homesearchcontacts
the survival guide for iowa school administrators Boxes, design only
Determining the Current Reality SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT
Shading, design only Shading, design only Shading, design only Center line, design only Shading, design only Shading, design only Shading, design only
Shading, design only Shading, design only Shading, design only


Five Whys Examples
In conversation with a teacher at a local school district, an AEA consultant is using the "Five Whys?" process to assess a need.
Who: 4th grade teacher
What:
Expressing frustration with her grade-level team.
When: During grade-level team meetings
Where At school

Teacher: I am so frustrated with our grade-level team!

AEA Consultant: I would like to use a "Five Whys?" process with you to help me understand what your frustration is about. Is that all right with you?

Teacher: I'm not exactly sure what that means, but sure--I'm game.

AEA Consultant: Great. OK, Please start by telling me a little more about why are you feeling so frustrated.

Teacher: We're supposed to be working on our reading goals, but we never make any progress in our meetings. We have met five times already this year and we have absolutely nothing to show for it.

AEA Consultant: Why aren't you making any progress?

Teacher: People don't get to the meetings on time and when they do get there, they waste time talking about why they wish they weren't there, how much they have to do, how little time we are ever given to do anything, how the parents of our kids aren't responsible, blah, blah, blah! Next thing you know, we've wasted the first half hour and we only have 15 minutes left.

AEA Consultant: Why aren't you getting started on your goal of improving reading?

Teacher: I've thought about this and I think the answer is, we don't know HOW to do it. We have trouble getting started because nobody really knows how to go about organizing our work and nobody probably really wants to admit that.

AEA Consultant: Tell me more about why are you having trouble organizing your work because you don't know how.

Teacher: Well, we get told by our principal and curriculum director WHAT we need to be doing like improving scores, collecting data, sharing progress with our community and stuff like that but they are not telling us or showing us HOW to do those things.

AEA Consultant: Why do you think people aren't telling you how?

Teacher: Maybe they think we already know how. Maybe they want to give us some choice about how we go about our work. Maybe they don't know either. Our team doesn't really have any model, tools, or processes to help them with this work. That's why I'm so frustrated!

AEA Consultant: Why are YOU frustrated?

Teacher: Because I've been working really hard with my kids and I want to know if my efforts are making a difference. I think they are and I want to be able to show it!
The Results
Using the "Five Whys?" process with this teacher results in the following:
  • Helping the teacher to formulate a question: "Are my students better readers because of the new strategies I've used with them?"
  • Use the QIC-Decide process to provide the teacher a tool to use for answering the question.
Note: many times the "Five Whys?" process will work back to the very beginning, like this one did with the feeling of frustration. You also may have to ask more than five whys (this example used 6). You'll know you're done when you've looped back to the beginning or when you believe you've identified root cause.


School Improvement Return to the School Improvement homepage.
Click here to return to the previous web page. Back

Bottom Line, design only

Copyright © SAI
| Copyright | Privacy |