1. People who have attended LtoJ
seminars are aware of the
school-wide effort at Grants High School
(NM) in reading fluency and reading
comprehension. Kevin Baker, English
teacher, kbaker@gccs.cc, has
spearheaded this work for almost ten
years. The resource used by Grants High
School is Timed Readings in Literature, http://www.glencoe.com/gln/jamestown/reading_rate/timed_readings_lit.php.
On several occasions I have searched the
Internet for a good timer. Recently, while
working in Delaware Kelly Hageman informed
me of a great website for a timer.
The timer can go up or down; the numerals are
quite large. The timer has other uses
besides reading fluency. Practice with math
facts, is an example. Instead of
tracking the number correct in a certain time,
the student tracks the number of seconds to
complete the practice. The
website is
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/Stopwatch/
2. At the end of September
I worked in Jenks, Oklahoma, the
first visit since they were presented
the Malcolm Baldrige Award. Principal
Susan Oare arranged substitutes for teachers by
grade level and we went into classrooms
together. The host teacher and I
demonstrated, with the students, processes for
giving an LtoJ quiz and then
recorded the data. Teacher, Lori
Dziadula, had a very efficient method of
collecting data. After the papers were
scored, she had 4 group leaders gather up the
papers for their group. Each group leader
stated how many "0's," how many "1's", etc. for
his/her group. (No names were
given) Lori recorded the results on
the scatter diagram posted on a bulletin
board. She then went over to the white
board to add and multiply the scatter diagram
data for the run chart total. To
further demonstrate our experience, three
photographs are included in the PDF, at the
bottom of the newsletter. Feel free to
use them as you explain Lori's process
to others.
3. John MacDonald, biology teacher at
Mayo High School in Rochester, MN shared a
unique, simple procedure for homework. He
tells the students that he does not grade the
actual homework, but he does give the
students a graded short quiz (two-six
questions) after each lesson or
suggested homework assignment. The
questions are selected from the
homework/lesson. This solves several
homework issues:
A. Cheating.
(It does no good as only the quiz is
graded.)
B. Parents doing the
homework. (Same as above.)
C. Teacher spending so
much time on homework grading, leaving
inadequate time to prepare for teaching.
D. The student who
already knows the homework concepts is
not penalized for prior knowledge.
E. Students who
have no time to write down homework answers
because of family or work issues, can go over
the questions
orally, assuring themselves they
understand the content.
F. Most excuses are
eliminated. (It doesn't matter if the dog
ate the homework; what matters is knowledge
in your head.)
If you want to e-mail John contact him
at jomacdonald@rochester.k12.mn.us.
He also says the students love his split
personality (referee and coach).
4. FYI: The National Quality in
Education conference is coming up in
November. The registration information is
located at http://nqec.asq.org/. It
is located in Dallas this year.
5. A couple of new
slides have been added to the
LtoJ seminar that may be of interest to
readers of this newsletter. One is from
John Maxwell, listing the methods people use to
have influence upon others. The list moves
from worst to best. The second slide is
entitled "The Terrible, No Good, Very Bad, Awful
Answer." The question is, "Why did I (or
my child) receive this poor grade?" The T,NG,VB,
answer is listed on the slide as well as
possible good answers. The two slides are
attached to this newsletter: in both
powerpoint and PDF.
6. All prior newsletters and
attachments are now posted on the LtoJ
Consulting website, www.ltojconsulting.com.
If you change e-mail addresses, please go the
website and sign up as if a new recipient of the
newsletter. Please include name, e-mail
address and state, if USA, and country if
outside of the US.
Lee Jenkins, Lee@LtoJConsulting.com
