Dr. Seuss on Personal Kanban in the classroom

If you are a long time follower of this blog you know that I was a preschool teacher for 11+ years.  Last year I left teaching after relocating to a new area to follow other pursuits.  Over the course of 2 years I had implemented several personal kanban boards in my preschool classes that proved to be very successful.

Yesterday I returned to the preschool where I had taught for over 11 years for a visit and to spend time with my students from last year.  When I entered through those doors again I was immediately inspired.  It was as if I had never left.  As I sat looking around the classroom I began to think about my favorite children’s author – Dr. Seuss and how much I loved when February rolled around and we would spend a few weeks concentrating on his books exclusively, doing crafts pertaining to those books and how much he taught my students through his works.  Then I began to think about the personal kanbans I used to help the students learn and master benchmark goals and how Dr. Seuss paralleled that.  Thus this post was born.  So below are some of Dr. Seuss’ famous quotes and how they work so well with Personal Kanban in the classroom and beyond.

“Today you are You, that is truer than true.  There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

Individual learning. Personal Kanban lends itself perfectly to this.  Each student works at their own pace.  It does not matter where other students are each one is doing their own task in their own time.  They bring their own individuality to their work.  This is what makes You, Youer than You!

“THINK! You can think any THINK that you wish….”

Thinking! Yes!  This is what all teachers want, their students to think! Of course.  The beauty of using Personal Kanban is that when the student sees the task, they all may view it in a different way, they may even get to their goal – the completed task – through different means than others.  2+2 does = 4 but there are different ways of getting that value.  It’s important to learn the task at hand but it’s also important to learn that there are different avenues of getting there.

“If you never did, you should.  These things are fun and fun is good.”

F-U-N!  We all want fun.  We all want to enjoy what we are doing.  As a teacher I always wanted to make learning fun.  I wanted to engage my preschoolers fully.  By designing different personal kanbans for the classroom we had many ways to learn and to have fun!

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”

This ties in beautifully with the thinking quote up above.  There in many cases may only be one answer to the task at hand but there are many roads you can choose to get there.  Our classroom ABC’s Personal Kanban showed each student’s journey to completion differently.  Each student interacted with their task cards so differently but each completed the goal.

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”

When the students looked at the whole alphabet from A-Z some said, “Oh I’ll never learn all those letters!”  However, when we broke up the overwhelming task for them,  from 26 letters at once to 2 or 3 at a time it became simpler.  Much simpler.  In most cases our students took the lead.  What was once overwhelming and complicated to them ended up being in a word – simple.

“It’s better to know how to learn than to know.”

When we give preschoolers the proper tools at a young age to encourage learning, collaboration and the experience of learning, that is something they carry with them all along on their educational journey.  All students want to do good work.  Laying the foundation at a young age helps facilitate doing their best work.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know.  The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

Visualization is key.  My preschoolers (age 3) were not yet reading but that did not slow them down one bit.  They listened, they engaged with board, they watched other students interact with the board and they learned from them.  They were soon learning and building their own goals by collaborating with other students.

Teaching about Thanksgiving using a Kidzban

“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!“

I had a parent say to me that their child was fearful of writing letters.  As the year went on the child was observing the other students getting excited over writing the letters, comparing their work with each other on the board, collaborating on their papers, soon the child was no longer fearful but began to go above and beyond what was expected.  All the student did was to try.

“Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.”

Retrospect.  I started with ideas.  I put them on a board.  I designed the personal kanbans for the classroom with the intent of them all being successful.  However, not everything works on the first try.  While our personal kanbans were all successful, we certainly made changes on the fly as the year went on.  We had weekly meetings to talk about what was working on the board and what wasn’t, and then we made adjustments.  Having a retrospective talk on a weekly basis was key.  We were able to adapt with our students, continue on a path to fit their educational needs.

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

Smile.  When I look at each student and what they learned from our classroom Personal Kanbans I can’t help but smile.  The look on each student’s face when they received a sticker or moved a task card over, that smile. Priceless.  Smile because it happened.

As I read through these quotes it occurred to me that I could relate these quotes to my own personal kanbans that I have used over the past few years. To me Personal Kanban is such a great learning tool because it’s relatable across all lines, something that knows no boundaries.  It is teaching us about ourselves while helping us to learn or do a specific task(s).  I have yet to come across a situation where I have not been able to apply a personal Kanban to help me complete my tasks or achieve my goals.

