Reflection Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Reflection - Coursework Example One way of organizing the varied components in an essay may have to do with the course affiliated to by the line of reasoning resorted to by the writer, as in persuasive and opinion essays. In that context, an essay may follow a general-to-particular or a particular-to-general format of organization. The essential thing about the general-to-particular form of organization is that it allows the essay writer to carry the strain of thoughts imminent in the essay from broad and expansive generalizations, to specific and concrete conclusions. In other words the writer here begins with a general body of facts and then keeps on chiseling and paring it to facilitate its culmination into a reliable and effective conclusion. Thereby, the particular-to-general mode of organization is the one in which where a writer begins one’s line of reasoning from a specific fact or information and then moves on to broaden the scope of that specific fact to support a more generalized view of things. B oth these modes of essay organization do come in handy in essays driven by reason and logic. Every student of English does know that many a times one has to write an essay which is not merely reason based, but does also have an essential plot and landscape associated with it. That is such essays do contain much material pertaining to human characters, incidents and aspects of landscape like buildings, structures, vegetation, etc. Thereby, chronological order and spatial order here help the essay writer to arrange the elements of plot and landscape in an essay in a coherent and concise manner. Chronological order is a mode of essay organization in which the incidents, occurring, eras in an essay are arranged in consonance with a linear time order, which may flow from past to present or from present to past. Contrary to this, the spatial order takes care of the varied details of the landscape presented in an essay, as they exist in space. Such a form of organization may present the varied

Analysis of Wallow's Character in Haunting of Olivia Essay

Analysis of Wallow's Character in Haunting of Olivia - Essay Example embarrassed to admit that he doesn’t see any ghosts† (Russell). From this line, the reader has an understanding that these are minds of young children who think they can find the ghost of their long-gone sister. Whether ghosts exist or not is a subject worth of discussion by those who believe in their existence. As the story develops, it is revealed to the reader that Wallow aged fourteen and his brother (the narrator) has been having numerous trips to the lake shore in search of their dead sister (Russell). They repeatedly scavenge through the boats at the shore with the hope of having a glimpse of their dead sister. The reader is able to notice the bully nature of the elder brother through the younger brother, who says, â€Å"On land, Wallow’s a loutish kid. He bulldozes whatever gets in his path: baby strollers, widowers, me† (Russell). These lines gives the reader an understanding of the kind of character Wallow sometimes retrieves into when he feels th at he has all it takes to be a bully. This also explains why he drives the brother in search of the sister’s ghost. From the story the reader is also able to comprehend that the parents of the two children have resumed travelling to third world countries since the death of their daughter. This is because they feel the sons are grown enough to take care of themselves. As the story comes to an end, the reader understands that nothing positive comes out of the brothers’ search for their sister’s ghost. ... In reference to the bullish nature of Wallow, the reader understands that in absence of constant care by the parents, the elder brother will always want to be protective of his younger brother. Character Traits of the Story’s Characters The character of Wallow in the story â€Å"Haunting of Olivia† is caring. As an elder brother, and at fourteen years of age, he protects his brother, who is twelve, because the parents are rarely with them (Russell). When they are scavenging the boats to find anything of value, the reader discovers that Wallow remains in control and keeps watch for the safety of both of them. This can be seen when he says to his brother: â€Å"All right, bro,† Wallow says. â€Å"It’s go time.† He takes my elbow and gentles me down the planks with such tenderness that I am suddenly very afraid. But there’s no sense making the plunge slow and unbearable...† (Russell). Moreover, Wallow is imaginative about nature and supers titious. He refers to the anniversary of his late sister as â€Å"unbirthday†. Since the sister died on that material day, he feels that it is her unbirthday. The reader knows that this cannot be termed as unbirthday. Wallow says, â€Å"†¦that means that tonight is Olivia’s unbirthday, the anniversary of her death† (Russell). The imagination and superstition in these lines is revealed from the fact that Wallow thinks that the opposite of birthday celebration is unbirthday. This is in reference to death anniversary of Olivia. Moreover, by believing that Olivia’s ghost is in existence and they ought to look for it, it is an act of superstition. Ghosts are not things that exist but they arise out of

Multimedia learning proposes Essay Example for Free

