1. Quality Press has published a new
book entitled Boot Camp for Leaders in K-12
Education: Continuous Improvement, http://qualitypress.asq.org/perl/catalog.cgi?item=H1276.
University of Toledo professors, Lloyd
and Caroline Roettger and I have collaborated on
this effort. It is designed to be the
leadership companion for Permission to
Forget and Improving Student
Learning.
2. The LtoJ process works for
athletic practices. A basketball
coach explained to me that he required
each player on the team to make ten free throws
at every practice. Now, he is adding up
and graphing the total free
throw attempts for the team. With 16
players, a perfect day would be 160 attempts for
each player to make his ten free
throws. He graphs the total attempts and
the team is working together to bring the total
attempts down as close to 160 as
possible.
3. You can print an LtoJ logo
to place next to the graphs on classroom
walls. Click on the attachment at the
bottom of the page to print
one. Other LtoJ logo products
are available and can be ordered by going to the
website, www.ltojconsulting.com.
4. A need administrators have with
staff development is to bring new staff
up-to-date with prior staff developments.
Some larger districts find it cost
effective to host a
annual workshop to for new
teachers. There is now an alternative
for smaller districts to have staff development
for a few teachers. I have recently made
an agreement with a New York firm that
specializes in delivering staff development over
the internet. They will deliver segments
of the two-day seminar
on-line. In the September issue of
this newsletter I'll provide all details, for
this staff development, including cost.
5. One question that is
often asked in the LtoJ seminars is, "If a
student earned an "A" on all graded exams and an
"A" on all long-term, performance assignments,
but never turned in daily homework, what is the
highest grade the student could earn in your
classroom?" American educators are all over
the board on this issue. Click on http://app.quicksizzle.com//images/gallery/16389/thumbnails/grades_with_no_homework.jpg
to see a graph from one LtoJ seminar showing the
typical results. The videographer who
filmed an LtoJ seminar is
German. At the break he shared with me
that in Germany homework only counts towards
final grades if there is a question about
knowledge. For example if a student has
all "B's" on exams, homework is not
considered as a part of the grade.
However, if a student has an "A" on one exam and
a "B" on another exam, then homework is
considered. The student who turned in
homework will receive the "A" on the report card
and the student who did not turn in homework
receives a "B." This is an alternative worth
considering.
6. The American Society for
Quality sponsors the annual education
conference that focuses upon continuous
improvement and the Baldridge Criteria for
Education. Each year the conference is in a
different state; this year it is
in Dallas. The URL for the conference
is http://nqec.asq.org.
7. Basic review of
LtoJ: Disaggregation is a useful
practice. The LtoJ process, however,
focuses more on aggregation, which is
simply adding up scores to see how the class,
grade level, department and/or school are
performing. A simple example of
aggregation could be a school that
has 500 students; they score a
writing sample from each student once
every three weeks. The school, as a
whole, is striving to score 2000 in writing,
which is a level 4 paper from each
student. Graphs for this writing are
in the classroom, in the halls (for grade levels
or departments) and in the foyer for the school
as a whole. When the educators are not
happy with writing results, in the
aggregate, there are two tools to
find out what is occuring. The two tools
are item analysis and disaggregation.
Without aggregation, we have no way of knowing
if our disaggregation and item analysis efforts
are paying off. Aggregation comes first;
second comes disaggregaton and item
analysis.
8. All prior newsletters and
attachments are now posted on the LtoJ
Consulting website, www.ltojconsulting.com.
Lee Jenkins, Lee@LtoJConsulting.com
