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

Try to solve a similar puzzle that involves moving items with specific constraints to enhance your problem-solving skills.

# Task

The objective of the puzzle is to switch the positions of all the rabbits so that all three white rabbits are on the right and all three brown rabbits are on the left. When all the rabbits have reached the other side, you win!

- Click a rabbit to make it jump forward. 

- A rabbit can jump a maximum of two spaces, and the destination spot must be free.

- White rabbits can only hop to the right. Brown rabbits can only hop to the left. 

- Rabbits can only jump onto an empty rock. A rabbit can jump over one rabbit to an empty rock—but only over one.

- Rabbits cannot jump back, only forward. It’s easy to tell which direction they can go—they face the direction they want to jump.

If you get stuck and your rabbits can’t jump anywhere, press the “Reset” button to reset the game.



If you’re unsure how to do this, click the “Show Hint” button.

Try to solve the problem using the top-down approach.

Polyas method

Bottom-Up Approach

Top-Down Approach

Wire Length Calculator

Stepwise refinement

Guessing Games

Minesweeper Game

Triangular Wall

Pattern Identification

Conclusion

Exercise

Task