Multimedia learning proposes Essay Multimedia learning proposes ways of going beyond the pure verbal messages which have been used in lectures and printed lessons for hundreds of years. Multimedia learning as Thomas Edison predicted has proved to be an effective method of teaching, has revolutionized our educational system and has supplanted the use of textbooks. Multimedia presentations are known to help learners. The newly developed multimedia technologies which incorporate simultaneous presentations of narration, images and text make the possibilities for instruction vast. Yet how should educators use these technologies to ensure that there is optimal learning? The answer is that the multimedia messages should be designed in the best way using the eight principles for multimedia design as a guideline. Background to the multimedia principles: Mayer is known for his research in the field of cognitive theory. According to Mayer, a multimedia instructional message is a presentation which involves words (such as spoken or written text) and pictures (such as animation, video, illustrations, and photographs) in which the goal is to promote learning. Mayer links cognitive learning theory to multimedia design issues, validating three theory-based assumptions about how people learn from words and pictures: the (1) dual channel assumption which is based upon the theory that pictures are seen by eyes and are processed as pictorial representations in the visual-pictorial channel. Spoken words on the other hand enter through ears and are processed in the other channel of human cognition, the auditory-verbal channel. (2) Limited capacity assumption is demonstrated by auditory- verbal overload. Because each channel in the human cognitive system has a limited capacity for holding and manipulating knowledge, presenting too many visuals and a lot of sounds at the same time causes the auditory-visual channel to become overloaded. And the (3) Active processing assumption implies that optimal learning occurs when learners engage in active processing within the channels which include relevant words and pictures organized into coherent pictorial and verbal models and integrated with each other and other knowledge. The discovery of the eight principles of multimedia design was a result of Mayers research. Each principle was based on the cognitive theory and was supported by the finding of the research. The multimedia principles discussed with good and bad practice examples: These eight principles are explained as follows in more detail, along with their applications. Multimedia Principle: This principle states that carefully and selectively chosen words and pictures enhance a learner’s understanding of an explanation better than words alone. Mayer tells us that deeper understanding occurs because students mentally connect pictorial and verbal representations of the explanation. A study was conducted in which students viewed a narrated animation about pumps or brakes or simply listened to a narration; the students who viewed the narrated animation scored substantially higher. There are numerous examples of the multimedia principle. Desktop publishing programs and the illustrative capabilities of Microsoft Word and PowerPoint adding pictures to a multimedia presentation has become relatively easy. A good practice example would be to use an animation of how an earthquake occurs to support the textual and/or verbal description: when the frictional stress of gliding plate boundaries goes beyond a certain value and causes a failure at a fault line, which results in a violent dislocation of the Earth’s crust. At this point, elastic strain energy is released causing elastic waves to be radiated, leading to an earthquake. The goal of this principle is best achieved when graphics used are meaningful and illustrative in juxtaposition with text. Images which convey meaning, not simply multitudes of clip art images with no instructional purpose. It would be bad practice heaps of pictures which show destructions caused by earthquakes are used when explaining how earthquakes occur. It would actually be a hindrance in the process of learning as it would take focus off the topic and instead bring the costs of the earthquake into discussion. A good use of this principle would be when pictures and animations are used for presenting instructional content where there are used as lesson interfaces and not for any decorative purpose. Contiguity Principle: The contiguity principle examines how words and pictures should be coordinated in multimedia presentations. This principle states that there is more effective learning when the narration and animation are presented simultaneously rather than successively. Also, words and associative pictures should be close each other and presented at the same time so that when the narration or words describes a particular process or action, the animation or picture shows it at the same time. A good practice example of the contiguity principle would be showing a car assembly procedure where narration and video are presented simultaneously. Students would learn better when the two things are coordinated than otherwise. It would be bad practice if the entire textual description or narration of the car assembly procedure which has 23 stages is presented first, prior to the animation or when the animation is played prior to the verbal description. A good idea is to display the narration and animation in close time proximity so that when words describe the action, the visual depicts the same action at the same time. This will make it more likely for the learner to build mental connections linking the verbal and visual representations. Modality Principle: This principle states that students learn more deeply and effectively when words are presented as narration rather than on-screen text. Using animation and text is a method most people use when designing PowerPoint presentations. According to Mayer when both pictures and words are used are displayed in multimedia, only the visual channel is utilized and it easily becomes overloaded. A good idea therefore is to use both processing channels; the visual/pictorial channel and the auditory/verbal channel. When the narration presented is auditory, it is processed by the auditory channel allowing the visual channel the resources to process the graphical content without it becoming overloaded. A good practice example of this principle would be to present an animation of how a bicycle tire pump works together with the narration of the explanation. Presenting some information in visual mode and some in auditory mode will expand working memory capacity and reduce excessive cognitive load. It would