This message may be of interest to Norfolk residents concerned with middle schools or high schools - either as students, parents, teachers, or administrators. I have a password available for free school-wide use of the YourTake.org site through June 30, 2008. Background (Note: The following borrows heavily from promotional material which I've appropriated into my text.) In the late 1950s, Benjamin Tregoe and Charles Kepner, two research scientists working for the RAND Corporation, were conducting research with radar station crews for the Air Defense Command. They began to notice that certain air force officers made better decisions than others, even though all these officers had essentially the same training and experience and were presented with the same simulated air threats. Because the information the officers dealt with was the same, the difference in effectiveness had to lie in the process the decision makers used. Tregoe and Kepner theorized that the better decision makers followed a better process - that the process comprised a series of steps they followed to make their decisions and that the better decision makers were more aware of their decision-making process. After they left RAND, Kepner and Tregoe continued their study of decision making. In 1958, they founded Kepner-Tregoe, Inc., now an international management consulting firm based in Princeton, New Jersey. Further research showed that better decision makers did indeed follow a better and more consistent process. Better decision makers were as unaware of their own process, however, as were the poor decision makers. Kepner and Tregoe conducted extensive research and ultimately identified and codified four analytic processes: decision analysis, potential problem analysis, problem analysis, and situation appraisal. In the last 49 years, more than 20 million people have been trained in the Kepner-Tregoe problem-solving and decision-making processes. Today these processes are widely used, from the board room to the plant floor, in more than 1,400 of the world's most influential organizations. These decision-making strategies have been used in 44 countries and taught in 14 languages. The range of organizations and cultures, and the variety of issues to which these ideas have been applied, attest to their universality and broad applicability. In 1993, Ben Tregoe founded the nonprofit Tregoe Education Forum to bring these same critical-thinking skills to elementary, middle, and high school students. The Tregoe Education Forum, under a license from Kepner-Tregoe, Inc., provides workshops and resource materials for teachers and administrators and enables them to provide K-12 students with the critical-thinking tools students need for personal development and success. The analytic processes have had a demonstrated effect, as reported by administrators and teachers, on elementary, middle, and high schools and their students in some 25 school districts across the country. I took a Kepner-Tregoe course about twenty years ago and I took a "Problem Solving and Decision Making" workshop in Boston this past summer. I found the techniques useful and helpful in both my work and personal life. When I heard about the Tregoe Education Forum, I wanted to find out what they were offering and whether it might be helpful to students in the Norfolk schools. What's going on now I requested information and was told that the Tregoe Education Forum is dedicated to improving the ability of students and teachers to solve problems and make decisions. I was told that in addition to the Tregoe Education Forum website at tregoe.org, they have started a new yourtake.org web site aimed at middle and high school students, designed to help develop student skills for collaborative problem solving and independent thinking. The site features an interactive online learning tool called SCAN, which incorporates a problem-solving methodology that encourages question, collaboration, and critical thinking. SCAN has a free mode so that educators and students can try it. Access to the full lesson library and enhanced functionality is offered at the following rates for annual subscriptions: One teacher and 15 students: $79/year One school site (with unlimited log-ins): $299/year I was given a password to activate a free school subscription through June 30, 2008. I was told that I could give to any school or individual who will use it. Since I found the adult version of this training useful, I hope that the student version will be similarly useful. If you want to investigate this, here are some links you can follow. The Kepner-Tregoe, Inc. consulting company kepner-tregoe.com Some books sold by Kepner-Tregoe, Inc. describing their processes. The first book listed, "The New Rational Manager", corresponds pretty closely to the contents of the "Problem Soving and Decision Making" workshop I attended. [link] The nonprofit Tregoe Education Forum tregoe.org Description of the goals of the YourTake web site [link] The introduction to the book "Analytic Processes for School Leaders" [link] If, after looking the material over, you feel that you would use the subscription to the YourTake site, you can send a message to me at the address (my first name) (hyphen) (my last name) (at) earthlink.net with "Request for YourTake Password" in the subject. [Or use this link: box80@norfolknet.com - Wm.] David Rosenberg 9/23/2007 ### Norfolknet.com your community, on-line