Interested in learning more?

Follow me on Twitter: topsurf

Want to know more about Personal Kanban?  Visit the Personal Kanban Website.

Want to read an awesome book on Personal Kanban?  Purchase: Personal Kanban Mapping Work / Navigating Life  by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry

You can view my productivity photos on flickr:

Moleskine PK set

Kidzban/Classroom PK

Personal Kanban/Productivity 

Productivity Apps

Read Full Post »

Personal Kanban and Recovering from Major Surgery

At the end of February my father went into the hospital for a major surgical procedure. You might remember how I made sure nothing was going to be missed when we went to the surgeon for a consult by using a Personal Kanban to track all of the questions we were looking for the answers to right in my moleskine notebook.

My Moleskine Personal Kanban ready to consult with the surgeon.

The difficulty of aiding my father through all of this is that he lives in another state. This means that I was going to have to be highly organized in order to hold my job, hold my family here and help aid my Mom and Dad in another state all at the (almost) same time. I made arrangements for my job, and managed to organize my family here while I was away by making it a family affair.

Our ‘Kitchen Command Central’ Personal Kanban.

My Father though was going to be a very different story.

My parents have had no previous experience with Personal Kanban. That is until I showed up for the surgeon consult that morning and I opened my notebook. While we were meeting with the surgeon I was asking questions and writing the answers down and doing the same for my parents questions. Afterwards we sat in the waiting room and I went over all the questions and answers with them, they loved how the Personal Kanban had worked. They saw that we had every concern addressed and while my Mom and Dad were still trying to take in the answer from the previous question during the consult, I was writing down the question and answer the surgeon was addressing in real-time. So points they might have missed during our consult we covered completely afterwards in the waiting room. They were impressed.

When it was time for my father to be discharged from the rehab center, I knew it was going to a lot to juggle. Boy was I right. It was overwhelming. There were home healthcare nurse(s), Physical Therapists, Occupational Therapists, and Social Workers who would be coming to their home. That was enough to think about but then we were handed the prescriptions. There were 19 in all. That’s right 19 prescriptions. I have to admit, I was not only overwhelmed, I was panicked!

There were two major goals we had and my father had:

1. His mobility. He needed to regain his strength. He needed to get up and move more and more with each day.
2. His over all well-being. A big part of this health puzzle was going to be making sure he got all his medicines and all on time.

On the way home my mind was racing. I somehow had to pull all this together and put my Mom at ease, because she was going to be doing most of the work and to put my father at ease by letting him see that little steps in the right direction would lead him to his bigger overall goal of being the healthiest he can be. Helping my Mom and Dad be at ease would in turn help me to be more at ease, especially since I wasn’t going to be able to be there on a daily basis. That all led me to one thought – Personal Kanban.

So I sat down at the dining room table and I began to make a mobility Personal Kanban for my father. I thought if he was able to get up 3 times a day and be mobile (walking or going up and down stairs) this would help him greatly in achieving his goal for overall health. So I set up 3 times a week for a full week.

15 minutes each day 3 times a day.

We knew when he arrived home that stairs were not going to be mastered right away, all we wanted was for him to be mobile as much as he could handle. Stairs would eventually make it into the mix, but we had to patient, and that was understood.

WIP lane and Completed lane

I explained to both my father and my Mom that when he got up his first stop would be the Personal Kanban to move over a sticky note into the WIP lane. After he was up and moving as long as he could handle on his way back to where he wanted to rest he should then move the sticky note into the completed lane. I knew that there would be days that he might not move one sticky note over because he wouldn’t have the strength to exercise, but that was okay. He would be able to in effect grow into this Personal Kanban. Although I knew it was very ambitious to start off with, I had faith and knew he’d eventually grow into it.

Additional Workouts

By adding an additional ‘holding pen’ at the bottom of the ready lane of additional workouts this would be another way to allow him to grow into the Personal Kanban as he became stronger and stronger. If he didn’t get into these additional workouts for a long time, that was fine. I wanted them to be a visual goal for him to reach for.

This is the mobility Personal Kanban all set and ready to go.