not be a good idea to play the narration after or before the animation. Redundancy Principle: This principle states that students learn far better from multimedia presentations consisting of animation and narration than from animation, narration, and text. The redundancy principle rejects the idea of presenting duplicate instructions in different forms. Unless it is necessary, presenting the same information both in narration and on-screen text hinders the process of learning rather than facilitating it. Some people think presenting the same information in multiple forms is safe and at best advantageous. However we must understand the architecture of human cognition. When dealing with new and technical instruction, working memory is very limited and presenting the same information in narration and on-screen text will mean that not all information will be processed. A good practice of this principle would be when a lecturer uses presentations to deliver his lectures. He can narrate the instructions while his presentations present animation and pictures. It would not be good practice if the lecturer has text heavy-slides and yet continues to try to maintain the attention of the audience. This redundancy causes the learners or audience to become wrapped up in either the verbal presentation or the textual material and miss the other. Even worse the learner may decide to not pay attention at all when he is being bombarded with so much information. Coherence Principle: This principle states that students learn better from multimedia presentations when irrelevant material is excluded rather than integrated. Irrelevant words and pictures, interesting but irrelevant sounds and unnecessary words huts the students learning process. Learners throughout the multimedia presentation try to make sense of the material by building a coherent mental representation and any irrelevant information that comes out of nowhere is likely to disturb the process. A good practice example of this principle would be that when discussing the issue of widespread public display of affection and whether there should be laws imposed against it. It would be a good idea to stick to the topic and present points for or against the argument and the reach a conclusion. If however a person is tempted to spice up the presentation, it would be bad practice. Including dramatic stories of politicians engaged in the art of public affection and video clips where couples are seen showing affection in public would be highly entertaining but off topic and the audience might get upset if they do not make out anything from the four hour long presentation. It would also not be a good idea to include any other non instructional material such as unrelated clip arts, background music, sound clips or detailed textual descriptions. Personalization Principle: The personalization principle states that students learn better when words are presented in a conversational style than in a formal or expository style. Students or audience responds better when a more personalized tone is used in narration. A good example of this principle is when explaining how a human respiratory system works, there is a use of your instead of the. For example instead of saying During inhaling the diaphragm move down creating more space for the lungs we say When you inhale, your diaphragm moves down creating more space for your lungs. Also when addressing community issues using multimedia presentations it is always a good idea to use your community rather than the community. It will help the learners see that it is his community that has issue and not some other community and will provoke him to take action or become a responsible member of the community. Segmenting principle: This principle states that lessons should be divided into manageable segments. When an unfamiliar learner is introduced to a continuous presentation with a lot of inter related concepts which are complex it is easy for the cognitive system to become overloaded. A good practice of this principle would be when a lecture breaks down complex geometry problems into segments rather than present them as a single solution. This helps learners learn at their own pace. Pre-training principle: This principle suggests that people learn better from multimedia presentations when they are familiar with the names and idea of the core concepts. There is a better transfer of knowledge when the audience is trained on the components the presentation would use preceding a narrated animation. A good practice of this example is when explaining the phenomenon of global warming to children, it would work better when terminologies such as green house gases are explained and smaller concepts are built before proceeding to the presentation. This will help the children integrate their built in concepts into understanding the main problem of global warming. It is not good practice to start with the subject before providing the learners with an appropriate start up knowledge neither would it be a good idea to stop in the middle of the lecture to explain some terminology or a hidden concept. Conclusion: Multimedia enhances learning but for learning to be optimal, there should be effective use of animation, narration and on-screen test in multimedia presentations. Techniques to increase working memory by reducing cognitive load have been proposed by many theorists. These techniques improve instructional design, learning efficiency, and effectiveness. Richard E. Mayer and his Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning has highlighted well-established principles of multimedia learning which the research continues to support, including (a) the multimedia principle, (b) the contiguity principle, (d) the modality principle, (e) the redundancy principle, and (f) the coherence principle and (e) the personalization principle. These principles aid users to design effective multimedia presentations. References Clark, R. C. Mayer, R. E. (2003). e- Learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.

