My humble apologies. Danilo sent this answer a long, long time ago and I lost it in my email. Really sorry about that.
Q2. It was over 4 years ago now, so my memory is being stretched here, but I recall that during your breakout session at Nottingham you demonstrated how you use a simple Prerequisite Tree - I think it was to come up with a teaching plan? - and Eli Goldratt asked why you'd not yet turned it into a Transition Tree. I remember thinking at the time that it didn't seem to need anymore fleshing out. I've also read as much as I can find about TOCFE and there's no mention of the TT. This is a rather long build up to a simple question: TOCFE seems to rely on 3 TOC TP tools - the cloud, the ambitious target, and the branch - can you explain how you use each of these in education and if you use any of the other tools?
The application you are talking about was using a modified PrT to teach business statistics. The idea is to breakdown the steps of doing statistics problems into a series of intermediate steps so it is easier for students to follow along. I wrote a paper describing the process: "Using Graphic Organizers to Improve the Teaching of Business Statistics" published in Journal of Education for Business. As a result of that research, I wrote a workbook that can be used with a textbook to support teaching stats...the workbook is about to be published. The same idea can be used for a variety of math problems. In the conference, Eli was suggesting that I transform the PrTs into Transition Trees. I disagreed with him because of the time it will require from a teacher (or student) to do this is too much to be practical. The issue is that most teachers would agree that interactive learning is a more effective way of teaching that simply lecturing. In fact, there are a variety of techniques and processes you can use to teach interactively, including simulations, role playing, labs, games, etc. The problem with all these approaches is that they take a significant amount of time and teachers are under a lot of pressure not only to complete a predetermined curriculum but also to prepare students for standardized testing (specially in the US). So my guiding principle to teach using any thinking tools is that they must achieve the learning goals through some type of interactive process in the most efficient manner . The TT does not satisfy that principle.
The main TOC tool I use in my teaching is the cloud. One of the classes I teach is the Information systems (IS) which among other topics include teaching some type of IT solutions. The question is how to teach those solutions without just lecturing from a Power Point presentation. What I do is to write mini-cases, a case of a couple of paragraphs max, which will include some time of dilemma that can be solved using the IT solution I am trying to teach. So I start with the concept to be taught, from there I find a cloud and from the cloud I write the mini-case. Then I assign those mini-cases to small groups in the classroom and ask them to provide a solution to the problem. Students are requested to do a cloud and then present their solutions. This way the class is very interactive and in most cases students end up finding the solution I am trying to teach. My role after that is just to formalize the concept (like telling them the official name of the solution). There has been some cases where students come up with a very clever idea that I did not know about. That also enhances my learning. The process works very well and is generic enough that can be used to teach other subjects. I did a workshop at a university i nNew York and the participants wrote a mini case for which the solution was trigonometry!
In some instances, I also use a modified PrT. The most common situation is when reviewing case studies that are historical in nature. What that means is that the case is just a description of a company 's journey to solve a given problem. The challenge of this type of cases are twofold. First, can students learn anything from just reading a description of another company's activities? Also, it is the issue of relevance. If I am in the medical industry, what should I care about the car industry? To solve these problems, you need to find a tool that allows you to take the specific actions of a company, then turn that into some generic principles and then use this generic principles to bridge it to your own particular interest. So I use a variation of the PrT to accomplish this. First I ask students to review the case and provide a one sentence summary of the overall solution of the company (this will be equivalent to the target of a PrT). Then, students need to write every action taken by the company as described in the case. Next, students need to figure out the obstacle overcame or the need satisfied by each action. What happens here is that those obstacles/needs tend to be generic. For instance, if an action is "develop a new sales incentive system", the need could have been "motivate sales people." After following this procedure, students have a list of obstacles and needs that the company in the case faced when achieving its ambitious target. Since this list is generic, students can use it to generate their own set of intermediate objectives which are more appropriate for their industry. Not only that, when presenting the cases, students from different teams can compare notes across industries to see how they overcome similar obstacles, which provide a very fertile environment for learning. To sume up, the flow goes from IO to Obstacles then back to IO. Again, the process is generic enough that it could be applied to other subjects such as history and reading. I do not use the branch very often. For some reason, students have a hard time doing a branch from scratch. So, what I do is provide parts of a branch and ask students to complete it. For example, I will provide the trunk with choice for the effects (e.g. data accuracy improves or data accuracy decreases). Students are asked to pick an effect and the provide the explanation why they claim that effect is correct. I have used the branch in other fields other than the one I teach. Branches are very helpful for teaching reading, writing, science and even math.
For many years, I struggled trying to come up with generic principles explaining why TOC tools seems to be so effective. A few years ago I asked several teachers to experiment using TOC in different fields to try to find a pattern and hopefully create a generic process that will allow me to provide clear guidelines so teacher can make improvements in their teaching abilities. In the experiment, we have teachers teaching reading, writing, psychology, math and even grammar. What came up what something very simple which I now called the ABC process. ABC stands for Analyze, Breakdown and Connect. I believe that ABC is the underlying process that can make the TOC thinking tools in teaching very successful. A brief summary: First, you need to Analyze by determining the teaching objective and the issues students faced in learning that specific topic. The purpose is to have some background that will allow you later to make modifications as needed. In other words, a teacher needs to start with the end in mind and not try to force the use of any tool. Next, you need to break down the process into smaller components to be able to make it digestible for students. I think most educators know this but stop there without going into the next step. To achieve a real understanding of the topic, you need to Connect the knowledge in a meaningful manner. I think TOC does an excellent job in accomplishing B and C. But in some instances, you most add A to the equation to be able to make modifications to adapt to the specific issues faced by the students. For instance, in my example above with historical cases, the teaching issues led me to modify the PrT to adapt to my specific learning objectives. I am writing a book with a teacher, Belinda Small, which goes into more details of applications of using the ABC process to make modification to the TOC tools to enhance teaching. We also use ABC as a filter to evaluate other teaching techniques.
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