Providing Effective Schooling for Students at Risk

Sue Berryman

Sue Berryman, director of the Institute on Education and the Economy at the Teachers College of Columbia University in New York, talks about the importance of problem-solving skills when students are confronted with a new situation. Excerpted from the video series Schools That Work: The Research Advantage, videoconference #7, Preparing Students for Work in the 21st Century (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1992).

"We've been talking a lot about problem solving and really reasoning and all these sorts of skills, connected into that are what are known as the cognitive executive skills, and that's your ability to confront a new situation and you say gosh how do I learn this. In other words, a part of the developing of all of those what we call the high order cognitive thinking skills is really helping individuals monitor their problem solving. They being to see, wait a minute, this isn't working very well, how do I shift strategies, what are the resources I can use, and this is where schools are bizarre, because we cast kids taking away all of the resources they might be able to use to help them really get control over the problem. In the real world of work, or any place at home or as a consumer, you have all kinds of resources, and the effective person is the person that marshals as many of those as are relevant to really getting control over something that's new and unfamiliar."

This Critical Issue was researched and written by Mary Ann Costello, a free-lance writer, based on an outline and comments submitted by John H. Hollifield, associate director of the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At Risk (CRESPAR), and Lynn Stinnette, director of Center for School and Community Development at the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory.

Date posted: 1996