Bright, brave, open minds: A problem solving kaleidoscope led by Julia Brodsky and Maria Droujkova is a two-week long open online course in problem solving for parents and teachers of 8 and 9 year old children.

About the Course:

Why: Preserve children’s divergent thinking. Develop their critical thinking and problem solving skills. Contribute to making a book about young problem solving.

How: Provide a variety of insight problems to young children. Introduce complex, open-ended, and ill-defined problems as a way to teach problem solving skills. Recognize the feeling of being stuck as a necessary step in problem solving. Let children face deep, multi-dimensional problems. Meet other adventurous parents and educators. Contribute to research in math and problem-solving education.

Who: The course organizers are Julia Brodsky, former NASA astronaut instructor and math and science teacher, and Dr. Maria Droujkova, math education consultant. The course participants are families, adventurous teachers, math clubs, playgroups, and other leaders of groups doing problem solving with young kids.

What: In the first week of the course, we will discuss settings and practices for introducing problem solving to young children. You will look at topics from Julia’s math circle, and discuss how to teach them. In the second week, you will gather your kids and their friends in a casual math circle, try out the topics, and then answer a few questions about your experience.

When: Sign up via the Moebius Noodles website by December 2nd. The main course activities will happen December 2nd through 16th. Expect to spend several hours a week doing course tasks.

Where: Main course activities will happen at our online ask and tell hub. The page you are on now will be updated with major links and news. Organizers will send you summary emails. We will have two live meetings online, at the beginning and at the end of the course, and post their recordings to this page.