MILWAUKEE, Wis., Sept. 24, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via PRWEB - Ten education teams are finalists in the 2014 Education Team Excellence Recognition Process, which showcase the world's most outstanding improvement efforts in education.
The National Quality Education Conference is sponsored by ASQ, the leading authority on quality in all fields, organizations and industries.
Live finalist presentations will take place during the conference from Sunday, Nov. 16 to Monday, Nov. 17 at the Hyatt Regency in Milwaukee, Wis. The award ceremony is Monday, Nov. 17. This year's finalists include:
•Kimberly Area School District, Kimberly, Wis. -- Project: Elementary Literacy: Getting Students What They Need When They Need It. A rapid improvement event (RIE) with a lean facilitator helped teachers, administrators and literacy coaches address stagnant literacy scores. After a full year, students showed significant increases in their reading ability.
•Ribbaschool in Gränna, Sweden -- Project: A Mutual Engagement for Improving Learning Outcome at the Ribbaschool. Using a scientific approach, the school aimed to improve teaching and increase student achievement by implementing an alternative form of professional learning over a five-year period. Results demonstrated a remarkable change in teaching methods, as well as in student learning and outcome.
•Chicago Public Schools, Chicago, Ill. -- Project: Lean Procurement at Chicago Public Schools. A Lean review revealed significant opportunity for reduction in end-to-end process cycle time, reduction in human resource expenditure, and improvement in delivered service quality by working in a more efficient and effective way.
•Denver Public Schools, Denver, Colo.-- Project: Facility Management System. This project improved the metrics process and streamlined the plan-do-study-act business cycle in the facility department. Tools used include stakeholder mapping, voice of the customer, kanban board, and process maps.
•Siegrist Elementary, Platte City, Mo. -- Project: Improvement Teams: A systematic process for improved teaching and learning. The teams' goal was to improve teaching and learning at the elementary level. Implementation of improvement teams spanned more than a year, and was developed under the review of existing data and a determined need to improve the learning and practices of the elementary staff and students.
•Universidad Tecnológica Nacional – Facultad Regional Buenos Aires – Buenos Aires, Argentina -- Project: Improvement project to advance teaching appointments and avoid paying retroactive. This project facilitated timely teaching appointments and ensured faculty salaries are paid in a timely fashion. A variety of quality tools including PDCA, 5 whys and process mapping helped the team positively impact teachers' salaries within four months.
•Ingenium Charter Elementary and Middle School, Canoga Park, Calif. -- Project: Ready! Set! Action! How Teacher Action Research Improves Student Learning Outcomes. The team will present the astounding results of its teacher inquiry project (TIP) -- a unique feature to its teacher evaluation system. They will discuss the project from the initial analysis of multiple data points to the celebration of a learning event that provided teachers an opportunity to share their growth and successes.
•University of Wisconsin – Stout, Menomonie, Wis. and Guangdong University of Foreign Studies -- Project: Establishing Short-Term Operations and Management: A Study Abroad (China) Program. This study abroad program fulfills the expectations from University of Wisconsin – Stout's industrial partners, faculty and students. QFD, Kano model, NTI and other process analysis tools were used in this project.
•Deer Valley Unified School District, Phoenix, Ariz. -- Project: Rubrics Improve Organizational Alignment and Integration. The rubrics help district leaders understand their responsibilities, as well as the essential behaviors and skills necessary to lead the organization toward greater learning and improvement.
•Denver Public Schools, Denver, Colo. -- Project: Reducing Audit Risk Using Lean Tools. The team will share how they used lean tools to gather data; document the current-state and desired-state process; and implement changes in order to reduce audit risk, standardize and streamline the process.
About ASQ
ASQ is a global community of people dedicated to quality who share the ideas and tools that make our world work better. With millions of individual and organizational members of the community in 150 countries, ASQ has the reputation and reach to bring together the diverse quality champions who are transforming the world's corporations, organizations and communities to meet tomorrow's critical challenges. ASQ is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with national service centers in China, India, Mexico and a regional service center in the United Arab Emirates. Learn more about ASQ's members, mission, technologies and training at asq.org.
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