Action on the mobility Personal Kanban

Since we set this mobility Personal Kanban up, my father has used it. Although he has not gotten the use out of it that he/we wished for because unfortunately he has been very sick and had several set backs. He has just had a second surgery to correct some complications and will soon be home again and this will be there for him. He has already talked to me about being excited to complete it and have my Mom take a photograph for me. This Personal Kanban is a huge visual motivator for him. Sometimes when people aren’t feeling well and go through a long period of being sick, they can’t see anything positive, this Personal Kanban has shown him visually that even 15 minutes of mobility (something we take for granted) is a positive step forward.

Now that we had tackled the first part of our overall goal, we needed to tackle the second part. After I arrived back at the house with the 19 prescriptions I knew this was Personal Kanban territory. I sat at the table for 2 1/2 hours sorting through all the prescriptions. Putting them together not only for each day of the week but also for the time of each day that they would need to be taken. As they sorted out it was apparent that the medicines were going to have to be done at 4 times each day. Once in the morning, at 12 noon, at 4pm and after dinner in the evening.

I went right to work designing the Medicine Personal Kanban.

Medicine Tracking Personal Kanban

I set it up with all days of the week listed and then the sticky notes each with the time of day the medicines were due. When the proper container (I had set up containers with the day and time on it and the proper medicines inside) was given to my father and he took them then the sticky note from the ‘med times‘ lane was then moved over to the ‘taken‘ lane.

You will note the orange sticky added, on this day he required an additional medicine added to his regimen.

Even when something unexpected popped up, like an additional medicine added to his regimen, my Mom would then add an additional sticky note in the proper area so that the newly added medicine would not be forgotten.

Almost completed, keeping every medicine on track.

You will notice there is no WIP lane on this Personal Kanban, that is because the taking of the medicine is an immediate task, therefore I decided to skip the WIP lane.

Keeping 19 prescriptions in order and given in a timely fashion is a daunting task. This by far has been one of the most successful Personal Kanbans I have ever designed. My Mom has told me repeatedly that she had no clue how she was going to manage all of the medicines he came home with and that this medicine tracker Personal Kanban has been a Godsend for her and my father. It eased her mind and I know it certainly eased my mind knowing that he was getting all the proper medicines at the proper times.

Going in to this experience I knew that health is not an exact science. But this is a lesson that is sometimes hard to grasp. It was very important to remember especially with the mobility Personal Kanban, this was not going to be like any previous one we had used. This board was going to depend on good health. I’ve been using Personal Kanban long enough to fully expect a board to evolve with my needs . I learned so much from the use of this board. Usually I set up a board, sit down and start tackling and moving tasks into the WIP lane and then over to the completed lane and ta-da I am done. This was not the case with our mobility Personal Kanban. There were tasks in the ready lane but sometimes because of ‘health complications‘ those tasks would not be done, but that was okay. We learned that even moving one sticky note over on a particular week was a step in the right direction. Small steps leading the way to a bigger overall healthy goal.

It is very difficult to help aid your family when they are not in the same geographical area that you are in, these two Personal Kanbans have helped my family immensely. I know that they will continue to do so as my father continues to regain his health back and that gives us a little more piece of mind moving forward.

Follow me on twitter: @topsurf

**************

Want to know more on Personal Kanban? Visit the Personal Kanban website. I highly recommend purchasing the book: Personal Kanban Mapping Work / Navigating Life by Tonianne DeMaria Barry and Jim Benson.

Read Full Post »

Year 2 and Our ABC’s Personal Kanban Continues to Thrive in the Classroom

If you have been a reader of my blog you know that I implemented an ABC’s Personal Kanban first in the fall of 2009.  However due to circumstances beyond my control (I took a leave of absence due to a family member’s illness) that first try was not seen through the whole year.  When I came back into the classroom in the fall of 2010,  I knew I wanted to make changes to our original board and implement it again to see through the whole year with my students.  And see it through we did.  It was a huge success!

This year I took a position within my school that moved me into a new classroom with younger students where  I implemented more Personal Kanbans with my new 3-year old students that also became very successful.  I was very excited to find out last week that 4 of the Personal Kanbans I have implemented in these two classrooms over the past two years will be included in the curriculum again for next year.  This is so exciting because not only will the students benefit but the teachers will as well.  I have learned just as much as the students have from implementing these and watching them evolve, it has helped us all to become better educators.

I was thrilled when I found out at the end of last year that the Personal Kanbans I implemented in the 4-5 year old classroom would become a part of the curriculum for the next year.  Now that I was no longer in that classroom, I was asked to work closely with the teachers in that room, to help them set it up and continue to monitor and have retrospective meetings throughout the year to track the progress.

