Currently, most companies or organizations can select a number of methodologies to improve their business processes, which include Six Sigma, Lean Thinking, Lean Six Sigma, Business Process Reengineering, Total Quality Management, Kaizen and Poka-Yoka. However, selecting an appropriate methodology has to be guided by the organization’s objectives. In this respect, the BPR is one of the best methodologies that can help organizations to ensure the continuity of their businesses so they will remain relevant for a long time. More importantly, the BPR can help members of organizations to rethink about their existing practices such as to introduce significant improvements to their business process. Based on a literature review, the researchers carried out a comparative analysis on four leading methodologies, namely BPR, Six Sigma, Lean Thinking, and Kaizen. The comparison of the methodologies were based on 11 aspects, namely the concept, effect, use of information technology, focus, involvement of workers, degree of change, level of risk, creation of a study, model, duration, and cost. In addition, the researchers elaborated the six phases of the implementation of BPR. The comparative analysis revealed that the BPR was the best among the four methodologies analysed, as it could help radically and holistically improve the overall business process of an organization. Thus, organizations that need such a change in their business processes can adopt the BPR as the most appropriate methodology than can help bring the intended improvements to their workplace.
Of late, computational thinking (CT) has received a great deal of attention from scholars and educators, given its immense potential in nurturing students' problem-solving skills, which are the type of skills highly needed in today's technology-driven era. For example, in Malaysia, a number of efforts have been pursued to develop strong computational thinking among school students through the implementation of learning activities that nurture such a skill in most of the school subjects. However, previous studies have shown that teachers have a low understanding and misconception about the concept of computational thinking, which could derail such efforts. Furthermore, the lack of studies focusing on motivating students to actively participate in the learning process is further compounding such a predicament. Premised on this context, this study was carried out to examine the impact of cooperative learning on the development of CT skill among a group of 25 Year-3 students, aged 9, which was carried out based on three learning approaches, namely student-centric, hands-on, and inquiry-based approaches. Through such learning, which took place at one private school located in Selangor, Malaysia, the students learned four learning concepts related to a topic of a science subject. In this study, the researcher played the role of a teacher by teaching these students the learning concepts using a lesson plan designed based on the three learning approaches. The methodology used to collect data was based on a class observation and an interview with the science teacher. The analysis of the qualitative data revealed that students were highly engaged and participative in the learning process and were able to learn the scientific concepts of the subject matter with greater efficacy, which was indicative of their improved CT skill. As such, these findings underscore the imperative of developing and nurturing computational thinking among students, with which students would be able to solve complex problems more effectively
Abstract-Ontology has been recognized as a knowledge representation mechanism that supports a semantic web application. The semantic web application that supports lesson plan construction is crucial for teachers to deal with the massive information sources from various domains on the web. Thus, knowledge in lesson plan domain needs to be represented accordingly so that the search on the web will retrieve relevant materials only. Essentially, such retrieval needs an appropriate representation of the domain problem. The emergence of semantic web technology provides a promising solution to improve the representation, sharing, and re-use of information to support decision making. Thus, the knowledge of lesson plan domain needs to be represented ontologically to support efficient retrieval of semantic web application in the domain of lesson plan. This paper presents a new methodology for ontology development representation of lesson plan domain to support semantic web application. The methodology is focused on the important model, tools, and techniques in each phase of the development. The methodology consists of four phases, namely requirements analysis, development, implementation, evaluation and maintenance.
Purpose This paper presents a recommendation on how one requirement elicitation technique supports the other techniques in defining system requirement for a case-based system. A case-based lesson planning system aims to assist teachers in constructing quality lesson plans through its cycle which begins with case retrieval. To retrieve relevant lesson plans, appropriate inputs should be used and the intended output needs to be identified via suitable requirement elicitation techniques. The use of a single technique might result in inadequate requirement specification, thus affecting the quality of the output requirements as well as quality of the final information system. Design/methodology/approach Requirement elicitation was carried out in three phases: phase I involved document review, phase II was an interview and phase III used a survey. Respondents of the study comprised experienced teachers as well as new teachers. This research used both qualitative and quantitative approaches to answer the research questions, which involved semi-structured interviews, document review and survey to collect the relevant data. Documents were reviewed by analysing lesson plans from three different countries. In addition, a review of lesson plans prepared by teachers and the standard syllabus were carried out. Findings from the document review were used in structured interviews using a teach-back technique, sorting and matrix of attribute-values. A questionnaire was then constructed based on the interviews and document review. Findings The findings of this initial study, as part of a larger research investigation, would help in knowledge modelling and representation. This will contribute to effective case retrieval via good design of the system input and output. The study identifies important elements of a lesson plan according to their ranking. Keywords that were used by teachers as input for retrieval were identified together with the expected output. Research limitations/implications The main goal of requirement elicitation is to specify complete and detailed requirements of the proposed system. There are two main types of requirement: functional and non-functional requirements. This paper only focuses on functional requirements – specifically case retrieval with appropriate input and output. Practical implications Various requirement engineering (RE) techniques can be applied in different phases of requirement elicitation. Suitable technique should be chosen at different phases of RE, as it is important for triangulation purposes. Incomplete RE will affect the modelling part of system development, and, thus, affect the design and implementation of an information system. Social implications Software engineer or anybody involved in system development should plan accordingly for the RE process. They should be creative and reasonable in selecting suitable RE techniques to be applied. Originality/value This study aims to gain understanding of the various aspects of lesson planning. Crucial knowledge in lesson planning that was gathered from the elicitation phase is modelled to have a good understanding of the problems and constraints among teachers. The findings of this initial study, as part of a larger research investigation, would help in knowledge modelling and representation. This will contribute to effective case retrieval via a good design of the system input and output.
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