{"id":2648,"date":"2012-10-31T06:55:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-31T06:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/?p=2648"},"modified":"2026-10-18T09:22:03","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T09:22:03","slug":"the-wicked-problems-of-pedagogy-and-teaching-with-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/?p=2648","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018Wicked Problems\u2019 of Pedagogy and Teaching with Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Originally published on:<\/strong> October 31, 2012<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wicked problems occur in any domain involving stakeholders with differing perspectives\u201d (Conklin, 2005)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I started this long overdue newsletter the first week of September ember, I wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cI would like to welcome you all to this new academic year and hope that you will have a very productive one in the midst of all the changes we are incurring. If you\u2019ve had a chance to look at CLT\u2019s list of workshops this semester, you will notice that we have larger offerings than usual and also a greater diversity of themes. We actually had to restrain ourselves from offering even more. My point is that this large diversity is a reflection of the complex landscape of what teaching and learning has become.<\/strong> What, how, where and when we teach is changing and our task is much more challenging than it ever was\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Little did I know that we were going to face what has been one of the most daunting tests in AUC\u2019s recent history. In a sense, the events of September 16th, 2012 to September 30th, 2012 gate closures have been a wakeup call for all of us on many fronts. In this newsletter, I will limit myself to the urgent problem that we faced resulting from the need to use technology to teach online when our campus and classrooms were off limits. In the bigger picture, this very problem ties in well with what I was referring to in the previous paragraph as \u201cthe complex landscape\u201d of teaching and learning. It is this complexity that I wish to address, and for this I will use the concept of the \u201cwicked problem\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


I first became aware of this concept when reading an article on pedagogy as a \u201cwicked problem\u201d (Ellsworth, 2011). As time went by and as the events of the last few weeks unfolded, the concept has taken multidimensional meanings for me: the on campus conflict was a wicked problem, the closing of the gates was a wicked problem; the need for temporary launching of online and blended learning was a wicked problem. I saw wicked problems everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


So what is a wicked problem? The term was originally coined in the field of urban planning and the best way to describe it is by first defining its antithesis \u2013 the tame problem. Chess is often used as an example to describe a tame problem: it can be very complex but it has well defined rules and goals and always has a solution. This is why we can design computer programs that can beat the most sophisticated chess players in the world. By contrast, wicked problems are those problems that do not necessarily have a unique solution. They are problems that are inherently social in nature arising from complex cause and effect relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The concept of wicked problems was first introduced in 1973 by H. Rittel and M. Webber, in their landmark article \u201cDilemmas in a General Theory of Planning\u201d. As urban planners, both of them recognized that \u201cthe kinds of problems planners deal with \u2013 societal problems \u2013 are ill-defined, are never solved. At best they are re-solved, over and over again\u201d. Later Conklin (Conklin, 2005) generalized the concept of wicked problems to areas other than planning. Here are some important characteristics of these problems:<\/p>\n\n\n\n