CUR 566 Principles of Continuous Improvement

1. CUR 566 Principles of Continuous Improvement McDaniel College Wednesday ‑ 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Summer Semester June 6-July 25, 2012 Instructor-Cindy Fitzpatrick, MEd

2. OBJECTIVES~Participants will… • trace the history of quality improvement initiatives from its industry roots into schools • Understand the BaldrigeCore Values/Best Practices and Categories and how they provide a dynamic framework for continuous improvement and school improvement planning. • Understand where leaders focus their efforts to improve student achievement • Identify the key expectations, processes, and structures leaders need to put in place to lead their school in improving student achievement • Understand the key steps in the school improvement process • Be able to use the key steps in the school improvement process to write a School Improvement Plan • Understand the quality tools that staff and students may use to enhance participation in group processes, to problem solve, and to analyze and monitor progress • Display improvement data in a multitude of ways to articulate growth (run chart, scatter diagram, radar diagram) • Create a PDSA for the classroom that connects directly to the SIP

3. Understandings~Week 2 • trace the history of quality improvement initiatives from its industry roots into schools • understand the BaldrigeCore Values/Best Practices and Categories and how they provide a dynamic framework for continuous improvement and school improvement planning. • understand where leaders focus their efforts to improve student achievement

4. PERSONAL REFLECTION As a result of classroom discussion and reading the book, complete the personal reflection chart. You will use this information to write a summary.

5. History of Quality Improvement Initiatives • In 1983, A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education) reported that American students were failing to learn critical knowledge and skills at all levels of the educational system and were being surpassed by students in every other industrial nation. • These findings drastically changed American attitudes toward education. Worry and demands for change and improvement replaced complacency and confidence in the nation’s educational system.

6. There is a likely range of reasons for the failure of educational reform since A Nation at Risk was published. • Manyattempted reforms have focused on outcomes, accountability, and local control, including site-based management, outcomes based administration, charter schools, and privatization. • More recently, many states have instituted high stakes testing as a way to force reform and accountability What these movements have typically lacked are leadership, decision making based upon data and analysis, an understanding of educational institutions as interdependent systems, and an ability to change the culture of schools. • Reform has also failed because leadership changes often result in the abandonment of one effort in favor of another and the inability to focus primarily on changing teaching and learning.

7. Total Quality Movement • The Deming approach is predicated on continuous improvement of work processes, which are the core operating functions of an organization. • Deming believed that improving processes is the key to improving quality and that workers want to do their best work. • Managers work with employees to gather information and implement process improvements. • Instead of blaming individuals for errors, the focus is on improving the process that caused the error. • Employees are provided with and encouraged to seek training and further education to assist in improving the production system and preventing errors. • All leadership, management, and effort are directed toward ensuring quality through continuous improvement.

8. TQM MalcomBaldrige • BaldrigeContinuous improvement is a systematic process for helping organizations make systemic change. • BaldrigeContinuous improvement is all about performance excellence. • Understand the BaldrigeCore Values/Best Practices and Categories and how they provide a dynamic framework for continuous improvement and school improvement planning.

9. Baldrige Continuous improvement is: • a measure of parts and connections:-How good are the parts?-How good are the connections between the parts? • a blueprint for building good, well-connected parts. • a process for determining which parts and whichconnections add value and which do not.

10. Core Values/Best Practices • Baldrige Core Values/Best Practices are essential for a results-oriented organization focused on performance excellence. • These Core Values/Best Practices must be applied and integrated at all levels of the organization. • In a school setting, the evidence for Core Values/Best Practices should be demonstrated in daily actions at the school, classroom, and student level.

11. What needs to be in place for continuous improvement to occur? http://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/info/baldrige/about/values/

12. Choose a Core Value/Best Practice. Create a graphic organizer, picture, whatever which: • Shares the definition of the Core Value • What it “looks like” in the school, classroom and for students.

13. Understand where leaders focus their efforts to improve student achievement

14. Leadership… The goal for all leaders is to create a school where continuous improvement is the cultural norm. A culture of all-time bests are continually strived for, achieved, and celebrated is rare indeed.

15. Visionary Leadership at the School Level • set and communicate the direction for the school • involve all stakeholders in creating the vision, mission and expectations for the school

16. Mission…a brief description of a company's fundamental purpose. A mission statement answers the question, "Why do we exist?" • What is the CCPS mission statement? • What is your school’s mission statement? • Think about the leadership in your school. Based on their actions, how they spend their time, decisions that are made, what is their mission?

17. Cecil County Board of Education Our Mission is to provide an excellent pre-kindergarten through graduation learning experience that enables ALL students to demonstrate the skills, knowledge, and attitudes required for lifelong learning and productive citizenship in an ever-changing global society.

18. Mission in the Classroom • Work with students to develop a classroom mission statement and classroom procedures that support state, district, and school expectations.  • The mission statement includes broad notions of future direction and the fundamental accomplishments we want to achieve and why we want to achieve them. • The mission statement is posted in the classroom and all students and parents have a copy. • I have classroom goals that are measurable, publicly displayed, support school goals, and document that the classroom mission is accomplished. • All classroom activities are value-added in that students focus around the vision, mission, and goals [central purposes of the class]. • Involve students in developing and reviewing key measures of mission fulfillment.

21. Supporting Actions with a Mission Statement • Many traditional schools have gaping disconnects between their mission statements and their daily actions. • If schools had to change their mission statements to match their deeds, how many schools would end up with missions like the following?

22. Our mission is to sort and select students into widely varying programs on the basis of their innate, fixed aptitude. We strive to present good lessons and to create classroom environments that encourage students to learn. We then rank them according to their willingness and/or ability to learn. Finally, we take credit for the achievements of high-performing students and assign others the blame for low performance.

23. Our mission is to promote positive feelings about the school on the part of students and staff. We are committed to developing students with high self-esteem who feel good about themselves. We foster high faculty morale by attempting to eliminate any source of concern that interferes with the happiness of the adults in the organization. We avoid conflict at all costs, in keeping with our premise that a happy school is a good school.

24. Our mission is to help parents and the general public understand all the reasons that our students should not be expected to reach the standards of achievement that the state has established.

25. Our mission is to teach the 75 percent of the students who are interested in learning and to apply appropriate consequences to students unwilling to put forth sufficient effort to learn.

26. Personal

27. Learning-Centered Education • develop school goals/objectives and action plans based on high expectations and performance excellence • measure learning periodically through formative assessments, adjusting instruction accordingly • assess progress against key external standards through summative assessments • focus on effective teaching and learning

28. Measurable Goals • Goals provide focus on continuous improvement (classroom & personal goals) • Goals are developed with student input: • Based on data • Aligned to the SIP

29. SMART GOALS • S pecific, strategic • Measurable • Attainable • Results-oriented • Time-bound

31. Classroom goals describe how we’ll meet or exceed the requirements for student learning. Strategic Goals • By the end of the school year, 100% of 8th grade mathematics students will score proficient or advanced on MSA. • By the end of the school year, 100% of 3rd grade students will make at least 100 points growth on Scantron.

32. Publishing and Posting Strategic Learning Goals • Publish and post a class learning goal(s) that aligns to state standards, focuses on the class learning priority, and addresses closing the performance gap. • What data will you look at to determine who knows essential content or can demonstrate essential skills? • What will your classroom learning goals be?

33. PERSONAL REFLECTION As a result of classroom discussion and reading the book, complete the personal reflection chart. You will use this information to write a summary.