The Lesson

The lesson was about Kaizen (Japanese for Continuous Improvement), one of the various Lean Production methods that my students learn about. With the foundation of Lean Production already set, and a couple of other methods already learnt, in class, I felt that this topic was a good one to let the students learn on their own. The reading and videos (which are really useful to give a visual story of the concept) take up time in class and are better done at home. By the end of the lesson, the students are expected to be well-versed with the concept of Kaizen.

Adding a couple of simple quizzes to ensure that the students grasp the concept well, aided the teaching-learning process.

Finally, to challenge their higher order thinking abilities, a project that pushes them to improve some process in their own daily lives in order to become more efficient and cut down on wastage, is assigned.

First exposure

 The first exposure is given with the web-page to be read and a video to be watched.

The article gives a simple and detailed explanation of Kaizen. The video shows the Kaizen practices employed in organisations, to give a clearer relatable visuals of the concept.

The quizzes, one in Google Docs and the other in Google Forms, test the students’ understanding of the aspects of Kaizen.

Tracking completion

While the first quiz was in Google Doc and did not need me to track it, the second one was intentionally put into Google Form to allow me to check the level of understanding. I would also be able to track progress by monitoring the submissions of the quiz answers, although the scores will not be counted in for the overall grades.

The final project that needs to be worked on, in pairs, has a deadline. Although the lesson page simply mentions “end of this week”, a real-time lesson would give an exact due date; and this would complete the learning process.

Building higher order thinking ability

 A real-life problem solving would need the students have truly understood the fundamentals of Kaizen. This would help them identify a relevant problem in their lives – it could be as simple as “I am late to school every day”. One of the reasons could be too much time taken to shower. It is surprising to note that this could be a good enough problem to analyse, break down what really takes place through the process of taking a shower and how things can be altered to quicken the process. A detailed thinking is required and the ability to question the process multiple times will lead to solution building. For eg., too much time in the shower could be caused by the shower head clogged and not spraying water quickly enough, or a lot of time wasted listening to music, day-dreaming etc.. Digging deeper into why these happen reveal the next level of causes. By going sufficiently deep into the process, students would be able to identify the root cause(s) and then propose how to go about solving it(them). This definitely calls for higher order thinking.

Lesson page