Improving Student Learning: Applying Deming's Quality Principles in Classrooms [Hardcover]

Lee Jenkins (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 087389569X | ISBN-13: 978-0873895699 | Publication Date: February 1, 2003 | Edition: 2

Since 1996, Lee Jenkins' Improving Student Learning has led the way in teaching educators how to improve performance through the use of quality principles. Now Jenkins has updated his best-seller, adding more examples and simplifying the content to make it easier for anyone to implement the concepts. Teachers and administrators alike will find the information in this book invaluable, as they use the concepts to improve performance and productivity in their schools.

Through his previous work as a school administrator and his current role as a consultant, Jenkins has seen first hand what it takes to make these techniques work in schools. The second edition draws from his experience with many more examples for every level, from pre-school through graduate school, covering a wide variety of subjects. Teachers will find many examples of how other teachers have successfully used these concepts in their classrooms, and administrators will see how school-wide and district-wide implementations are being conducted.

Improving Student Learning: Applying Deming's Quality Principles in Classrooms, Second Edition answers the critical question of how to measure improvement and gives very direct and important information about what to measure. Jenkins describes the significant influences Deming's profound knowledge can have on education.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 328 pages
• Publisher: Amer Society for Quality; 2 edition (February 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 087389569X
• ISBN-13: 978-0873895699
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #476,917 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A hack can do incredible damage., October 10, 2004

By 

Demings Advocate (Washington DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Improving Student Learning: Applying Deming's Quality Principles in Classrooms (Hardcover)

Deming stated: "The beginner is entitled to a master for a teacher. A hack can do incredible damage."

Deming's principles are misapplied here and ultimately may do incredible damage to US educators. The writer doesn't even properly cover Dr. Deming's profound knowledge concept. The reader may note that Jenkins has the temerity to rename one of component of Profound Knowledge - "Theory of Knowledge" - as "Epistemelogy".

A true understanding of Deming's Profound Knowledge would recognize that PK's Theory of Knowledge is far more profound and has little to do with Epistemology. This error on Jenkin's part reflects his misunderstanding of Deming theories in a general sense.

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Permission to Forget ISL: Misapplying Deming's Principles, April 24, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Improving Student Learning: Applying Deming's Quality Principles in Classrooms (Hardcover)

Jenkins' work fairly closely parallels Dr. Demings' writings on Quality. He begins by discussing the six elements necessary to quality systems: aim, customers, suppliers, input, process, output, and quality measurement. He moves on to the discussion of motivation/demotivation, variation, and use of charts in running classes, PDSA, the web, and then more expounding on Demings theories in relation to education. Actually, the major discrepancy in the book is his lack of understanding of the theory of systems. Basically, he seems to have an imprecise understanding of both the underlying application of Deming's principles to true school improvement and how quality tools (statistics) can be used to support improvement. He discusses aim and process, but never links the idea that measuring individual tasks does not necessarily give the needed information for improving learning. The measures he discusses for tracking and fostering improvement are not process measures, they are task measures. This is further shown through the determination of what will be measured; the "required" learning is determined by the grade level teachers, who test that particular learning to measure improvement. This is part of the fractured learning that he talks against. Determination of what is truly important is determined by understanding what the customer needs, designing processes to achieve those requirements, then determining what measures will be used (formative) to make improvements within the process, and what measures (summative) will be used to see if the process was successful. The learning he advocates is within siloed stacks rather than an integrated approach that links learning to the processes that produced it. Explaining that learning is "to help you help others" would generate little motivation or energy for learning that he stresses; rather, linking this learning to the real world, or practical applications is much more successful. This is a superficial approach that only touches the required understanding of outcomes and what is necessary for improvement.

He vacillates between saying statistics are not good:"Statistics is a powerful way to create a shortage of good people" (p. 50); and stressing the importance of using statistics. He makes similar discrepancies in using scatter and control charts to show "correlation" and then stating in a later chapter that you cannot show correlation by control or scatter charts. A correlation coefficient is a different operation, and even statisticians will not say that a correlation shows causation, just that it suggests cause. He states early in the book that posting graphs of student progress is demotivating, then says student graphs to show progress are a great motivator for students in charting their advancement.

Statistics are not a simple process: understanding them requires more than a mastery of the equations on which they are constructed or aping the working of Deming or others in how they could be used in education.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Specifically intended for dedicated educators, January 13, 2004

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Improving Student Learning: Applying Deming's Quality Principles in Classrooms (Hardcover)

Now in an updated second edition, Improving Student Learning: Applying Deming's Quality Principles In Classrooms by education expert Lee Jenkins is a guidebook specifically intended for dedicated educators seeking to promoting successful learning among all their student charges. From keeping the brightest students interested in the subject being taught; to listening more closely to what students say; to better interpreting test results and making positive use of the information they gather, Improving Student Learning is an important addition to Educational Studies reference shelves and reading lists. A supplemental section on CD-ROM enhances this superbly presented classroom instruction improvement guide for teachers at all grade levels from preschool to post-graduate.