstractions of situations: the patterns that emerge when we have seen many situations. The concept “scaffolding” is a name for a pattern visible across thousands of teaching moments. Once you have the concept, you can spot the pattern in a new lesson immediately. Without the concept, the pattern is invisible.
Why concepts are necessary
Without concepts we cannot perceive complex reality. With concepts we can think more deeply about reality.
A class is too complex to think about without compression. The compression that lets you think about it at all is conceptual. The concepts you use determine what you see. Better concepts produce a better view of the same class.
Action and understanding improve each other; waiting for full understanding produces no action
Real classrooms are too complex to understand fully. The reflective teacher combines acting with improving understanding. Each round of action sharpens the next problem statement. The unsatisfactory feeling is permanent and useful.
Putting it together
A useful problem statement has four properties:
- It is at a level where the teacher can act this week or next.
- It is testable: there is a way to tell if it is right or wrong.
- It draws on more than the teacher’s own experience.
- It uses concepts strong enough to surface the actual pattern, not just the surface symptoms.
A teacher who writes problem statements with these four properties will run a sharper reflective practice than one who writes “the problem is that students are not motivated” once a term and never tests it.