What is Quality Education?Dr. W. Edwards Deming of Total Quality Management (TMF) defines quality as “having characteristics required by customers and having been produced without wasted human or non-human resources”.
Let us consider for a moment what that might mean in a school environment. The customers would almost certainly be the parents, the pupils and the whole society. The human effort that we don’t want to waste would be that of teachers and pupils and parents alike.
What outcomes do we need?Pupils who understand the syllabus? Yes.
Pupils who are interested in the material, listen in class, do their homework, attend school without resorting to truancy? Yes.
Pupils who do quality work in class and at home? Yes.
Pupils who are self-disciplined and not disruptive? What a bonus!
So, how can we achieve it?Research shows that while most students know what quality is and are generally capable of delivering it in class, many admit that they’ve never bothered and don’t intend to do so in the future. The most often quoted reason for their lack of commitment is not that the work is too hard, but that it is too boring. And “boring” usually means that the students cannot relate to the class work and the material they are requested to learn.
In other words, the learning task at hand is not satisfying the students’ needs, because it doesn't take into account their learning style.
Enter Learning Styles Analysis - a tool that can change all that by providing teachers with the awareness awareness of their students’ learning needs:
- do they need tactile tools?
- would they work better in a darker room?
- do they thrive when given a work structure?
- are they more productive when working in groups?