We knew we didn’t want to change anything about the set-up of our board, so we kept it basically the same as last year.

Our ABC's PK 2010-11 Version

ABC's PK Version 2011-12

This year we took the kaizen moments we had from last year’s Personal Kanban and implemented them right off the bat at the beginning of the students alphabet learning journey.

• We did not put their names on the task cards.  Last year we did and then discovered some of the students wanted to write their names in themselves as they were learning to write the letters.  So this year from the start of the use of the Personal kanban we did not put their names.  This resulted in the students learning to write their name even earlier in the school year.

This year just 1/2 way into learning to write the letters, the students were now well practiced at writing their names on their task cards.

• Last year the parents were very involved and this proved to be the case again this year.  In fact when there were holidays that pushed the ‘normal’ letter learning day off by a day, the parents were asking the teachers if they should make letter task cards up for their children, instead of waiting for them to be sent home from our teachers.
• From the beginning, there was no student apprehension this year.  The students were very excited for their first try at ‘homework’ – taking their card home and working on their letters for the next day of class.

1/2 way through learning the alphabet not only writing their first name also adding their last name (pixelated out for privacy). Also adding many more practice letters to their card.

• Last year one thing we learned from our retrospect meetings is that if we doubled the amount of example letters we wrote on the task cards the students would then double their amount of letters they practiced. So by the middle of the alphabet this year the teachers doubled the amount of examples on the cards and once again the students followed suit by writing more letters on their cards.
• Last year we also were thrilled when we got to the last four letters of the alphabet on our ABC’s Personal Kanban that the students were not only writing their first names but a few were adding their last names.  That was the first year we had ever experienced that.  This year the trend not only continued but it showed up even earlier on several student letter task cards.  This is a big improvement over last year.

Whiteboards, magnetic letters, pictures, all related to learning and writing the alphabet.

• Last year after implementing the ABC’s Personal Kanban we began to notice during our free playtime at the beginning of each class the students were utilizing the blackboard on a daily basis to practice writing their letters.  We knew they were eager for more.  So this year the teachers planned on bringing out more alphabet related materials during playtime, we were interested to see if this would be embraced by the students this year.  We started to focus on doing this on our letter learning days, and it was so well received that it morphed into being done on each day during free playtime.  The whiteboards (one pictured above with a student practicing writing his letters) were a HUGE hit with all the students this year.

Were there as many kaizen moments with the ABC’s Personal Kanban this year as there was last year?  I would say no.  However there were still kaizen moments throughout the year which will once again help us to evolve the board again for next year to be even better, to help the students become more effective and efficient in their learning of the alphabet. We will take the lessons we’ve learned this year and apply them to the board we set up for next year.  One theme from our students that proved true once again this year is that they all want to shine, they all want to do great work, and they all want to share their success with each other.  This ABC’s Personal Kanban has proven once again this year to be an excellent catalyst in helping our students to thrive in our pre-k classroom.

Next Post coming up this Wednesday:  How my family is using Personal Kanban to help my Dad recover from major surgery.

Follow me on twitter: @topsurf

**************

Want to know more on Personal Kanban?  Visit the Personal Kanban website.  I highly recommend purchasing the book: Personal Kanban Mapping Work / Navigating Life by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry.

Read Full Post »

Go Fly a Kite Successfully with Personal Kanban in your Classroom

As many of you who follow this blog might remember, last year I implemented and used with great success an ABC’s Personal Kanban in my preschool classroom.  First time visiting my blog? You can read my Education and Personal Kanban it’s a Win Win Situation post  here.

This year I am in a different classroom with younger preschoolers, 3-year-olds.   I knew when I was moving to this class that it would be a big challenge for me to design a workable kidzban to use in our class. One reason being, it had to be 100% visual.  My students (for the most part) have not learned to read yet.  Seeing the success we had last year with the older students using our ABCs Personal Kanban I knew I wanted to definitely use Personal Kanban in my classroom this year in whatever capacity I could.   So I spent some time this summer designing a few boards that I might be able to use in my classroom.

Design for a Shapes Kidzban

Design for Stoplight Safety Kidzban

Design for a Classroom Jobs Kite Kidzban

These are just a few samples of the designs I made, two of these made it through to my classroom walls.  The stoplight safety kidzban and the kite kidzban. Below are the two final boards on my walls.

