Tag Archives: Education

K-12 Educational Reform

Posted on April 17, 2007 by John Hunter

Educational Reform Failing K-12 Students, Educator Says [the broken link was removed] by Victor M. Inzunza: Educational reform has failed to substantially increase K-12 student achievement despite a “massive expenditure of resources,” but the system can be improved if some of the concepts of the influential quality-control expert W. Edwards Deming are applied to schooling, said a former New York Department of Education official … it’s turned itself into a one-size-fits-all, mass-production system where the individual needs of young people … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Education | Tagged | 2 Comments

The Georgetown Kentucky Way

Posted on February 27, 2007 by John Hunter

The Scott County Way [the broken link was removed] by Jillian Ogawa: It seemed only natural that Toyota’s corporate culture would influence the local schools, said Superintendent Dallas Blankenship. He estimated that one in three students in the school district have one or more parents that work for either Toyota or a Toyota supplier. The school district has had several partnership programs with Toyota in Georgetown. “Simply over time, we learned a lot of practices that have helped us to … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Management Articles, Public Sector, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , ,

Baldrige in Education

Posted on January 6, 2007 by John Hunter

Superintendent’s method used by Boeing, Motorola [the broken link was removed] by Helen Gao The three M’s – managing for innovation, management by fact and market focus – are unfamiliar phrases to most people in the educational establishment. But don’t be surprised if, in the coming months, leaders of the San Diego Unified School District start spouting corporate-speak. Management principles long embraced by companies seeking a competitive edge are making inroads in the public school system, as Superintendent Carl Cohn … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Management, Public Sector | Tagged

Applying Lean Tools to University Courses

Posted on November 25, 2006 by John Hunter

Take a look at an interesting series of posts on Applying Lean Tools to University Courses by Luke Van Dongen: We have discovered that creating a common experience in the classroom is absolutely essential. To accomplish this we implemented a modified production simulation exercise and in doing so, bring the opportunity to Go & See to the students. These types of simulations are quite common and are usually done with building blocks or paper airplanes. We chose paper airplanes and … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Lean thinking, Management | Tagged | 3 Comments

The Lean MBA

Posted on November 20, 2006 by John Hunter

Kevin Meyer recaps the ideas of Improving Management Education [the broken link was removed] by M.L. Emiliani in his post – The Lean MBA. I suggest reading his post and the original article. In the Curious Cat Science and Engineering blog, The Future is Engineering points to 2 great essays on the secret of Silicon Valley. Guy Kawasaki puts it well, though in my opinion far to kind to our current MBA system (the inordinate focus on accounting does actual … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Lean thinking, Systems thinking | Tagged , | 1 Comment

What is Wrong with MBA’s

Posted on November 2, 2006 by John Hunter

Two interesting posts from Compound Thinking: What is Management? [the broken link was removed – this is one of many examples of a good blog’s domain lapsing and being bought by someone to promote unrelated items.]: Management is helping others become great. Well said. As Deming would say management’s responsibility is to work on improving the system (to allow everyone in the system to do great work). This encompasses a wide variety of things, including: creating sensible hiring processes designing … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Education, Management | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Ackoff Podcast

Posted on January 19, 2006 by John Hunter

I found this great podcast via the post – School Architecture: Doing the Wrong Thing Right. As usually Ackoff provides great ideas, in an interesting and entertaining manner. This talk focuses on learning (and education and teaching) and doing the right things (effectiveness). In talking to educators Ackoff criticizes the educational system. Throughout the speech he does his normal excellent job of explaining system thinking. Enjoy. Russell Ackoff Talk at Great Schools By Design Summit (mp3 podcast) articles by Russell … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, webcast | Tagged , , ,

W. Edwards Deming Outstanding Training Award

Posted on January 4, 2006 by John Hunter

W. Edwards Deming Outstanding Training Award [the broken link was removed] from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Graduate School. The award honors W. Edwards Deming for his 22-year association with the Graduate School, USDA as a mathematics and statistics faculty member and curriculum chair. Award Eligibility: The W. Edwards Deming Outstanding Training Award is presented annually by the Graduate School, USDA to a federal government unit or department that has successfully completed an innovative and impressive employee development … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Public Sector | Tagged , ,

Lean Education Academic Network

Posted on November 14, 2005 by John Hunter

Lean Education Academic Network [the broken link was removed], is a group of academic and industry people interested in bringing lean content into academic programs. The Leaneduc email list will send you announcements from the network. From Exclusive Q&A with Jim Womack, Part 4: We recently came across a new industrial engineering text from a major American publisher titled something like “Principles of Lean Engineering” in which the first chapter was about … Economic Order Quantity! It got Jim so … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Lean thinking | Tagged | 1 Comment

Management Training Program

Posted on October 28, 2005 by John Hunter

Fog Creek Software Management Training Program by Joel Spolsky: Finally, when you’re really really good, they let you hang around with Yussef on the ovens. Yussef was about 100 years old and so good at running the ovens it was scary. When Gabbi tried to show me how to solve the problem of bread sticking to the conveyer belts on the way out of the oven, he ran back and forth like a lunatic for ten minutes, turning knobs, pulling … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, IT, Management, Popular, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Education Improvement

Posted on October 9, 2005 by John Hunter

Pattillo Tutors Granville School on Teaching Method [unfortunately the newspaper broke the link so I removed it] by Natalie Jordan, Rocky Mount Telegram (North Carolina, USA): The model uses a PDSA – plan, do, study and act – component. “Plan” clarifies the purpose; “do” is when an action plan is made and done; “study” involves analyzing results; and “act” is to make improvements. Through core values and strategic categories, the model is improving the way teachers teach and students learn, … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Management | Tagged