Beginning a new school year in Peru: We want to make the most out of it without “dying” in the attempt, don´t we? So, why not try a Poka-Yoke mentality to design classes and activities? Before going into the Poka-Yoke thinking, let’s explore a probable familiar situation.
What was our experience like last year?
Last year is gone, but some experiences remain in our memory. Are all of them good? Bad? What did we do that made those teaching-learning experiences successful? What did we do that made those experiences not as successful as we wanted them to be? Has it ever occurred to you that sometimes the “solutions” to those kinds of “problems” are there just in front of us, but we haven´t found the way to use or organize the information in the best way yet? Sometimes, there are inadvertent mistakes that do not allow us to use our resources well enough and that could be related to what we are focusing on: we might be looking at classes from the wrong perspective.
What do we take into account when we prepare our lessons?
We have heard a lot about the pre-existing knowledge with which students come. In fact, it is very likely that in our lesson plans and lessons, we have to consider eliciting students’ previous knowledge at the beginning. This is supported by the contemporary view that learning means that people construct their new knowledge and understanding based on what they already know and believe (1). According to Vygotsky (2), this is extremely important. He introduced the concept of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)(2)(3), which is the gap between what a learner has already mastered and what s/he can achieve when educational support is provided. Regarding this: What do we know about our students´ ZDP? Do we really know how much knowledge, experience, skills, beliefs, and concepts our students come with? Even more, do we really know them? How can I prepare a lesson if I do not know who my students are? Just think about this carefully: Would you be able to choose a gift for, let´s say, me without knowing my likes, preferences or anything that could give you a hint on how to select the right one? What details did you have in mind while choosing a gift for some relative or close friend last Christmas? I am quite sure that you knew something important about that person in order to pick out that gift, didn’t you?
This might be one of the issues we are not considering and is preventing us from having incredible success? Thus, in order to use effectively this existing knowledge, experience, and so on, we must know as much as possible about our students. If we ignore this fact, the outcome may not be what we expect. Here´s what we must consider about our students and know when preparing our lessons: age, sex, cognitive level, learning style, language level, likes, preferences, social and economic background. Furthermore we need to know students’ expectations both from the course and from us as teachers. Then, we will be more prepared to give a lesson. We will be even more prepared to motivate them at the beginning of the class because our decisions will be based on facts and not just on assumptions.
Are we ready now to start working on a POKA-YOKE (4) teaching strategy?
Until now, we have just found out with whom we are going to work. Next step is to prepare the lesson. In order to make sure that there won’t be any unforeseen mistakes and that we are ready to overcome most possible problems, we need to consider the following aspects in the plan. Do you know what a poka-yoke teaching strategy is? This strategy is based on the poka-yoke mechanism, a mistake proofing approach that uses visual signals to make mistakes clearly stand out or become evident. For instance, you may have noticed that when you assemble a desktop computer, it is simply not possible to plug in the keyboard or mouse into the wrong holes of the CPU. That is because the designer used poka-yokes to help the user achieve his goal without possible mistakes. Likewise, teachers can use poka-yokes in their classes to help students achieve their learning goals without getting lost on the way. Thus, we need to make sure of having visual signals that let us identify the mistake, if any, easily. We also need to guarantee that all steps are followed. Regarding any lesson, we need to clearly identify the objective of the lesson; what we need the students to be able to do by the end of the class. Knowing the objective of the lesson may sound obvious, but you would be surprised to see how many teachers act in class as if “performing the activities” were the objective and not the means to achieve a superior learning objective.
Once we know this, we should determine the following based on the self-assessment sheet (5):
- Activity proposed and its objective
- Resources used
- Did the activity help you to achieve its objective? Did it work?
- What evidence (visual signal) do we have that it worked?
- What should I do to improve this result for the following class?
In addition to this, we should think of the possible problems that may arise.
The poka-yoke teaching strategy implies having the minimum elements to work with a very high probability that the results we expect will become true.
Definitely, there are other factors that affect learning. Even though they are important, they are not more important than students and teachers themselves.
If you liked this reflection on how to make classes inevitably successful, please choose any of the following questions and share your thoughts.
- The article gives the example of poka-yokes used in a computer. You can also find a poka-yoke when a computer program double checks with you if you are sure you want to delete a file, thus helping you avoid the possibility that you delete it accidentally. Can you give other examples from everyday life where you find poka-yokes (a design thought to help avoid mistakes)?
- In trying to make an activity work like a poka-yoke for students to fulfill a learning objective, which of the following factors is in your experience the most important? Why?
a. The lesson plan
b. The teacher’s motivation
c. The classroom environment
d. The appeal of the activity to students’ interests
e. The objective of the activity
- Can you suggest other factors, ideas or strategies that can contribute to an inevitable attainment of learning goals in class (just as a poka-yoke does)?
References:
(1) How people learn (2000) edited by John D. Bransford, Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking.
