1. John Maxwell's writing continues to inspire me. "People need a point for their head and a picture for their heart." (From The Leadership Bible, p. 1314) The key concept lists, that are the beginning point for all LtoJ assessments, are the points for the students' heads and the LtoJ graphs are the pictures for the heart. Both are essential.
2. Cody Sandifer, a doctoral student at the University of Toledo, is writing a dissertation that examines the effects of the LtoJ® process on student achievement in grades 3 through 8. Criteria for inclusion in this study are: 51% of teachers within a participating school currently use the LtoJ® process, and the school has used the LtoJ® process for 3 complete years (beginning in 2005-2006 school year). If your school is departmentalized at the 6th, 7th, or 8th grade level, the criteria changes to 51% of teachers of math and 51% of teachers of reading (language arts). If your school fits these criteria, and is interested in participating in this study, please contact Cody Sandifer at (419) 320-0416 or codysandifer@hotmail.com.
3. Early in the process of developing the LtoJ process, I was visiting in Jeff Burgard's 8th grade science classroom. He was teaching the dichotomous key to his students. I suggested that he place the dichotomous key over his writing rubric. He did and had great success. Recently Vickie Hedrick, of the Iredell-Statesville, NC School District has worked with her colleagues to create a dichotomous rubric for each writing trait. Attached is a dichotomous rubric. Curriculum guides and rubrics are written for teachers. The audience for essential concept lists and dichotomous rubrics is the students. This distinction is what makes both dichotomous rubrics and lists of essential concepts so powerful for learning.
4. The Jenks, OK secondary staff has re-written their English curriculum. Contact Linda Helm,linda.helm@jenksps.org, for copies. What impresses me so much is that the focus is clearly on the essential elements, not on the chosen literature. Teachers have a choice of books, with lexile levels noted. Individual teachers may even allow students to select books within the same English classroom because the focus is on the essential elements and not on particular books. The honoring of teachers AND having coordinated curriculum has been a challenge in many places. Write Linda to see how they have successfully worked with this curriculum/instruction issue.
5 The Jenks High School biology results continue to increase. Their results are attached. In the 2007 year they made the switch from teaching biology in grade ten to grade nine and moved the grade nine science to grade eight. The slight dip in their progress occured the year that biology was taught in both grades nine and ten. Since Jenks offers almost every AP course it was important to provide students more opportunities to enroll in these courses. The movement of biology to grade 9 provides students the same opportunities for AP science courses they have had for AP mathematics courses.
6. I advocate creating five basic graphs for each school district. They are the "chamber of commerce," radar, Pareto, correlation and control charts. At the very least these should be created with the assessment data from state exams. Attached are the five graphs from the Murphy School District. It is a K-8 district with 4 schools in downtown Phoenix.
8. Attached is Bill Harbron's summary of the ten root causes of educational frustration. Feel free to duplicate these should such a summary be helpful. They are very well done. He is the superintendent of the Northern Ozaukee, Wisconsin, School District.
9. Principal leadership is so vital to the success of any initiative. The attached photo shows Michael Lee, principal in Paradise Valley Unified District, Arizona, leading an all-time-best celebration.
10. In October 2007 I presented a two-day LtoJ seminar for staff members with the Lloydminster Catholic School Division. (Lloydminster is located in both Alberta and Saskatchewan). Sue Jamieson, Grade 6 Intensive French teacher, was in the session. Attached are some of the photos taken this past August showing her LtoJ implementation. First names are drawn for the student jobs: selecting the random questions, adding up the total correct, placing the dot on the run chart, placing a sticker if ATB, and using Excel to create the week's histogram. I am sharing Sue's story in my seminars for two reasons: (1) the implementation is so well done and (2) she heard about the LtoJ process in October and began implementation in November.
Lee Jenkins
Lee@LtoJConsulting.com
