Increasing Accessibility to Problem-Solving: A Skills-Focused Curriculum for High School Students

Problem-solving is one of the most important skills to develop in today's globally competitive workforce and remains an essential aspect to a diversity of professions and disciplines. Building on the rich literature found on problem-solving, this paper reports on the implementation of a curriculum that applies known strategies and heuristics to develop broadly applicable problem-solving skills in high school students. The curriculum covers existing problem identification and solution development tools including Izakawa fishbone diagrams, Duncker diagrams, statement restatement, vertical thinking, cross fertilization, Kepner-Tregoe analysis, and more. Our pedagogical approach blends active learning frameworks (hands-on projects, case studies, exercises) with self-regulated learning environments (via scaffolding, metacognition). We have successfully deployed the full curriculum in eleven classrooms across five high schools. Students apply their problem-solving abilities through hands-on projects embedded throughout the curriculum. Results from 254 student surveys showed interest and engagement with the course content. Overall, this paper provides a skills-focused approach to outreach, preparation, and participation of students towards engineering and technical fields with the goal of meeting the skill requirements and labor demands of the global workforce.