Thank you to Jennifer Eakley, Instructor, for writing today's blog.
Effici-what?
What started with the Gilbreth’s popularized Time-Motion
Study to improve business efficiency has now evolved and made its way to
Shepherds College! As our students chop and plant their way to Appropriate
Independence™ (Ai), we ask ourselves, “What else can we do to help students
become the best employees that they can be?”
With the help of the Specialty Major Instructors, Chef Cassandra
Comerford and Mr. Owen Lackey, the students will begin to practice strategies to
improve efficiency during their 1st year Study Skills class!
What is efficiency? According to Dictionary.com, efficiency
is the ability to accomplish something with the least waste of time and effort.
In short, we will learn to work smarter,
not harder. The 1st year
students will be completing tasks that simulate skills that they may perform in
a job. We will monitor our skills to see how we grow and improve!
How will
they do it?
To start, students will complete a task three times. We will
average these into a baseline data score. Next, students will set goals to
improve their speed and accuracy, thus improving efficiency. Finally, students
will chart their progress each time they complete the task to see how much
faster and more proficient they can become. The goal is that this process can
be replicated with any task or skill to help students improve job efficiency. Tasks
include bagging rice (used to practice pan-flipping skills in Culinary Arts),
distributing items into plug trays (from the SC Greenhouse), disassembling Lego
structures and sorting them into categories, sectioning paper into even pieces,
and sorting major-specific flashcards into categories.
As students complete tasks, they will self-assess and
problem-solve ways to improve their efficiency. This is a new level of
self-advocacy that will allow students to select, implement, and evaluate
strategies that can be used in any job! They will be assessed on their effort,
growth, and reflections as they learn this imperative new skill recently added
to the Study Skills curriculum.
What’s the
point?
Horticulture students will improve the speed in which they
transplant plugs into pots while minimizing air pockets that could harm the
delicate roots. Culinary Arts students will more quickly chop ingredients while
maintaining industry standards. These skills will help prepare students our
students for jobs in their specialty majors making them more competitive with other
workers. The students learn so many new skills with us at Shepherds College;
now it is time to take it to the next level!
Appropriate Independence™ (Ai) is defined as supported
self-sufficiency aligned with the strengths of each individual and guided by
Christian values. The four principles of
Ai are: we are designed on and for a
purpose; we are created as individuals for community; SC trains individuals for
life after college; and the goal is to empower students to serve. To fulfill the aspect of training for life,
students are given the training and the opportunities to practice their skills.
When students have the opportunity to practice efficiency growth in class, they
are more prepared for their 3rd year Field Experience (FE) where
they are placed with local businesses. At their FE sites, they will have the
opportunity to exercise the skills they have learned which will ultimately earn
them a certification in either Culinary Arts or Horticulture.
Shepherds College - Guiding Your Transition to Appropriate Independence. Please visit us at www.shepherdscollege.edu.
