Learn Polya’s problem-solving process and strategies, such as divide and conquer and pattern identification, to enhance your analytical skills, tackle puzzles, and solve real-world problems.

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Problem-solving skills are vital for personal growth, academic success, and professional achievement. They enable resilience, innovation, and effective decision-making. This course equips you with a lifelong skill set by teaching Polya’s problem-solving process and its applications in tackling real-world problems, games, and puzzles.

You will explore strategies, including top-down and bottom-up approaches, divide and conquer, stepwise refinement, pattern identification, and logical reasoning through puzzle-solving and computing logic.

By the end of the course, you’ll master analytical skills and critical thinking to apply Polya’s method and other strategies to complex challenges. This comprehensive approach establishes a strong foundation for systematically solving intricate problems.

Problem Solving

# Strategy

We’ve collected all the details from the problem statement, and the task is to measure six quarts of water. Currently, we lack a method to achieve this. Let’s begin by considering the following questions:

- Have we faced similar challenges previously? 

- Is there any specific solution for this?


Let’s think for a while and devise an approach to solve this problem. First, let’s consider what we can measure directly or with little effort. 

- We can measure nine and four quarts of water.

- We can measure five quarts of water by filling the 9-quart pail and then pouring four quarts from it into the 4-quart pail. 

- We can easily measure eight quarts of water by filling the 4-quart pail twice and pouring it into the 9-quart pail. 

- We can measure three quarts of water by filling the 4-quart pail three times and pouring it into the 9-quart pail. 

Try to carry out these water measurements in the widget below.





 Develop a strategy to solve the problem.

Polyas method

Bottom-Up Approach

Top-Down Approach

Wire Length Calculator

Stepwise refinement

Guessing Games

Minesweeper Game

Triangular Wall

Pattern Identification

Conclusion

Devising a Plan: Strategy

Strategy