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Problem Solving & Decision Making · Module 6

Great Problem Solvers

The first five modules built the concepts and habits of problem solving. This module teaches through real stories: how history's great problem-solvers actually cracked hard problems — under pressure, within constraints, and often against the odds.

You will learn Pólya's timeless method, watch NASA save Apollo 13, follow inventors and codebreakers, trace scientific breakthroughs, and see how chance favours the prepared mind. Then you will distil the shared habits into a practice you can make your own. Every case study here is real and verifiable.

Lessons
7 lessons
Estimated time
~6-8 hours
Assessment
Module quiz included

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Lessons

Lesson 1 · 16 min

How to Solve It: Pólya's Method

Lesson 2 · 16 min

Apollo 13: Problem-Solving Under Pressure

Lesson 3 · 16 min

Invention and Ingenuity: How Breakthroughs Happen

Lesson 4 · 16 min

Cracking Codes: Puzzles, Logic, and Bletchley Park

Lesson 5 · 16 min

Scientific Breakthroughs as Problem-Solving

Lesson 6 · 16 min

Serendipity and the Prepared Mind

Lesson 7 · 16 min

Becoming Your Own Great Problem Solver

Check your understanding

Finish the lessons, then test yourself. Your best score is saved on this device. You can also open this quiz on its own page.

Great Problem Solvers — Module Assessment

14 questions · pass mark 75%

  1. 1.In Pólya's method, what is the main purpose of the 'look back' phase?
  2. 2.A solver reads 'the bat costs $1.00 more than the ball' as 'the ball costs $0.10' and gets the wrong total. Which phase was neglected?
  3. 3.Why did the engineers restrict themselves to materials already aboard the spacecraft when solving the CO2 problem?
  4. 4.What best captures how Apollo 13's problems were actually solved?
  5. 5.Around 1901 the Wright brothers built a small wind tunnel primarily in order to:
  6. 6.Why is 'persistence' alone an incomplete description of how invention works?
  7. 7.What was the Polish Cipher Bureau's role in the story of breaking Enigma?
  8. 8.How did the bombes and cribs let codebreakers handle Enigma's enormous number of settings?
  9. 9.What was the key evidence that let John Snow argue cholera was waterborne in 1854?
  10. 10.Why is it important to credit Rosalind Franklin when describing the 1953 DNA breakthrough?
  11. 11.Why is it inaccurate to call the discovery of penicillin pure luck?
  12. 12.What best captures how the Post-it Note came from a 'failed' product?
  13. 13.This lesson argues that the great problem-solvers across the module succeeded primarily because of what?
  14. 14.The lesson presents the habits as tendencies rather than commandments. What does this imply about applying them?
Answer every question to submit.