Why participate in TQM?
TQM is a philosophy and system for continually improving services and / or products offered to customers. Now that transport and communication technologies have replaced national economies with a global economy, countries and enterprises that do not practice TQM can quickly become noncompetitive on a global scale. This march towards non-competitiveness can be avoided if citizens are helped to become TQM practitioners. Therefore, the potential benefits of TQM in school, district, or college are very clear:
1. TQM can help a school or college improve its service to its main customers - students and employers.
2. Continuous improvement of TQM is a fundamental way to fulfill the accounting requirements common to educational reform.
3. Operating the TQM system without fear, with an emphasis on continuous growth and improvement, offers more excitement and problems for students and teachers than a “good enough” learning environment can provide.
What are the main elements of TQM in education?
At school or college, the TQM team has improvement teams and people are constantly working to improve customer service. The concept of “good enough” service is considered insufficient.
1. Awareness and commitment for all.
Student talents will not develop fully without EACH member of an educational partnership promoting the highest possible quality at each stage of the development process. A great way to start is with a general staff meeting. The meeting can provide:
a. Dynamic overview of TQM elements and potential by one or more speakers who have experienced
b. The clear commitment of the school board, the warden, and the director is that they will fully support TQM efforts and that they do not expect (to use the language of W. Edward Deming) “instant puddings”.
2. Clear mission. The management of continuous movement towards higher quality standards depends on the definition of these standards. If the school has a TQM steering committee (see Element No. 10a.), It must determine the answer to this question. Does the school have a clear, client-oriented mission statement and a process for the functioning of departments and / or departments? Is this statement in the exit results for graduates? If the answer is no, this problem should be solved using local, state, national, and employee standards. These standards should emphasize student development. ability to solve real problems.
3. Approach to system planning.
Traditional education has become overly fragmented. Teacher X provides an English course; a scientific teacher Y can largely concentrate on the knowledge of the scientific knowledge of students, without paying much attention to the development of this student’s ability to use English directors when writing a technical report. Subconsciously, the student begins to consider English as a “course,” and not as skills to be used. If it is necessary to develop higher levels of student competence, there should be higher levels of system-wide and interdisciplinary PLANNING for continuing education in schools and colleges.
4. Combining hierarchy substitution.
Hierarchical organizations yesterday still dominate too many businesses and schools. Such organizations tend to encourage individual efforts “well enough” to satisfy a leader who sometimes knows less about how to achieve quality than what he controls. Cross-management teams can and can contribute to greater improvement if they:
a. Given a clear mission and strong credibility
b. It is supported, but does not interfere with managers.
Support is an important element in the success or failure of TQM. If administrators, department heads, and department leaders support task improvement teams, these teams can generate more motivation and improvement than they otherwise would. If not, TQM will not be able to realize its potential. In properly managed TQM programs, administrators and executives work diligently:
a. Insisting on clear visions and missions
b. Coordination between quest or improvement teams c. Support the efforts and powers of the improvement teams as much as possible.
These are very important support activities. If administrators and managers do not perform them properly, task improvement teams may fail due to this weakness of the system.
5. Turning on and empowering Replacing fear.
Traditional systems of evaluation "by themselves" themselves generate fear and lack of initiative. Employees are focused on doing enough to keep the boss happy. However, if volunteer members of empowered groups have the opportunity to become experts and / or use experts, which allows them to create exceptions and dedication. School districts should support members of quality improvement groups with funding and time for others. Teams work best if team members are given the experience and power to make informed decisions. Each district and school must define and implement goals designed to be a learning organization.
6. Focus on learning skills.
In traditional classes, teachers often follow this sequence: 1 Plan -------------> 2 Learn ----------------> 3 Test. The normal curve, which usually arises, indicates that many students cannot study at the highest possible level in this system. TQM alternative: 1 Plan -> 2 Learn (DO) -> 3 Check ** -> 4 Revised Training (ACT) -> 5 Test ** At the “checking” stage, formative (not-for) -rating) testing is used to determine what training some students missed. Then not mastered material is reinstalled in some other way or style. If this is recommended, the review and revision of the teaching may be repeated several times. In the meantime, students who have mastered the material are moving towards enrichment training or helping to teach those who have not achieved mastery. This system of learning skills can lead to much more complete training for most students, in fact, to the positive movement of the “normal” curve. This improvement in learning is the main goal of TQM in the classroom.
7. Control by measurement.
In the section above, you learned about the Shewhart adapted cycle, which is the main part of the TQM process. Keep in mind that measurement is very important in the ** marked steps of this cycle. For example, if a reading teacher used a new computer program at the ACT step to help students have problems, he or she can collect data in steps 3 and 5 and plot them on a scatter diagram to explore the relationship between using this program and the final learning outcomes . If a thorough analysis showed that the new program contributed to a strong progress in reading, it would affect the planning of future studies. This data management, not opinion, allows us to objectively pursue two main goals of TQM in education:
a. Improved learning.
b. Increase cost effectiveness.
Excellent books on quality processes and measurements in education are available in the free catalog from ASQ Quality Press; PO Box 3005; Milwaukee, WI 53201-3005. Phone number (800) 248-1946; fax number - (414) 272-1734. Membership discounts are available to those who join the American Society of Quality. The ASQ website is http://www.asq.org. There are also state or regional chapters.
8. Developing TQM student skills.
In addition to using TQM to improve learning in general, each school district must specifically train its students to understand and use TQM. This is the main part of schools that promote job readiness in the global economy. Regardless of whether school personnel decide to integrate TQM training into existing courses or provide it as a separate course, it is important that students work, not just learn TQM. Excellent resources in this area are books from ASQ Quality Press at the address given in section 7 above. These books are related to student activities - (1) THINKING TOOLS FOR CHILDREN; (2) FUTURE POWER: CHILDREN WHO WANT, CAN AND DO !; (3) A SERIES OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT, encompassing science, language arts in primary school, mathematics, history and social studies; and the SMART TEACHING manual, which is a complete 8-step training system. A great way to make students live in TQM is to create a system in which student assessment ports are dynamic reports of continual improvement in which students can be proud.
9. Humanistic and cerebral compatible focus.
In the learning environment, Dr. William Glasser presented one of the best translations of TQM principles into suggestions for a very productive learning environment. Each teacher can benefit from reading his book: The School Quality Teacher, William Glaser, MD (1998) Harper Paperbacks. Working with people is much more difficult than making widgets. Dr. Glasser offers an excellent plan for TQM in classes in the context of deep sensitivity to human relationships. In addition, one of the most productive areas in which the school improvement team can work is to help all employees use more sensible teaching methods in training in models.
10. Transformation Plan. Under Element 1, as a first step, when considering the transition from traditional to operation TQM, an awareness presentation was recommended. Two other basic actions are recommended here:
a. Create a TQM steering committee that:
(1) develops a staff support plan for implementing TQM and
(2) Creates a positive relationship between this committee and traditional leaders. at
b. Use advice from consultants and / or schools that have succeeded in transforming TQM.
The last action is especially important.
