How Do We Respond When Our Systems Aren’t Working?
Thanks to Leon at ASQ for providing the topic for this entry. Leon commented on the last entry (“In the Absence of Direction, People will Set Their Own”) and asked the questions “How did the kids respond?” and “How did the adults respond?” These are excellent questions that I thought warranted some discussion.
To answer Leon’s question regarding the lunch situation in the last entry – we realized that we needed to implement a back-up system for the lunch periods to address the “outside the comfort zone” affect that schedule changes create for this particular group of students. What didn’t seem to be an issue for groups in the past has all of the sudden become a “probletunity” for making adjustments to our way of thinking.
Clearly, paying attention to how students respond to our processes is critical to the success of improvement efforts. That valuable feedback provides us with evidence that our efforts are – or are not – having the desired impact. Continually asking ourselves how our students are responding to our efforts puts the focus where it needs to be – on the stake holders.
Perhaps of more importance is the question “How do we respond when our current systems do not produce the desired outcomes?” It’s easy to find a system that works for us and continue to use it because we have seen results in the past. However, frequent feedback from our students (and other stake holders) may dictate that we adjust our systems on a regular basis to meet their needs – not ours – at the time. In my experience, the idea of making paradigm shifts is, to say the least, uncomfortable for people. I’ve also learned over time that being taken outside our comfort zone from time to time is what makes us grow and reach for something better.
How comfortable are you with your current systems and how do you respond when your systems aren’t producing the desired results?
Paul
Comments
Nice blog. We have a different system of communication at our institutes in this part. Students usually do not feel comfortable while communicating to their teachers. I tried to change that and found that the students liked provided they knpow that the results will be fruitful for them (WIIFM: what's in it for me). Change receives resistance but if goal is clearly identified and there seems a light, change would be welcomed.
Posted by: Dr. Ejaz | March 28, 2008 01:45 AM
The blog is really nice.Feedback is important in efforts because it allows us to let others know how they are doing, and it lets us know information about our own performance.
Communicating efficiently is the cornerstone of education. Without communication ideas, directions, and thoughts are lost but we usually find the same thing in our institutes. I think we must learn to communicate effectively.
Posted by: Mahera Mobin | March 30, 2008 10:21 AM
The given blog is nice.It is good bcoz it gives us awareness to communicate our matters or problem with our teacher and classmates but we don't use to tell our matters to our teacher.But we dont have much communication skills bcoz we always hasitate to discuss, i think we have to make our communication skills better and rapid.
Posted by: Aelia Peter | March 30, 2008 11:54 AM
in my humble opinion the envoirment of discussion should be more effective,bold,free and open so that students share their comments without any hesitation and comfortably.To achieve this goal the teachers are required to create such friendly enviorment where student freely express their views and ideas.Similarly the students should also make themselves more responsible to thoroughly apply their mind by producing fresh ideas which would help in solving the problems more effectively.
Posted by: tooba farooqui | March 31, 2008 03:22 PM
Movement in a new direction helps you find a new cheese.
I strongly agree with Dr. Ejaz that new methodologies should be introduced to make improvement in the current system and students should be motivated to participate in the discussions. We have recently introduced the concept of ‘Reading Club’ at our institute (Aga Khan Community Center), in which we invite students and teachers to join us in some park or river side where we make discussions on the already given articles. I personally found that technique very productive and also received interest from participants.
Posted by: Shahzad Ali | March 31, 2008 05:08 PM
Very nice blog it is.It is an undenisable fact that the importance of good communication between students & teachers cannot be neglected.As far as my opinion is concerned I must say that teachers should provide suitable enviroment for their students in which they communicate easily and confidently.They dont feel hesitation to share their thoughts,ideas with their teachers.Teacher must encourage their students to communicate and must aware of the problems of the students. But the bottom line is we know how to over come them and students feel responsible to share their problems or Ideas with their teachers.
Posted by: Mahwish Khalid | April 2, 2008 03:02 PM
I agree with Dr Ejaz and shahzad that new methodologies should be used to change our current system.As seminar arrange in our department it is very good because of this we are all aware about the importance of our subject.It provide us oppurtunity to communicate with our alumni who r currently working on good position.
It will be very effective for our future life.
Posted by: maria rahim | April 4, 2008 08:42 AM
In my opinion, communication between students and teachers is very important but in our society there is no such type of situation. According to me, teacher sholud know about the problems of students and their nature should be polite with their students and the responsibilities of students are they must respect their teachers, they should also discuss their problems with teachers because teachers always want good for their students.
Posted by: Hina Moin | April 6, 2008 02:54 PM