langford learning experience podcast

Monta Akin, Assistant Superintendent for Leander Independent School District in Leander, Texas. She was first introduced to Deming when she came across the PBS series "Quality or Else" featuring David Langford. What caught her attention was his Deming-based systematic approach to education, creating passion in students by engaging them in the practice of improvement. 

langford learning experience podcast

David explores ways to get started in employing the Deming philosophy in education. In many instances this requires an "out of body experience"; stop playing the blame game, stop being a victim. He tells us to stop worrying about the bigger system and start optimizing the performance of the group, which you have influence over. 

paying for grades

In the past, I believed most educators understood the inherent differences between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and valued the latter over the former. However, this does not seem to be the case. Pay-for-grades, gold stars, student-of-the-month programs and attendance rewards are all too prevalent extrinsic motivators used to push students to do a better job. I’ve found an overwhelming amount of evidence that these schemes do not work in the long…