More TQM and Dheeraj Mehrotra

I am really impressed with

and her article which can be viewed here.

http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c020626a.asp

This has enabled me to get a handle on TQM

Finally!

TQM

I am totally confused by the terms.

Total Quality Management and Quality Management and Quality Learning.

I have decided to treat them to mean the same thing and will try for consistency to only use 'Quality Management'

Dr Todd and Action Research

Hello.

I can recommend any readings by Todd on Action Research aka student directed learning or teacher directed learning.

I think telling students 'go research something' lacks direction, meaning and purpose.
A waste of time.

Students, I think, require a scaffold, direction for their learning.

This provides a greater opportunity for students to be engaged in higher order thinking.

There is nothing wrong with finding all the facts about the solar system. Thats fine. But it is NOT research. It is fact finding, brain storming.

Students being involved in active research are engaged in higher order thinking.

There is a difference.

http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~rtodd/home.htm

Chapter 1 Moral Purpose and Fullan

I think this is the most important think I have learned in ETL504.

It has provided me with focus and direction.

Asking 'What is important?' is a great question.

Procrastinating....who me?

I admit it..I am a major league procrastinator! I can think of a million menial chores to attend to in order to put off the (academic) task at hand. Be it a leaky tap, blown light bulb, a spot of weeding or even cleaning the car - all seem like important tasks that must be done immediately ....and then I'll commence my readings ,etc.
Which all leads me to explain why my blog posting has been so abysmal. So, here's an overview of my progress up to this point.
1) Found a copy of the Fullan text " Leading In A Culture Of Change" on the interact site. Settled on a price ($40). Found the address in inner-city Sydney. When I went to pay for the text the seller said "No worries mate, make it $20". Sweet!
2) Got placed in my group and made contact...we're a gang of 3. Got a really good group dynamic happening...meaning that I'm trying to keep up with their good ideas!
3) Arranged to Skype and low and behold..it actually worked!
4) Subsequent Skyping was not so successful......didn't help that I got the time wrong and that the connection kept dropping out. Nevertheless, we arranged to contact each other again tomorrow night.
Got to admit that it's been slightly overwhelming..and up to the point where I got to speak with the others in my group, I felt like I was making little or no progress.
O.K. On to my readings now..I promise!