Lean Education: Prevent Teacher Burnout and Scale Classrooms to 1,000s

Every instructor is trying to optimize their time.

The truth is, not all responsibilities above must be done by an instructor. Some can be delegated to a teaching assistant (TA) or automated.

All tasks mentioned in the cartoon above fall into this spectrum:

The goal of any large school should be to create a system that moves tasks from the right (only a teacher can do) to the left (done by a TA or automated). This gives us more time to take creative leaps in our teaching, professional development, and school-wide improvements. We can scale our classrooms to hundreds of students, and if done smartly, even thousands, with improvements in quality.

This post outlines that strategy.

Waterfall vs Lean Course Planning

“I can’t delegate, I’m the content expert!” -anonymous teacher

“The TA’s won’t do it the way I want them to” -anonymous teacher

“Its too much time to explain everything I want” -anonymous teacher

These excuses from teachers are symptoms of Waterfall Course Planning. In Waterfall Course Planning, the instructor views delegation as an all-or-nothing task. The TA does ALL the grading, 100% of it. I create 100% of the class slides — delegation moves in one direction, like a waterfall. This mindset is frustrating because delegation always feels high risk. Many instructors fall into this trap because they’ve never learned another way.

There is an alternative.

It’s called Lean Course Planning. “Lean” is an engineering methodology that involves more frequent collaboration than the waterfall approach. It involves lots of agile cycles of drafting, feedback, drafting, feedback, etc. Applied to education, Lean Course Planning allows you to delegate while increasing the likelihood that work will get completed to your vision.

Lean Assignment and Course Material Creation

Let’s apply the Lean methodology to creating course materials.

The trick is to pick a delegation method that best matches the personality and skill level of your TA.

Here are a few strategies:

• Delegate Constraints (good for creative more advanced TAs) — give the TA a blank canvas to to work along with specific criteria to meet. For example, you might say “The assignment should have 9 questions, 3 analyzing the graph, 6 solving functions. Be sure to include all concepts from the class slides in the question.” This gives the TA creative reigns to shape the assignment. Use this type of delegation if you trust the TA’s ability to navigate through the ambiguity.
• Delegate Assignment-to-flesh-out (good for less experienced TAs) — Give the TA more direction. Create a messy first draft of your assignment for them to edit: a skeleton outline, half completed questions, say what each section is intended to achieve. This format increases the likelihood that the assignment is built to your vision.

Another approach is Phased Delegation (good for methodical, detail oriented TAs). Large projects have a lot of dependencies. Consider the process of collaborating on a house design. The two people would first finalize the blueprints of rooms, layout, piping, and electricity (phase 1). Next they’d decide on the materials used in the rooms such as of woods, paints, etc (phase 2). They then would finalize the complementary furniture and interior decorating (phase 3). The MUST follow that order. They can ONLY move on to phase 2 AFTER finalizing the previous phase. Otherwise, you may spend hours deciding on a couch that won’t even fit into the room!

We can structure similar dependencies in our delegation. Delegate and finalize phases of lesson plan creation in the following order: learning objectives → learning activities → fleshed out lesson plans. Check in and finalize each phase before instructing the TA to proceed.

Lean Grading

The paradox of grading: it tedious for instructors yet can be challenging TAs who have less expertise.

How can you transfer knowledge efficiently? How can you quality-control work? How can you scale these systems?

You guessed it. Lean Grading!

Follow this process:

1. Laying groundwork: Instructor grades the first 5 assignments. This achieves a few things: 1) you model how to grade so the TA can learn from you 2) your grading of the first five submissions gives you insight into student performance, and enables you to clarify questions or adjust rubrics to better meet student needs 3) 5 assignments is enough to get a sampling of the diverse ways students respond.
2. TA Trial run: TA grades the next 5–10 assignments after viewing how you graded the first five. This allows the TAs to get practice grading — now you can audit their work to ensure it meets your standards and answer any questions they have about the assignments.
3. TA Corrections: Sync between Instructor and TA on their experience grading, clarifying questions and quality standards. The TA is now prepared to grade the rest of the assignments.
4. Full delegation: TA grades the rest of the assignments
5. Quality Control: Instructor spot-checks grading — after all is graded, instructor skims 5 or 10 random assignments to make sure that grading was adequately completed.

Ninety percent of grading can eventually be done by TAs. You, dear instructor, can sprout wings of freedom and focus on other ventures.

Lean Classroom Management

The infamous “Buhler, buhler scene” is a classic example of waterfall teaching. Actor Ben Stein drones forward as students nod off, drool, and lose interest. He does nothing to re-engage the bored class.

Lean Classroom Management involves a rapid, dynamic, and live evolving relationship between students, teacher, and content. Imagine it like Ben Stein in this Clear Eyes commercial. Look at how he pulls you in with that dashing beachside flare!

In the classroom, teaching can be compared like this:

The lean teacher has a number of dynamic tools at hand:

1. Checks for understanding (eye examination): help teachers pulse student learning and skill level. This “micro diagnostic” can help the teacher adjust teaching: you can slow down the pace if students aren’t understanding, etc. See this master list here of these quick 30 second activities.
2. “Learning sequences” (schedule other test): can help teachers fill more differentiated gaps in knowledge at the same time. Basically, the teacher starts class with a short quiz on the material from the day before. The teacher grades them quickly as students pursue another activity. Afterward, the teacher returns the scores and creates breakout rooms for students to review the specific material they scored weakest on. The teacher can also deliver a broad full-class mini lecture on material that was commonly misunderstood.
3. Self paced curriculum (deciding their own habit for eye drops): empowers students to apply “lean” principles to their own learning. They can can revisit materials, move at their own pace, and work in ways most effective for them.

Lean Schools

How can you scale a classroom to 1000 students and not lose too much quality? I ponder this question frequently. To find the answer, I even drank Ben Stein’s Clear Eye for an optimistic psychedelic experience to help me see things more innovatively (not advised).

In all seriousness, I believe this is possible.

Let’s break down a class’s core components.

This course is attended by 1,000 students. The typical setup would involve one instructor per 50 or 10 students. This teacher does all the tasks outlined in our first cartoon (teaching, grading, course material, etc).

This is inefficient.

Lean Schools instead identify the most talented staff member for each teaching category: lecture, grading/feedback, management, staff training, etc. Each person specializes in their one area for all 1000 students. One person records stellar lectures that reach all students through self-paced tutorials. One teacher trains all staff on classroom delivery. One teacher makes exceptional assignments. One teacher creates a robust grading and system for all staff to follow.

Each instructor now can devote 50% of their time to their one task while colleagues cover the others. Instructors can constantly push bounds, experiment, and level up their area of the course. Imagine — instead of instructors feeling spread thin — the entire staff is constantly innovating and pushing boundaries of their practices. The result: students experience a SUPER teacher experience — the get the best skills of the collective right at their fingertips.

Now, the entire cohort of students has access to the most compelling lecture, well organized assignments, quality feedback. Each instructor has more time to focus on their area of specialization, further leading to more rapid quality improvement across all categories.

In the end, our new model looks something like this.

Conclusion:

Lean education redefines the role of a teacher. It enables us to pushing bounds in our profession instead of vs just teaching.