Raise your hand if you’ve ever been personally victimized by a seemingly never-ending line of students coming to you to help them solve their problems. Maybe it’s that someone cut in front of them in line or a classmate is distracting them from their work. Sound familiar? If so, you are not alone! And boy, is it exhausting when students aren’t independent problem solvers.
Learn from guest blogger, teacher, & content creator Caitie Cupples as she shares her wisdom about growing independent problem solvers in your classrooms.
Developing independent problem solvers
When students are continually coming to us with their problems, it can be disruptive to teaching and learning, as well as downright draining for us as teachers. Often, we respond in one of two ways: we solve the problem for them, or we dismiss the problem and/or the student. Unfortunately, both of these responses inevitably lead to more students with more problems and more dependence on YOU, the teacher, to magically make it all better.
But there is a third option. I’m not going to lie to you and say it’s a SIMPLE solution, but it is a POWERFUL one. One that can transform your classroom, empower your students, and help them develop SEL lifelong skills for happier relationships in and out of the classroom. Are you ready? (I know you are!)
We can teach our students to be independent problem solvers. We give encouragement, time, and space for them to resolve conflicts on their own. And we foster the environment and give them the tools to make it happen. This is important beyond the benefits of making your life easier. When we empower our students to figure things out on their own, we are showing them we trust them. That we believe in them. That they can do hard things.
Now, we aren’t throwing them to the wolves and saying “Good luck! Let me know when you’ve resolved this!” We are systemically and purposefully building skills to help them determine when they *actually* need help, how to go about solving small problems, and how to get support when they need it. This is big, complex, important work. But there are three crucial things you can do as the facilitator of this work to support students on this journey. Let’s dig in.
Identifying the Size of the Problem
The first thing we can do is teach them to identify the size of the problem and get them thinking, “How BIG is this problem, really?” We can split problems into three categories: small, medium, and big.
Small problems are ones that don’t affect safety, can be solved quickly or easily, don’t really require a teacher’s help to solve, and might make you feel annoyed or frustrated. Medium problems can affect learning or feelings, but not safety. They might make you feel angry or sad. Solving the problem isn’t urgent, but may require a teacher’s help. Big problems are scary, dangerous, or unsafe. They might make you feel scared, and they require an adult’s attention right away.
We want to explicitly define these categories for students. Give lots of examples, and discuss appropriate responses to each size of problem. However, it is important to remember that everyone feels their emotions differently and assigns a different value to problems that come up. For one student, something might not be a big deal, while for another, it could really upset them. This happens for a lot of reasons, including temperament, history of conflicts (with the particular student and others), and current mood. So use this framework as a guide for you and students, rather than enforcing it uniformly for your whole class. If a student says they need help with a problem, we should honor that. If appropriate, continue to nudge the student toward independence.
Practicing With Role Play
Conflict resolution is complicated, especially when it comes to engaging in conversations with peers. It can be really beneficial for students to act out made-up scenarios, try out different solutions, get feedback, and experience success. Having students role play in front of their classmates helps all students- not only those acting out the situation, but also for those watching. The discussions following these role play lessons are rich with learning opportunities and “a-ha moments.”
Some students will love to act things out, while others will dread it. It’s important to set classroom norms around role playing- both for the “actors” and the “audience”. Seeking volunteers rather than mandating everyone get up and role play is huge, too. You can also vary the setting for this work. You can make this activity whole class, small group, and even one on one with a student or a pair of students all work well.
Establish Supportive Spaces
One way we can support student independence is with the physical environment of our classrooms. When we create dedicated spaces for things like problem solving and calming down, it helps clarify procedures and expectations for students. So what does this look like?
First, a “calm corner” is a fantastic addition to your classroom that helps with conflict resolution but also supports emotional regulation, students’ feeling of safety and support, and normalizes ALL emotions, even the uncomfortable ones. A calm corner doesn’t have to be fancy. Mine was so simple. Think a a classroom chair with a little tub of “calm tools” like fidgets and stress balls. I added a clipboard hanging on the wall filled with strategies to regulate emotions.
When a problem occurs, we first want students to identify how they feel. Are they frustrated or annoyed? Could they be sad or angry? Are they scared? This will help them determine the size of the problem and, in turn, what their first step should be. If a student has a small or medium problem, it may have brought up some uncomfortable emotions. The calm corner is a great step before engaging in additional problem solving steps.
Second, creating a “Problem Solving Corner” can be another supportive tool for students- especially at the beginning of the year. If students have a dedicated space to go to work things out with a peer, they’ll have all the tools they need at their disposal. This space also offers some privacy. This is a critical step to building independent problem solvers!
This also offers an easy heads up that a conflict has arisen and between which students. Later, students might not need this space so much. But having it available is just an extra layer of support to help students be confident problem solvers. You might fill this spot with things like sentence stems, emotions charts, and anchor charts of your conflict resolution process. You can then teach how and when to use the space. Don’t forget about what’s expected when other students are in the problem solving space, too.
Having tools and supports at the ready is so important for our students to successfully navigate the tricky peer conflict resolution conversation.
Empowering Students to Be Independent Problem Solvers
Teaching students to resolve conflicts on their own has the potential to create endless benefits for your classroom and your students’ future. It can give you more time to teach, help build that sense of community that is so needed for a successful learning environment, and set students up for a lifetime of happy relationships.
If you are looking to build a meaningful, emotion-affirming conflict resolution process, you won’t want to miss my workshop on PopPD, Peaceful Classroom Conflict Resolution. We dig deeper into these three topics as well as how to support students with peer conflict resolution conversations, building the prerequisite SEL skills to successful problem solving, and more. Join here!
You can also grab my free guide, “5 Secrets to Better Problem Solving,” so you can get started with this work right away. Click here to get your copy! Then be sure to come tell me how it’s going over on IG! Find me there at @CaitieCupplesTeaching, where I’m sharing all things classroom community, SEL, and student behavior.