Professional Learning Communities What They Mean To Teachers Education Essay

Professional Learning Communities What They Mean To Teachers Education Essay Professional learning communities (PLCs) have been described as structures within which professionals-particularly teachers-can refine their skills, renew their spirits, and expand the scope of their knowledge (Fogarty Pete, 2006, p. 49). Even though the benefits are clear, there are numerous challenges involved in creating and managing PLCs. Such challenges have typically been broken down into concerns about: (1) finding time and otherwise overcoming logistical challenges to coaching; (2) designing appropriate coaching interventions; and (3) maximizing coaching effectiveness. This literature review will address each of these concepts by examining specific research directions taken by current theorists in the field of professional development, with the purpose of illustrating the spectrum of activity along which coaching can succeed or fail. After doing so, the literature review will also discuss broader theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of coaching, including a nalyses of the roles of: (1) race and other socioeconomic factors; (2) theories of motivation and (3) theories of organizational development. Defining and Contextualizing PLCs Rigorous definitions of the PLC, and evidence-based guidelines for its functioning, began to appear in the late nineteenth century. In the U.S., the entire project of teacher development took a huge step forward with the appearance of a number of periodicals dedicated to the subject, including The National Teacher, which debuted in 1870. It is highly likely that the professionalization of teaching in the U.S. had a great deal to do with the emergence of a standard method of teacher development, including the creation of formal PLCs. In the third volume of The National Teacher, published in 1873, the following passage appeared: First, then, the prospective teacher should be trained in the handling of illustrative material, apparatus, charts, maps, diagrams, objects, etcà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.his practice in them should be such as will enable him to bring before the eye what can be very imperfectly addressed to the ear. This should be done, in the first instance, privately, or in the presence of the members of a teaching class, subject to their kind but searching criticismà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦(Mitchell, 1873, p. 367) This passage is one of the first allusions, at least in American sources, to the notion of a professional learning community. It is worth situating the emergence of the PLC into the broader stream of professionalization and scientific reordering of vocations in post-Civil War America. Ellis and Hartley (2004) argued that the Civil War, which had mobilized the nations resources in service of total warfare, had exposed glaring weaknesses in the organization and practice of many professions, starting with the army and extending to nursing, teaching, and manufacturing. According to Ellis and Hartley, nursing was one of the first professions to be thoroughly professionalized in the aftermath of the Civil War, but other professions soon followed (p. 133). It is natural to draw the likely connection between the professionalization of nursing and the professionalization of teaching, both of which were historically feminine practices that, in the wake of the Civil War, were re-aligned with male perceptions of the scientific method and the professionalization of work. The emergence of the learning community can certainly be placed into this context of masculinization. Mitchell (1873) himself made a comparison between (largely female) teaching and (largely male) medicine, to the detriment of teaching (p. 362). In Mitchells opinion, one of the variables that made medicine more scientific than teaching was the fact that medical practitioners constantly mentored, critiqued, assisted, and otherwise engaged with one another, whereas American teaching had not benefited from this kind of inter-vocational interchange. At first, American pedagogical theorists did not suggest that a PLC ought to exist separately from a teaching college. Rather, these theorists thought of the professional learning community as a kind of epiphenomenon of the teaching college. For example, an anonymous writer identified only by a city of origin (New Haven, CT) to the U.S. Bureau of Education in 1885 had the following to say about a professional learning community: A few points, enforced each week and perhaps illustrated with a class, will bring up the teaching powers of those who have not had a professional training, and they will not be wearied out by trying to apply a crude mass of theories.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦The attendance at such meetings should be voluntary. There should be such a tone of interest and enthusiasm in a community as will inspire teachers with an honest and eager desire to know how to workà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦(p. 274) At this point in American pedagogy, instruction was still meted out by superintendents (or pedagogues) to teachers, but there was a recognition that the input of the peer community of teachers was just as important to teacher development as any model of top-down instruction or professionalization. The PLC was at this point defined not as a separate set of development activities, but as a kind of grassroots camaraderie between teachers in formal development settings. Soon, however, the modern definition of the PLC would emerge. It is impossible to state with certainty when the shift from the early, voluntary PLC led by the superintendent began to give way to the more formal, school-managed PLC. It appears that the shift took place over the 1930s and began to cement itself by the 1940s. Otto (1944) offered an explanation of the changing role of the principal, and how it lent itself to