Quality in Education

What are teachers saying about implementing quality and continuous improvement in their classrooms?  In a previous blog entry, I invited teachers to share their thoughts, insights and paradigm shifts that occured from learning more about implementing a continuous improvement classroom. 

Read the rest of Scott's insights and share your comments!

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Jay,

I feel like Neo (from the Matrix) when he has just been learned that the world is a different place than previously known. I have been shown there is a different way of looking at teaching and improving the quality of work, and it makes me excited to be teaching again.

The world has changed, and so have I.

I have used some pieces of continuous improvement in my classroom before. We have an informal data center, there are student goals that are updated by the students in my classroom. In my management system, a daily class meeting gets the class organized ready to learn. Our school started student-led conferences about four years ago. However, its like all the arrows were going different directions. We lacked a direction. Some students saw the goals of the class and other students mysteriously fell behind.

I have been puzzled during my teaching career that the more I teach, the less I know about how students learn. I have tried to look for ways to improve the system, but it seems like I put in a lot of hours trying to "poke the system", to only see small gains. I focused on small stones, when I should have been looking for big rocks. I see real change on the road ahead. Answers to problems that have puzzled me for years can be solved in a data-driven research-based approach, with measurable results! What previously looked unsolvable looks brighter than ever.

I left a note to my students mid-week in my classroom on the board that described the training I was receiving is "truly amazing". I also went on to mention that our class will be different starting as soon as next week, and promised they will be better students with these changes.

I have seen a new path, I cannot go back to what I used to do before. The school year has just started again for me. On day one, we will begin by a general overview of our purpose and why we come to school. Our discussion will come to brainstorming ideas on our mission statement. All of my middle school classes will have input on what is our mission this year. We will come up with ground rules for our new community and set goals for the rest of our current trimester. Previous systems will be discarded in favor of a more uniformed approach towards continuous improvement.

A year ago, I was involved with a revolutionary teaching process that has been developed in Japan called "lesson study". The idea behind lesson study is to collect data and research one lesson to the level that student responses are known and that the "perfect lesson" can be created so that any student can learn from it. The Japanese believe that if a student does not learn, it is not the fault of the teacher, but a flaw in the lesson itself. The major drawback to this model is that one lesson is considered the big rock in the process. In a year, for one subject, you will do this process 180 times because there are 180 big rocks. This model works well in Japan with that culture, it does not work here. We just do not have the resources to make it work.

What WILL work in this country is continuous improvement. If for some reason our district does not follow-through with this plan, it has still changed me forever. Empowering students to take control of their learning while preparing them for the 21st century workforce is exciting.

It is going to take a couple of years for the district as a whole to get on board, and a few more years to see an across the board change in attitude towards learning. In our world of test scores, new challenges, and limited resources, its great to see a positive outlook on education for the future. I have changed, I cannot go back to the matrix.

Scott McGhee
Mathematics Teacher
Mountain View Whisman School District
smcghee@mvwsd.org