Online and other ICT-based Training Tools for Problem-solving Skills

Abstract

Problem-solving requires creative skills, critical thinking as well the ability to implement ideas and theories in practical ways. Moreover, interactive and self-managed problem-solving experiences promote students’ motivation as expressed through the developmental progression of learners’ metacognitive skills, such as self-monitoring and self-reinforcement. Effective learning based on constructivist didactics, encompassing self-organized learning in combination with active and creative problem-solving in collaborative settings, advances students’ concomitant cognitive and meta-cognitive processes. Hence, students’ co-construction of knowledge embodied in social dynamic learning environments, such as school-based tasks leverage the semantic relationships rising from exercising, verifying and testing of knowledge through information sharing and discussion. Future studies should focus on designing interactive, adaptable, ill-defined, real-world learning environments to elicit students’ cognitive and meta-cognitive processes as a key factor for the effective training of problem-solving skills.