If there is a
management concept that you need to know about today then it’s Lean Management.
The question is how can adopting lean management optimize the learning
experience of your students? Not only that, but how can your students
themselves learn lessons that they can apply to their studies?
At heart it’s all
about setting out process which take you from where you are to where you want
to get to. And ensuring that everyone involved understands how that journey is
going to take place.
You Can Adapt the
Structure and Content of Lessons on a Rolling Basis
This point follows
on naturally, and it’s something that many institutions could benefit from. By
acting and then comparing the outcome to the intended goal you can see for
yourself whether what you set out to do was actually achieved.
If not, then you’ll
be able to find out why not. Perhaps it was always unachievable and needed to
be broken up into more realistic intermediates? Or perhaps you went off on a
tangent part way through and lost momentum? Lean allows you to answer these
questions quickly and efficiently.
You Can Quickly
Change Course When You Need to
The latest
research shows
that lean is a reliable way to correct mistakes and departures from the
intended path. Not only that, but it does it quickly. The idea of setting
things right at the earliest opportunity is something schools and students can
both learn from.
If a student gets
into the habit of regularly assessing the standard of their own work and
evaluating their own knowledge then the chances are they’ll perform better
under exam conditions. This is because they will have scrutinized their work in
great detail several times before even putting pen to paper in the examination
hall. When a practice test doesn’t yield the intended results it offers a
chance to improve, not an indication that the student simply isn’t up to the
task.
The same is true for
schools and all other educational institutions. By continually assessing
performance and feeding it back into a continuous cycle of improvement you can
iteratively arrive at a much higher level of output.
You Will Make Better
Use of Your Key Resource: Your Staff
One of the biggest
advantages of lean is that you’ll be able to make best use of your staff. Check
out sites like rated by students and it’ll become clear that the highest
rated teachers are those that are used the right way.
By continuously
monitoring progress and then feeding it back in, you can create a feedback
system that moves things in the right direction. A key point is that lean
allows you to be more agile and flexible than you otherwise would be. This
means that if a new hire possesses skills your institution has been lacking you
can adapt to this change in resources and feed it back in at your next periodic
review. You may reassign certain duties and realign reporting structures to
make better use of your new and existing staff.
This will also help
your team achieve a better work-life balance as they’ll be playing to their
strengths and getting through their workload more efficiently. Something that’s
vital if you want them to bring energy and enthusiasm to the classroom each
day.
You Will Learn
Lessons Faster Than Others
As an institution or
as a student there’s no better way to put your knowledge to the test than with
a test under exam conditions. By forcing yourself to address flaws or gaps in
your knowledge and performance you will be able to quickly identify the areas
for improvement. This is the point at which lean really does come into its own.
By moving quickly
from problems to solutions via a framework of incremental steps you can
actually measure improvement over time. This then allows you to set in motion a
process for continually minimizing weaknesses and gradually turning them into
strengths.
Over time this
iterative approach will allow you to create a wide and varied foundation on
which to build. Whether this be the way in which you study for an examination,
start a new elective module, or deliver the lesson itself, the fundamentals of
the lean process are the same. It’s a process of continuous improvement that
will take you as far in life as you want to go.
You Will Unite
Learning Objectives With Learning Outcomes
Take this example of
a lean
school in the UK
that partnered with Toyota. They were able to make better use of their staff
and align their skills with their own personal teaching objectives. This
created buy-in and allowed them to see a clear link between what they were
doing in the classroom, and what the students were achieving lesson by lesson.
The process of tying
learning objectives and learning outcomes together may seem like commonsense,
but with so many daily tasks it can be easy to lose sight of. The lean approach
allows teachers to strip away clutter and filler, and frame every lesson as a
particular set of predefined objectives.
This not only makes
their lesson planning easier, but it also gives students a clear reason as to
why they’re doing what they’re doing that day. By having a motivation and a
reason they are then able to commit to learning to a greater extent than they
otherwise would be. Gone are the seemingly arbitrary tasks, definitions, and
group projects. With a lean approach everyone in education is able to see a
clear start and end point, linked together by an easily navigable pathway that
takes them where they want to get to.
About the Author
Daniela is passionate
about finding new ways for educational organizations to manage and allocate
their resources so they can best meet the needs of their students. Her hope is
that by opening up innovative practices to new institutions she will be able to
help them meet the ever-changing demands placed upon them. In addition she is
also a writer and editor at Topwritersreview.
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