Teaching Sequential Thought: The Cognitive-Skills Approach.
Arthur E. Whimbey · Phi Delta Kappan · 1977
Put your mind to work on this problem for a few minutes and you will see that, in a sense, it couldn't be simpler. If two days from now will be Sunday, then one day from now will be Saturday, so today must be Friday. Furthermore, if today is Friday, then yesterday was Thursday, the day before yesterday was Wednesday, and the day that follows Wednesday is Thursday. So the answer is Thursday. Obviously, creative leaps and abstract insights are not required for this prob lem?just systematic, sequential thought. Yet that is a thinking pattern in which many students are weak. Try this problem with some of your own students ? even weaker graduate stu dents ? and observe why they fail. You will find that they are unskilled in breaking a problem into clear, se quential steps. Low-aptitude students frequently try to go from Sunday (the only day named in the problem) directly to an estimated answer without taking the necessary intermediate steps. They begin with Sunday, scan the relationships between the days stated in the problem, then with one vague leap pick a day that seems approximately where the relation