closer, school-level management of the PLC. According to Otto (1944), American secondary schools continued to grow in size and complexity until the superintendent was no longer able to manage or own all of the processes for which the role had previously been responsible; thus, for example, The growing need for more and better supervision of classroom instruction suggested the desirability of planning the administrative organization so that this need could be met (p. 197). There were two stages in the hand-off of PLCs from the superintendent to principals; firstly, in the 1930s and early 1940s, office staff associated with the s uperintendent appear to have taken over responsibility for all aspects of vocational teacher development (Otto, 1944, p. 197); however, when Otto (1944) was writing, there was already another hand-off underway from central bureaucrats to the principal. After the Second World War, the principal emerged as the figure most responsible for defining, managing, and otherwise supporting the professional learning community in American schools. Just as the Civil War had introduced ideas of industrial organization to various vocations, the Second World War created manpower and resource shortages that prompted a faster transition from centralized control over teacher development to a more communal, school-level management of the process (Troyer, Allen, and Young, 1946, p. 241). These forces remain very much in effect today. Instructional Coaching and The Four Types of Coaching According to Wilson and Gislason (2009), there are four types of coaching: internal coaching, peer coaching, manager-performed coaching, and external coaching (p. 56). As their names suggest, peer coaching is about coaching that is delivered by colleagues to each other; manager-based coaching is delivered by managers (or, in the educational context, principals, superintendents, and/or other administrators) to teachers; external coaching is typically performed by consultants; and internal coaching, by contrast, includes all the kinds of coaching that are provided in-house. All four kinds of coaching have been employed in the instructional coaching context. Knight (2005) documented a wave of hiring of outside instructional coaches by U.S. public schools in the 1990s and first half of the 2005, driven by the urgency of achieving basic reading and mathematics competency skills tied to federal funding and the perception that schools themselves did not contain the proper instructional resources to achieve this task. According to Clarkson and Taylor (2005, p. 4), one of the problems created by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) initiative was a push to define instructional coaching as the rote memorization of standards rather than an internalization of the pedagogical principles needed to teach up to those standards. Thus, it can be argued that external coaching becomes more popular in times of external stress on teachers to perform to a particular standard, whereas, in ordinary times, genuinely pedagogical (rather than instrumentalist) internal coaching is the more common form of instructional coaching (Matsumara, Sartoris, Bickel, Garnier 2009). In modern theory, peer coaching is praised for its egalitarian values, but theorists are also concerned that teachers lack the specific pedagogical background and expertise to make other teachers better. For example, Buly, Coskie, Robinson, and Egawa (2006) have argued that the external coach is focused on getting teachers to ask why in a structured fashion, whereas teachers are themselves often concerned with teaching other practical and specific strategies. Barriers in PLCs and Instructional Coaching: Logistics One of the major challenges in creating coaching interventions for PLCs is simply finding the time and opportunity to bring together busy professionals for dedicated learning and training. This challenge is a particularly pressing one in the current economic environment, in which so many working professionals are being called upon to do less with more. Thus, as Fogarty and Pete (p. 49) pointed out, an excellent place to begin a discussion of professional learning communities is in the realm of logistics, i.e. how to create the time and space for such communities, which is as much of a problem today as it was when Troyer, Allen, and Young (1946) wrote about the logistical challenges of organizing and managing the PLC in wartime. Abdal-Haqq (1996) argued that, within school settings particularly, PLCs scheduling ought to be built directly into both the workday and the job descriptions of teachers (although this advice applies equally well to other communities of practice). Abdal-Haqq (1996) concludes that the greatest challenge to implementing effective professional development is lack of time (p. 1), so great responsibility falls on the shoulders of leaders and managers who must accommodate PLCs in terms of schedules and job design. Fernandez (2002) made the point that making time and space for PLCs to thrive is itself partly dependent on cultural approaches. She discussed the case of the Japanese educational system, in which a great deal of emphasis is placed on lesson study, in which teachers are given the time and opportunity to reflect on both their practice and that of others (p. 393). There is more pressure on individual professionals to take advantage of existing resources, and to take the lead in overcoming logistical barriers to embed themselves within PLCs. While there is extensive lip service paid to the value of PLCs, professional development is often subject to self-regulation rather than proper top-down guidance, argued Butler, Lauscher, Jarvis-Selinger, and Beckingham (2004). Having surveyed the history of PLC development, it becomes clear that the absence of top-down guidance is itself part of the steady downward transfer of administrative power tracked by Otto (1944). While Japan appears to have retained a centralized and top-down structure for managing and