The first month of school I wanted to teach my students about being aware of the world around them and the rules of safety when outside playing.  So we focused a bit on stoplight safety.  They knew what a stoplight was but had no idea about its function and what it meant for them when crossing a street with a caregiver.  We first learned about the three colors and what each color stood for.  Then to re-enforce what those colors meant they were each given a colored circle and asked to place them in the correct place on the stoplight  and then tell the other students what that color meant- green safe to go, yellow slow down, proceed with caution, and red, stop.

When we were sure they were confident and  knew all three they then were asked to move their circles to the completed lane.  They had fun watching each other move their circles and if a student was struggling the other students would collaborate with that particular student to help them put their circle in the correct spot.  I heard from quite a few parents, that their child let them know when they went through a yellow light too fast or even through a red light! This safety stoplight kidzban was a big success. It is now an approved part of our curriculum and I will be using it next year.

One thing that I have found after 10+ year of teaching preschoolers is that they absolutely love to help you out in the classroom.  So I knew from when I was assigned this class one of the Personal Kanbans I would design would involve classroom tasks.  I wanted to design something that represented fun, so I decided on ‘flying a kite.’

Here’s how this works: each student has a bow on the tail of the kite.  Everyday we chose the next name on the tail and that person gets to ‘fly the kite’ and essentially the classroom leader for that particular day.  The kite is divided into four sections, each section has a classroom task: flag holder, dressing the classroom weather bear, being the line leader, and ringing the clean-up bell.  The student’s bow moves around to all four tasks as they need to be completed. The student who is the kite flyer for the day also wears a badge, that goes home with them at the end of the day.

Kite Kidzban Student Badge

After all four tasks have been completed the student’s bow is then moved to the completed lane: the space on the wall that has the words- I flew the kite today!  There are few things I really love about how this kite flying Personal Kanban has been working out.

1. Upon entering the room most students will walk over to check out the kite to see who is going to be the leader each day in our class.  They are learning not only to recognize their name but the names of their classmates.
2. They have learned their tasks, if I happen to get sidetracked in the classroom doing another task students will come up and ask me, “Is it time for Judy to dress the weather bear yet?”  A lot of times the student who asks me that question isn’t even the one to be the student leader for that particular day.
3. Group participation, when the student is dressing the weather bear, many other students come over to participate and offer help.  This aids in learning to get along in group situations.
4. I was absent one day from the classroom about two months ago, the substitute told me that the students let her know about the kite kidzban, how it worked, and what tasks the class leader needed to accomplish.
5. This is not a traditional kanban board, however it works just like a traditional kanban, there is a ready lane-the tail with the bows, a work in progress lane-the kite sectioned into four tasks, and completed lane-the bows placed under the words I flew the kite today.
6. This is giving my students the visual of their tasks, the ability to see themselves move around the classroom completing these tasks and the huge confidence of seeing their tasks completed.
7. The badge that they get to wear when they are the kite flyer-class leader for the day makes them feel important. Upon wearing it home it breeds conversations about what tasks they had to complete.
8. Every student knows they will get a turn, and they are excited when they see where their bow is placed on the tail and when their turn will be coming up.
9. It helped to get the students into the ‘groove’ of our classroom and what would be happening during their day.  This is many of my students’ first experience in a structured classroom, and it can be very scary and intimidating the first few weeks. This helped greatly ease their minds and make the experience a positive one.

The kite kidzban has been more successful than I even envisioned.  The students love it.  It will be up on the wall again next year.

One thing that I sometimes find difficult to teach to young preschoolers are holidays.  Not all holidays, believe me they know more than I do about Christmas and Santa Claus!  I found that my students were having a difficult time grasping the Thanksgiving holiday, so I decided that we would design a Thanksgiving Personal Kanban together in class during our circle time.

Teaching about Thanksgiving using a Kidzban

We set up the pilgrims traveling to the United States first, talked about how they would arrive then we talked about what they would need to learn to survive with the Native Americans, how they would grow food, prepare the food, etc.  Then we discussed how their working together made them successful and happy, which brought us to celebrating Thanksgiving.  By doing this kidzban together they learned more from the visual then by me just talking or reading from a book.  They got to place the pictures on the board and we all collaborated on why and how and what we thought they did next.  The students loved working on this board together.  Now they know that Thanksgiving is about more than just turkey.