(2) Lev Vygotsky- biography
(3) ZPD definition
(4) POKA-YOKE definition
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes, 54 seconds
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Thank you for sharing your article with us. For question number 2 I think it is the lesson plan with clear and real activity objectives. The lesson plan is a strong tool that makes teachers be ready to avoid or face any trouble in class. It does not mean it is the perfect tool but it is a really useful one to use it as a poka-yoke resource.
For me “clear and real objectives” mean those objectives that can be achievable in class according to the students’ level, and that can cover their learning needs. Thus, a lesson plan itself without good objectives is like a drifting boat.
In my opinion, when we design an activity for students we have to be clear with the objective of that activity; by the way all these factors are very important. However, if we make an activity without a clear objective, we can work hours and hours and wont get any succes. Moreover, students can realize that there is no purpose of that activity and get bored or start doing something else, and all the activity is going to be a mess.
For question No 3, I think another factor could be the age, because the older a student is, the more mature he is. This is important because students think in different ways according to the age. The problem arises when parents register their kids with older students since the parents think their children are good enough to be with older students.
For question n°2. In my opinion, when a teacher makes an activity work she/ he should take into account that there are some important factors to have a succesful class.
From my point of view, one of the main factors is the objective of the activity because all the classes must have a goal, but when the teacher prepares a class she/ he needs to know as much as possible about the students. Otherwise, the objectives may be not what the teacher expects.
The other factors such as the teacher's motivation, the classroom environment and the appeal of the activity to students' interests affect too, so teachers need to focus on them to have a good development of a class.
If a teacher wants to have a good result of the class she/ he must improve her / his strategies of motivation in order to get a confortable classroom envoronment.
Students' interests could be a support for a teacher to get students' attention, so we need to know students' likes and dislikes.
A teacher must know all the factors in the process of a class.
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Thanks for sharing your thooughts Jesica. I totally agree with you. A well designed plan will make a great difference. It will definitely guide us; however, we should always be prepared in case the plan doesn´t work or cannot be followed. Furhtermore,whenever possible antipate possible problems.
Thanks Yanet for your ideas. That´s true! Students won´t find any reason for becoming involved. Students need to feel motivated and if they do not find motivation in the teacher´s lesson they will try to find it in other activities or anything else that may be more appealing in that moment.
Thank you Evelyn for your contribution. Definitely teachers have to consider many factors to succeed. Not an easy task at the beginning but worthwhile once you see the results.
For question 2: In my opinión, the activity must be appealing for students, I have to know my students very well to know what activities materials and what strategies the teacher is going to use to catch their attention, in order to have better results to learn the language; otherwise, we couldn't raise the students interests.
Regarding question three, there are many factors that can influence or contribute to achieve learning goals such as the students’ age, their previous experience with the topic or their learning styles as well. However, from all these factors, I consider learning styles as an important one. Knowing students’ learning styles provides the path of how they can learn and how we can teach. For that reason, a class work that takes into account children’s learning styles helps any teacher to get students’ attention, motivation, interest and, above all, a successful students’ learning process. We have to remember that as educators we must know our children and knowing their learning styles is a key part of knowing them.
Regarding question one, I think the detailed procedures that some companies follow to get quality standards like ISO 9000 is a good example of a poka-yoke strategy. Companies work a lot to avoid or remove any mistakes they have found in their procedures during their life time. Thus, these standards help them to get high quality in their products or customer’s service. Another example of poka-yokes could be the elevators or cars. Elevators have a device to detect if someone or something is in the elevator’s door to not close it. Cars have a device to show you if any door is correctly closed or not.
In conclusion, poka-yokes are in our daily life more than we think. We should just think about how these poka-yokes help us every day.
Those strategies which are given us, provide possible suggestions or solution in order to anticipate possible problem in a lesson planned. We as a teacher must be ready to any kind of problem or mistake using this innovative resource "poka-yokes". So I will hope to read more about other resources that will help us in teaching.
Poka-Yoke, an error-proof way of thinking and designing our classes
For me motivation is the key element in sharing your knowledge in a class. It is the connecting point between your students and you. It will open minds and welcome new words, phrases, phrasal verbs, as well as pronunciation correction and modal correction, carefully measured etc. everything done in a very harmonic way. When students are motivated, they don’t feel bad when they are a little corrected because they feel naturedly invited to participate.
Rosario Uribia.
Regarding question 3. One strategy I consider very useful is the one in which one checks if the resources we want to use are useful.To do so, on could answer the following questions about the resource to be used:
1. Is it applicable to the activity(ies) proposed?
2. Is it available in your school?e.g. Computers
3. Is it going to help me achieve the objectives of the lesson or the activity itself?
4. Is it going to be used by everybody in the class or just some students?
5. Are there any other resources that can help you achieve your goal?
Identifying the usefulness of a resource is important because we spend a lot of time preparing them. Thus, it needs to be worthwhile.
Thank you Vanessa. Definitely, the student´s age is an important factor. It may affect the way students learn; however , it won´t impede their learning. Having students of different ages in the same class is a challenge for us since we will need to adapt our plan to their characteristics.
