Ensuring Quality

Teaching Suggestions

Statistics Appendix
The Student Guide for Ensuring Quality includes a Statistics Appendix to help students review or learn basic statistics and some of the mathematics used in this module. Note that some of the glossary words for the module are highlighted and defined in this appendix, so all students will use it for that purpose, whether or not they need to review the statistics content.
Worksite Visit
This module requires a worksite visit to a business, preferably a manufacturing business, at the beginning of Activity 6, to observe the quality control measures used. It does not matter exactly when the worksite visit happens, but if students are able to go before the final project for the module is due at the end of the activity, the quality management system they observe can be used to inform their project.
Technology
When a new statistical tool is introduced, the data sets provided do not require the use of technology. We suggest that students solve the initial problems by hand or with calculators. If, however, students already know how to apply the tool, have them use MINITAB or Excel to calculate these statistics.

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Statistics Content
This module uses a hybrid of statistical terms for mean and standard deviation. For more advanced students, you might want to point out that m and s are typically used to represent the mean and standard deviation, respectively, of a whole population, while X and s are used to represent the mean and standard deviation, respectively, of a set of data obtained from a sample. In this text, because the samples in the industrial examples used are so large that statistically there is little difference between the whole population and a sample, X is used to represent the mean and s is used to represent the standard deviation throughout.
Ongoing Assignments
In Ensuring Quality , students have two ongoing assignments: the XAC Division project and a log of the statistical tools they learn during the module. Students will keep the XAC Division project assignment in a separate section of their notebooks, which you can check at the end of each activity. Students should track the statistical tools either in a separate section of their notebooks or using RM 2.1 Statistical Tools . A sample completed version of this form is included in Teacher Information: Statistical Tools Charts on pages T 110–T 111. During each activity, you can use this Teacher Information page to check students’ work in completing this assignment.

 

Materials Needed

RM numbers based upon 2008 version.

ACTIVITY 1: What Is Quality? (3 Sessions)

SESSION 2

  • Computer with access to the Internet and LCD projector to show the Lemonade Stand Slideshow , or transparencies of each slide in the slideshow to show on an overhead projector if LCD projector is not available
  • Copies of RM 1.1 Statistical Tools Log (one copy for each student)
  • Copies of RM 1.2 Lemonade Stand Slideshow (one copy for each student)

SESSION 3

ACTIVITY 2: Safety by Design (7 Sessions)

SESSION 4

  • Students’ copies of RM 1.1 Statistical Tools Log
  • Markers and chart paper for graphs and charts of class height data (enough material for each team)
  • Computers with access to the Internet and a printer (at least one computer for every two students)

SESSION 5

SESSION 6

SESSION 7

SESSIONS 8–10

  • Computers with access to the Internet (at least one computer for every two students)

SESSION 10

  • Copies of Quiz 1 (one copy for each student)

ACTIVITY 3: Working Smarter, Not Harder (5 Sessions)

SESSIONS 11 AND 12

SESSIONS 12 AND 13

SESSIONS 13–15

  • Computers with access to the Internet and a printer (at least one computer for each team)

ACTIVITY 4: The Car for Your Generation? (5 Sessions)

SESSION 16

  • Computer with access to the Internet and LCD projector to display the additional graphs, or copies of RM 4.1 More Mysteries (one copy for each student) if LCD projector is not available
  • Copies of RM 4.2 Cabin Noise Results by Gender (one copy for each student)
  • Computers with access to the Internet and a printer (at least one computer for each team)

SESSIONS 16–18

SESSION 18

SESSION 19

  • Computers with access to the Internet and a printer (at least one computer for each team)

SESSION 20

ACTIVITY 5: Out of Control (6 Sessions)

SESSION 21

SESSIONS 22–26

  • Computers (at least one computer for each team)

SESSION 24

SESSION 25

SESSION 26

ACTIVITY 6: Quality in the Workplace (4 Sessions)

SESSION 27

SESSION 28

  • Computers with access to the Internet and a printer (at least one computer for every two students)

SESSIONS 28 AND 29

SESSION 30