Students and Computers as Partners in Developing Students’ Problem-Solving Skills

One-hundred and twenty students in the second and fourth grades worked in pairs to solve computer-posed problems. Students used the IDEA (Identify, Define, Explore, Assess) Model as a self-regulatory strategy to engage them as partners in a question-and-answer dialog while solving problems. Students reflected on their progress by writing in journals and in classroom debriefings recorded by teachers following the problem-solving sessions. Additional observational data was collected by the researchers through informal classroom discussions with the teachers. The results of this exploratory study indicated that the strategy was successful in helping students monitor their own learning. Implications for teaching practices and future research are discussed.