I am extremely happy with how successful all of these Personal Kanbans have been this year.  Next year I plan to use even more as I begin to feel more comfortable in my new class.  I am constantly taking notes on what areas I could be using a Personal Kanban with my class and am looking forward to bringing that to light next fall.

For those of you who have been following along with the ABCs Personal Kanban we used last year and have been asking me, YES it is being used this year and with BIG success once again.  I have had several meetings with the teachers who are using it this year .  Once again they have had many kaizen moments using it in the classroom.  I will be doing a follow up post on the ABC’s Personal Kanban in a few weeks.

My biggest hope is that I begin to see more and more teachers and educators using Personal Kanban in the their classroom.  I firmly believe from pre-k through college Personal Kanban can be a class game changer and great collaboration tool across the board in every subject.

You can view all my productivity photographs by visiting my flickr productivity collection.

Want to know more about Personal Kanban?  Visit the website.

I highly recommend reading Personal Kanban Mapping Work / Navigating Life by Tonianne DeMaria Barry and Jim Benson.

Read Full Post »

The Onion and Personal Kanban

 ”…uh… ogres are like onions!   ~ Shrek

“Example?  Why? They stink? They make you cry? Oh, you leave ‘em out in the sun,  they get all brown, start sproutin’ little white hairs?”  ~ Donkey

“NO! Layers! Onions have layers! Ogres have layers. Onions have layers.” ~ Shrek

I began using Personal Kanban in June of 2009.  I am almost at my two-year anniversary (yes, I used the word anniversary, I think this day should be celebrated! )  of faithfully using this method to be more effective and efficient in all facets of my life.  This got me to thinking about Personal Kanban and why I have continued to use it.

Take for example my moleskine Personal Kanban: 

The above photos show the very first Personal Kanban I made in my moleskine notebook.

I then decided, the first Personal Kanban I made wasn’t working well for me on this particular day so I made a new “daily Personal Kanban”.

Then I was traveling out-of-state and it was very important that I packed everything I needed.  I couldn’t let anything fall through the cracks, so I made a Personal Kanban specifically for all the items I needed to pack.

Later on that month I realized I was not taking any time to do activities I loved to do anymore.  So I thought if I just put some of those “relaxing” tasks on my Personal Kanban and did them when perhaps I was on a pomodoro break between “working” tasks, that maybe I could get some relaxation time in, even if it was just 10 or 15 minutes here or there.

It worked!!

My husband and I were talking about everything we wanted to do in our backyard this year and while making a shopping list of items we needed, we were getting confused by what and where we wanted those items to go, so I decided to make this Personal Kanban, which is a map of our backyard showing what we wanted to do where we wanted to do it.

While not your traditional Personal Kanban, it has been very effective, we are making headway in our backyard.

I began to notice that when working with some bigger tasks I would move them to completed thinking they were done and then realized I forgot to do something related to that task, such as a follow-up email or a phone call.  That’s when I began using a multi-layered task based Personal Kanban.  I would put the big task on the post it, then the smaller tasks that were needed to be done in order to complete that bigger task.  I was very happy with the successful results.

I went through a 2 – 3 week period where I was having a difficult time focusing on what I needed to accomplish.  So I made this Personal Kanban.  The ready tasks all together and then on separate pages the wip and the completed lanes that way I stayed focused on the task at hand instead of looking at the whole board at once and skipping around.  Staying focused on that one page and task really worked!

I am a teacher and moving into a new classroom in the fall.  I have been brainstorming about several goals I want to accomplish with my students next year.  I work very often with mind mapping.  I like seeing the goal, and then branching out with the tasks of what I need to complete that goal.  So I thought why not combine the two together?  I have made several since this one and I am pleased with how they all have worked out.

Why did I use my moleskine Personal Kanban as an example?  These photographs above show perfectly what I love so much about Personal Kanban.

