1.   The book The Toyota Way describes the corporation's relentless passion for eliminating waste.  While reading this book it seemed to me that the 10 root causes described in Permission to Forget and  the LtoJ seminars are really about waste.  Half of the root causes describe wasting time and the other half describe wasting human potential.  Attached is a powerpoint slide with this classification of the ten root causes.  Feel free to use this slide in any of your presentations.
2.  The first week of December, I was in Lexington, Nebraska providing follow-up to district teachers and administrators.  Attached is a PDF of photos taken during the week.  Contact Julie Otero, Director of Curriculum, jotera@esu10.org for more information.
Notes for each photo:
A.  The sequence for kindergarten graphing is: first outline the area to be colored (as in the photo), second draw a line at the top of where students are to color, and third assist them to graph like any other student.
B.  The sloping line is made with highlighter tape so that it can easily be moved if enrollment changes.  In Lexington, I was so impressed with the work of the teachers. However, the teachers themselves often expressed disappointment in the success of their students.  The graphs were not increasing quickly enough.  The problem is that we have become so accustomed to seeing graphs of short-term memory (lots of high scores) that we struggle with assessment of long-term memory.  So, we placed a diagonal line from 0% to 100% on both student and class run charts.  (see photo)  Now, students and staff alike could see that the learning was actually ahead of schedule.  The visual of expected learning really helped students, teachers and administrators understand how well long-term learning was occurring.
C.  All-time-bests by only one are wonderful. The photo shows an ATB with one higher than ever before. This allows teachers, in private, to congratulate the student who is struggling by showing that his/her few right answers caused the class to have an ATB.
D.  This shows random celebrations.  When the class has an all-time-best, a student draws out a method of celebration out of the "cheer" container.
E.  The foyer of this school has a small graph for each grade level total and a large graph for the school-wide total.  Each week teachers turn in the total correct for their classes for both vocabulary and mathematics.
F.  In the central office is posted each week the total correct for the whole district in both vocabulary and mathematics.
G.  In the LtoJ Seminar I show an example of students writing their own compound word book.  Here students are writing their own book of vocabulary in grade one.
H.  What a simple way to quiz on math facts.  The teacher has made a transparency of math facts, cut the transparency into small pieces and then randomly selects the facts for the LtoJ quiz.
I.  Students love placing their own sticker on the scatter diagram.  Stickers, no longer used for bribes, make really nice scatter diagram posters.
J. The histogram story is posted on the wall.
K.  Scatter overlays are shown two different ways.  On the left is a transparency of the scatter diagram placed over the student's run chart.  On the right is a copy of the scatter diagram with the student's results being drawn by hand.  Julie Otero was in an IEP meeting discussing a student's math progress.  She went to the copier and made a copy of the scatter diagram that was posted in the classroom.  Then she took 30 seconds to connect the dots for the student being discussed.  The scatter overlay clarified the situation and saved a lot of time.
3.  The next photo is from Plainville, Minnesota.  The student run chart is made from the vertical jump.  How high can the student jump?  Continuous improvement is possible in all subjects!

Lee Jenkins, Lee@LtoJConsulting.com