Troubleshooting

Introduction

• Prepare in advance a tangled, knotted mess of string. Show students the string and ask, "How will I ever untangle this string?"
• Invite students to offer suggestions or try working on the knots.
• Demonstrate how untangling a difficult knot often takes patience and slow, steady progress. Some strategies work well,while others don't.
• Explain that this type of problem-solving is sometimes called "troubleshooting." Computer programmers are always troubleshooting when they create code and write algorithms. Sometimes the code works right away, but sometimes it needs to be fixed or improved.