• Changes.  Personal Kanban changes with you.
• Changes.  Personal Kanban changes you.
• Stories. Personal Kanban tells many stories.
• Kaizen. My favorite part of Personal Kanban are the Kaizen moments.
• Creative.  I can be as creative or non-creative as I want.
• Insight.  I have learned what I like to do and what I don’t like to do.
• Accountability.  My Personal Kanban holds me accountable.
• Materials.  You don’t need anything fancy to use Personal Kanban.  A pen, a piece of paper or post it note or a marker and a white board,  you are good to go.
• Working.  Whiteboard, no whiteboard, notebook, no notebook, online tool, post it’s on a kitchen counter top or your refrigerator.  Personal Kanban is just that, personal. Do what works for you.
• Simple.  Personal Kanban is not complicated.
• Retrospect.  Looking at a completed board, what worked, what didn’t?
• Engineering.  By using Personal Kanban I am the engineer in the effectiveness and efficiency of my life.
• Collaborate.  By using Personal Kanban in meetings, in my classroom (ABC’s Personal Kanban- Kidzban) and in my home, everyone gets a voice that’s heard and everyone contributes to the success.
• Brain Candy.  There is nothing that feeds your brain like moving a completed task to the DONE lane!  :-)
• Evolving.  Personal Kanban is constantly evolving with you and your life.  There is constant flow.  It’s in a word beautiful.
• Discoveries.  By connecting with others who are using Personal Kanban I am learning from what they have learned.
• Onion.  Personal Kanban is just like an onion.  So simple, yet so many layers.  This is what I love most about Personal Kanban.  You are constantly uncovering layers, that lead you to discoveries, that lead to a better you.

We are constantly changing and evolving.  Two years, 730 days.  I am not the same person I was two years ago.  I believe I am a better version of myself.  Thanks in a good part to my self discovery by using Personal Kanban.

Onions.

Personal Kanban is just like an onion.

Ogres are just like onions.  

We are just like onions.  

We all have layers.  

Interested in finding out more about Personal Kanban?  Visit the Personal Kanban Website.

Want to read an awesome book on Personal Kanban?  Purchase: Personal Kanban Mapping Work / Navigating Life 

Thank you to Jim & Tonianne who have given me great guidance on my journey with Personal Kanban over the past two years.

View my productivity photos on flickr:

Moleskine PK set

Kidzban/Classroom PK

Personal Kanban/Productivity 

Productivity Apps

Follow me on Twitter: topsurf

Read Full Post »

Education and Personal Kanban it’s a Win Win Situation

When I first talked about using Personal Kanban in the classroom it was back in December we were just really settling in to our routine in the classroom. I gave an overview of what we were doing, what we wanted to achieve, and let you know just how successful we thought it had been.

ABC’s Personal Kanban

That was last year, this is today and things have changed, dramatically.

I recently sent an email, and in that email I was talking about our classroom Personal Kanban, I mentioned that every weekend when I am preparing task cards for the upcoming week I would wonder if we would have any more Kaizen moments with our ABC’s Personal Kanban and think to myself, no we are done, there is nothing left for us to discover. Those thoughts were proven wrong time and time again, week after week.

Work in progress. Our class has indeed been a work in progress and what a progression it has become.

When we began on our evolving classroom journey we had just a few simple goals:

• We wanted to the classroom Personal Kanban to easily understood by parents and the teachers alike.
• We wanted the students to excel at what had traditionally been a very unappealing and difficult part of the preschool classroom activity-learning to write the letters. We wanted to excite the children about learning not think of it as a chore.

As I have told several people what unfolded we were not prepared for. I had no doubt it would be successful, but just how successful, I wasn’t sure. I saw what Personal Kanban did for me in my own private life, but would this happen for 4 and 5 year old students in the classroom too?

The question was answered every week before our eyes. Many Tuesday’s after class we would stand looking at the ABC’s Personal Kanban and discuss what had happened that day. We had many, many retrospective talks about the board, we had more Kaizen moments than I can list. It was like standing back watching a puzzle magically come together piece by piece every week.

Here are a few things we discovered by using the abc’s Personal Kanban in our classroom:

• The excitement from the children grew every week, with each letter they completed on their task card.
• Students were excited to share their work with other children in the classroom.
• Students wanted to collaborate on the chalkboard writing their letters, teaching other students how to write letters.
• Parents were excited to see their child’s progress.
• Parent involvement was close, if not most of the time at 100%. It was not out of the norm to have a homemade task card brought to class if the student was absent on the day when the task cards came home. (see photos below)
• Students going above and beyond what was expected of them on their task cards. (see photos below)
• Students who were once fearful of their work and results, now exerting more effort, striving to do even better.
• Students waiting at the board before their name is called to come over with their task card, in anticipation of receiving a sticker reward for a job well done.
• Students excited to learn, having fun and learning without even realizing, it’s fun!

