Problem Solving Strategies

For student activities and teaching suggestions related to most of the strategies below, as well as PoWs that can be used to highlight each strategy, check out our new Problem Solving and Communication Activity Series.

• Check your understanding/Look up new vocabulary
• Calculate as you go; don't always worry about how to solve the whole problem
• Estimate
• Act it out
• Systematic guessing and checking
• Solve a simpler problem
• Divide into cases (solve it for specific situations)
• Consider extreme cases
• Draw a picture/diagram
• Make a list/table/chart
• Label, assign variables, formulate expressions and equations
• Look for a pattern
• Work backwards
• Use logical reasoning (e.g. show the opposite can't be true)
• Make a model
• Take advantage of symmetry
• Set up an equation
• Use odd/even to analyze the situation (parity)

• Share your work with others; compare approaches
• Ask questions
• Write out what you know and what you don't know
• Identify your assumptions
• Take a break and work on something else. Come back to it later