Background:
A school teacher notices that many students consistently turn in their work late, the late homework disrupts the class schedule and affects the students’ marks.
Workaround:
To address this, the teacher starts offering extra marks to students who turn in their homework on time. This motivates some students to be more punctual, but it doesn’t solve the underlying problem, and many students still struggle to meet the deadlines.
- Symptom: Students turning in homework late.
- Workaround Applied: Offering extra marks for on-time submissions.
Deeper Analysis:
After talking to students, the teacher discovers that the cause is that students often forget about the homework or feel overwhelmed by the amount of work they have. Many students do their homework at the last minute or not at all because they can’t organise their time effectively.
- Cause: Students forget about homework or feel overwhelmed, leading to procrastination.
Root Cause:
Going deeper, the root cause is found to be that students lack time management skills and do not use planners effectively. They aren’t taught how to break down assignments into smaller, manageable tasks, and as a result, they get overwhelmed and miss deadlines.
- Root Cause: Poor time management skills and lack of guidance on using planners to organise assignments.
Solution:
The teacher implements a two-part solution. First, they teach a mini-lesson on time management skills, showing students how to use a planner and break down big assignments into smaller steps. Second, they introduce a classroom routine where students spend the last few minutes of each class updating their planners and setting goals for when they will complete their homework.
- Solution: Teaching time management skills and incorporating planner use into the daily routine.
Outcome: With these changes, students learn to organise their time better and keep track of their assignments, leading to a significant improvement in on-time homework submissions. The extra marks incentive becomes less necessary, as students have developed the skills to manage their workload more effectively.
Summary:
- Workaround: Offering extra marks for on-time homework submissions.
- Symptom Addressed: Students consistently turning in homework late.
- Cause: Students forget about homework or feel overwhelmed by their workload.
- Root Cause: Poor time management skills and lack of guidance on using planners.
- Solution: Teaching time management skills and incorporating planner use into the daily routine.
This example shows how applying a workaround can temporarily address a problem, but teaching students better habits and skills (the root cause) leads to a long-term solution.