Week after week, when the students came back to class with their completed task cards, we saw revelation after revelation. What follows below are a few photographs that we took trying to capture those revelations.

This particular child’s parent expressed concern at the beginning of the year over her child’s fear of writing the letters. By the week we introduced the letter “Ii” those fears were erased!

The student above was not the only student turning over his task card to do extra work!

Student’s doing extra practice on the back of their task cards. Doing extra work on their own!

It should be noted that we are just introducing the letters to the children and getting them acquainted with using the pencil. We are not looking for perfection, we just want them to get comfortable with using the pencil.

Kaizen Moment. We give the student more examples, they in turn write the letter more too.

Up until this letter was introduced this student only wrote the letter one time on his task card every week. When we gave the student more than one example of the letter he in turn wrote the letter more. After this week, we went back to writing only one example of the letter, but this student continued on writing more than one example of the letter.

Parent made cards.

Students turning cards over, and parent made cards.

Drawing pictures on the back of task card that begin with the letter of the week.

Students not only were writing letters on the back of their task cards but they were also starting to draw pictures of things that began with the letter of the week. Not only writing the letter but RECOGNIZING the letters outside the box.

Students now writing their names on their own

Another Kaizen moment. We realized that if we didn’t write the student’s name on the card and left it blank, they would write their name on their own!

First and Last names!

Not only were they writing their first names on their own, a few weeks later they started to write their last names too!

Letter R Week

We have only 4 letters left to learn this year in our classroom. The success we have seen simply stated, is amazing. The best part of adding Personal Kanban in our classroom has been the learning journey that not only the students have been on but the one I have been on. I am proud to say that we have aided the students in building a strong foundation for their learning journey on into kindergarten, elementary school and beyond. I have learned a great deal from watching them learn. No doubt it has made me a better teacher. It has definitely been a win win situation.

This week we are wrapping up our parent-teacher conferences, when speaking with the parents this week I heard the following statements, “My child loved working on her task card it made her feel important.” “To have all the cards for my child to be able to look back and see all the letters he learned, I wasn’t just telling him, I was showing him, he was able to see all he’s learned.” And finally one parent remarked to me “He was so excited to get into class to show you his card, week after week his excitement grew, he’s been so proud of his work.”

Although I will not be in this particular classroom next year, this Personal Kanban will be used again. Will it be exactly the same, I don’t think so. I know it will evolve with the classroom and the students as they evolve, learn and continue to grow, that alone makes me very happy. I have been brainstorming and already have many Personal Kanban ideas in the works for my new classroom next year. I will continue to track the progress, learn and grow right along with my students.

I believe strongly that even though ours is a preschool classroom this can be modified and used for any aged student in the classroom, preschool through college and beyond. As a teacher what we must do is to the keep the student engaged, be creative, help the student to be the best he/she can be. I believe that Personal Kanban will do just that.

While my example is an ABCs Personal Kanban, what I’d like you to understand is that it could very easily be a sight words Personal Kanban, a times table Personal Kanban, a book report Personal Kanban, an art project Personal Kanban, a science lab experiment Personal Kanban. The possibilities are endless.

Once you have a Personal Kanban set up for your classroom and begin to use it, you will see the students begin to become engaged seeing what their classmates are doing. They compare on the board, they collaborate and they become excited. When they see completed tasks (which means they have learned that task) they want more, *it’s in a sense brain candy.

I would like to say once again that none of this would have been possible without the guidance of Jim and Tonianne who have helped me brainstorm and given me great guidance along the way. Thank you for all of your help.

“*it’s in a sense brain candy.” This is a partial quote taken from the book Personal Kanban Mapping Work / Navigating Life by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry The complete quote is as follows:

“When you pull that sticky note into DONE, it’s brain candy.”

It is no small secret this is my favorite quote in the book! If you have not yet purchased this book, I highly recommend it. It’s the definitive guide on Personal Kanban.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For more photographs check out:

Kidzban in the classroom

Moleskin Personal Kanban Hack

Personal Kanban /Productivity

Productivity Apps

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Follow Personal Kanban on Twitter:

@Ourfounder

@Sprezzatura

@personalkanban

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Personal Kanban Website:

Personal Kanban

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Purchase the book:

Personal Kanban Mapping Work / Navigating Life

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read Full Post »