Thank you Vanessa. Motivation is an important key in every lesson. The more we know our students, the better we will motivate them.
Thank you Jesica. Knowing students´ learning styles can help us prepare better lessons and have more chances of achieving our goals. Besides, it is not so difficult to find out about this. There is a number of questionnaires that can help us identify them and you can always find one that matches with your availability of time.
Absolutely, they are everywhere making our lives easier. Sometimes, we are so used to them that we do not realize how important they are.
Thank you Karen. Anticipating problems is an important strategy. It will help us be prepared to make any necessary changes to achieve our goals. Sure, you can always read other articles in our blog; they will you more ideas to improve your teaching. We never stop learning, don´t we?
Thank you Rosario. Learning happens more easily in an inspiring environment. Thus, we need to find all the ways to stimulate our students.
Thank you Mariela. I do agree with you in that the we need to know if the resources we want to use are both efficient and effective.
Elena SFB
I´m really thankful for sharing your ideas with us. According to the question number 2 I know that most of teachers starts planning their lessons iliciting students´previous knowledge at beginning without regarding their ZPD what our students have learnt without help and what our students learn with help. In order to help them as teachers we´re always looking for suitable strategies to prepare our lessons; however, how do you know if our lessons or resources will be successful?. So I totally agree knowing as much as possible about our students like age, cognitive level, social or economic brackground. POKA – YOKE teaching strategy helps us prevent unforeseen mistakes that make our students getting lost in their learning process. You need to know how motivated your students feel in class? and what do you need to improve?
Elena SFB
I´m really thankful for sharing your ideas with us. According to the question number 2 I know that most of teachers starts planning their lessons iliciting students´previous knowledge at beginning without regarding their ZPD what our students have learnt without help and what our students learn with help. In order to help them as teachers we´re always looking for suitable strategies to prepare our lessons; however, how do you know if our lessons or resources will be successful?. So I totally agree knowing as much as possible about our students like age, cognitive level, social or economic brackground. POKA – YOKE teaching strategy helps us prevent unforeseen mistakes that make our students getting lost in their learning process. You need to know how motivated your students feel in class? and what do you need to improve?
Thank you Elena for taking some minutes to share your views. Preparing a lesson implies more than taking into account the organization of the lesson, the materials and so on. The most important, besides knowing your students and topic to be taught, is to know the objectives of the lesson as well as the ones of the activities you plan in each class. Kwoing if you have achieved them will help you with your future lessons. Keep in touch.
The classroom environment is important because when someone enjoys doing something, he/she reaches a goal easily. That´s why my quote is “learning is fun”. Our must as teachers have to help our students to feel happy, comfortable, valued and free to express their opinion in class. If we get it, their learning will be memorable and easy.
I conside knowing student's learning styles is one of the key point that help us to prepare our lessons. If you know how they can learn it's better for us how we can teach. The motivation is another important point, if you catch their attention they feel confortable and they can learn easy.
I consider knowing student's learning styles is one of the key point that help us to prepare our lessons. If you know how they can learn it's better for us how we can teach. The motivation is another important point, if you catch their attention they feel comfortable and they can learn easy.
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I think this article is really useful for our classes and highlights the importance of motivation in our students as an important factor in their development of the language and their process of learning. Having a good atmosphere in the classrom is a key element in the process of learning.
You are right Nataly; the classroom environment is crucial. Taking into account that students spend many hours in their classroom , it is absolutely necessary that this environment be the best to help them.
I totally agree with you María Victoria. It is essential that you know the characteristics of your students and one of them is their learning style. That will help you adjust everything to cover as much as possible.
Thank you Raul for sharing your thoughts. It is necessary to find different ways to motivate our students according to their characteristics.
As teachers we know that each session should begin with motivation this will allow students to have desires to learn . But not only at the beginning of each session throughout the class and in all activities. Students feel happy and eager to learn when they find a positive atmosphere in the classroom .
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Thank you for sharing your article.It's very intetesting.
In my opinion teacher's motivation and a good classroom environment are very important in the learning process.
Our students enjoy a lot our classes when they feel happy and confortable with us.
I do agree with you Milagros. This challenging and encouraging atmosphere depends a lot on what teachers design for their classes.
I do agree with you Lourdes. We need to be careful when designing our lessons.
Thank you for this article. I think that classroom enviroment is really important in a class because if we don't have this we can't get the goal that we plan as teachers. So that we have to create this to have good result during the class. It's necessary to have emphaty between us and students to get a suitable learning. Thanks.
Thank you for this article. I think that classroom enviroment is really important in a class because if we don't have this we can't get the goal that we plan as teachers. So that we have to create this to have good result during the class. It's necessary to have emphaty between us and students to get a suitable learning. Thanks.
Thank you María Victoria for sharing your views. Knowing our students will allow us both prepare better lessons and motivate them since we will know how to approach them. Keep in contact!
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Thank you Danitza for your comments. I do agrre with you. A good classroom environment is definitely one of the factors that influence the success of a lesson. Keep in contact.
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