"Improving Teaching and Learning Through the Total Quality Improvement Process"
1991 - 1994

The purpose of the next three year grant was to continue meeting the development needs of the Consortium, the individual campuses, and individual faculty members. In this grant the mini-grants and Consortium-wide meetings were replaced with two annual seminars, the Great Plains Great Teachers Seminar held in the last two summers of the granting period, and plans to develop a permanent self-sustaining non-profit faculty development center. The individual campus projects were continued.

In spring 1992, a statewide seminar was held. Dr. Edward McGlone from Emporia State University, Kansas was the seminar leader. The seminar was designed to show faculty members how to implement Total Quality in the classroom. Dr. Tom Angelo facilitated the third annual seminar held in January 1994. The seminar hosted 85 participants and focused on assessment techniques to make classroom learning more valuable and student centered.

In 1992 "The Quest for the Great Teacher" was held with David Gottshall, College of DuPage, Illinois, founder of the National Great Teachers Movement. It was patterned after the Great Teachers Movement and was the model for the Great Plains Great Teachers Seminars which began in the summer 1993.

The summer of 1993 marked the beginning of what the NDTYCC hoped would be an annual event, the First Annual Great Plains Great Teachers Seminar. Held for five days on the prairie in western North Dakota at the Sacred Heart Monastery, the seminar was facilitated by David Gottshall. The seminars were based on the premise that teachers learn best from one another and that creativity in teaching is enhanced by mixing members of diverse teaching fields, experience levels, and interests -- thus forcing faculty members to move their focus from that of discipline to the art of teaching. The format encourages participants to share individual expertise and then moves them forward into creative thinking and problem solving. Twenty-three faculty members attended the first summer, and twenty faculty members attended in 1994. Both years were a huge success. The goal was to continue the program by making it self-supporting.