QUEST Brochure
QUEST
Building skills for success in the classroom and the workplace
from the Center for Quality People and Organizations
QUEST: Quest for Useful Employment Skills for Tomorrow
What is QUEST?
QUEST helps schools and businesses develop the team-building and problem-solving skills that are so important in today’s workplace.
The program is based on principles pioneered by Toyota, which created "quality circles" of employees empowered to work together to improve processes and products in its auto plants. In schools, QUEST helps engage students in learning by making them more accountable for their own progress.
How can QUEST work for you?
QUEST consultants can train teachers, school administrators and employers in following areas:
Learning teamwork through meeting facilitation
This is critical for successful group projects in the classroom or at work. Students and employees learn how to:
Organize data
Engage all participants
Achieve consensus
Evaluate result
Problem-solving using the Plan-Do-Check-Act process
This gives students and employees the tools they need to take initiative and meet challenges. They learn to:
Plan: Identify a problem and determine its root cause
Do: Choose an effective solution, or countermeasure
Check: Test the solution and change it, if necessary
Act: Make the solution standard practice and continue to monitor its effectiveness
Planning for continuous improvement
Click here to learn more about this process
This helps schools and businesses focus on the big picture. Administrators and employees learn how to:
- Set up an annual or biannual process for improvement planning
- Investigate areas for improvement.
- Develop solutions for areas of improvement
- Set up monitoring systems to track effectiveness of solutions
- Implement a visual information system
ASK process (Assessing Student Knowledge)
Click here to learn more about this process
ASK, which improves both student learning and test scores, is customized for each school. This training covers:
- Using QUEST’s four-step plan-do-check-act process to meet core content expectations for each grade
- Engaging students by making them more accountable for their own learning in core content subjects
- Assessing students on a weekly basis with both preview and review questions related to core content expectations
- Developing individual plans for improvement as well as plans for overall classroom improvement
- Preparing more systematically for the state required annual tests
What programs does QUEST offer?
Understanding QUEST
This one-day session gives a overview of:
- Meeting facilitation
- Problem-solving four-step process
- Planning for continuous improvement
- ASK process
Certified Basic Leadership Training
This two-day session teaches meeting facilitation and problem solving techniques while participants work through a case study or actual problem from their school or workplace. The session includes a QUEST Leadership Training manual.Facilitated Meetings
QUEST consultants guide your school or workplace through QUEST processes to solve specific problems or develop school/work continuous improvement plans. This "on the job training" generally involves meeting facilitation and the use of problem-solving techniques.Certified Training (expanded for schools)
This five-day program includes everything covered in the two-day basic training session. The third day is devoted to ASK: Participants will develop core content checklists and six to eight weeks of assessments to take back to the classroom. Participants will also learn how to collect and interpret ASK data. For the final two days, QUEST consultants will work on QUEST and ASK processes with participants at their schools. The scheduling of these days is flexible, depending on each school’s needs.The ASK "Jumpstart" Program
This is a one-day session for schools and teachers who want to get started with ASK right away. QUEST consultants will help develop and implement the weekly assessments (ASK) in the classroom. They will teach participants how to analyze data from the assessments, and to use the QUEST problem-solving tools to help students improve in weak areas.
For more information about QUEST please contact:
QUEST Executive Director, Mike Hoseus to learn more at 502-867-3993 or mhoseus@scott.k12.ky.us.