supporting PLCs and other forms of teacher development, in the U.S. such responsibility has devolved down to the principal. For many theorists, the logistics of PLCs are inseparable from school system support for teachers. For example, Lappan (1997) offered the following insight: The local capacity to support change is central to implementing reforms. Teachers, and those who support teachers, need time-time to learnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ (p. 207). Of course, in this context, it should be pointed out time is a valuable commodity. There is a powerful tension between the time and resources needed for supporting the local logistics needed for nurturing professional learning communities and the time and resources needed by principals, administrators, and other supporters of development for other tasks. Unfortunately, as Abdal-Haqq (1996, p. 1) also suggests, schools are faced with a zero sum environment, in which to support the PLC is to remove support from some other organizational goal. It is in this context that the logistical difficulties of PLC support should be understood. Moreover, until schools enjoy increase d funding, it is not clear that the logistical problems noted as early as Troyer, Allen, and Young (1946) will simply evaporate. Of course, one way in which the problem could be solved is by employing PLCs themselves to ease the logistical problems faced by schools. To the extent that teachers could train and develop other teachers without extensive time and resource commitments, PLCs could be of great economic benefit; as in the Second World War, the teacher-training-teacher paradigm could yield economic benefits rather than sucking up resources. For PLCs to actually operate in this fashion requires close attention to the variable of coaching design. Barriers in PLCs and Instructional Coaching: Change Management From at least the 1870s onwards, there has been a rich debate on how to best deploy teachers to train and develop other teachers. In the first stage of this debate, from Mitchell (1873) to Arnold (1898), it was assumed that merely talking about pedagogy and other teaching-related issues in a voluntary, informal meeting would assist junior teachers in their development. Over the decades, voluntary meetings gave way to more formal in-school development programs, particularly when the Second World War forced schools to consider more resource-efficient ways to engage in teacher training. In this context, the promise of coaching design is that, if there is a sound system under which to transfer teacher knowledge from senior to junior colleagues, the PLC can save school systems time, money, and administrative commitment. On the other hand, if coaching design is itself weak or unmotivated, then teachers will resist it and the PLC will fail to fulfill its promise. These issues are at the heart of the modern debate on coaching design. In contemporary times, there is much more urgency around the subject of coaching design thanks to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002, which has directly tied student performance to federal funding and accreditation. Killion (2005) is one of many theorists who has pointed out that one response to NCLB is the implementation of instructional coaching to improve instruction and student achievement. Instructional coaching is a relatively new phenomenon, at the core of which is a conviction that professional learning improves teaching practices and teaching practices improve student achievement (Knight, 2007; Killion Harrison, 2006; Knowal Steiner, 2007). Instructional design is not easy to implement because, as Knight (2007) has pointed out, teachers are not innately resistant to change will tend to resist poorly-designed agendas of change. As such, it is of the utmost importance to arrive at an understanding of the best practices of coaching design. In an organizational context, instructional coaching provides motivation to mentees, which in turn is intended to improve the productivity and morale of mentees. When instructional coaches work with students, their sole purpose is to demonstrate and model best teaching practices to teachers in order to improve student teaching (Knight, 2007). Motivation is the key to understanding the role that good coaching should play within a professional learning community (Bransford, 2000). Coaching design principles vary widely depending on the specific kind of professional development that is being pursued. Fortunately, however, there appears to be some consensus on best practices for coaching design. Bransfords (2000) seminal book, How People Learn, argued that coaching design should have four centrisms; i.e., it should be learner-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered, and community-centered (p. 188). There are many different interpretations of how these four foci can be best captured in a PLC. For example, Beyerbach, Weber, Swift, and Gooding (1996) emphasized that the knowledge focus of PLC design ought to have a practical component, so that members of the community understand the practical applications of what they are being taught (pp. 101-102). For teachers, this practical component can be satisfied by understanding why, in the context of real-world problem solving, it is necessary for them to develop a new skill or refine an existing one. Another recent emphasis in coaching design for community-centered learning is the utilization of collaborative software, particularly blogs and wikis, which have the potential to span each of Bransfords focus areas for coaching design. Higdon and Topaz (2009) stated that blogs and wikis had an important role in creating a more centered learning environment, There is wide consensus in the academic literature about the usefulness of instructional coaching within professional learning communities. Within a professional learning community, the qualities of good teaching for students should also be evident in professional learning for teachers (DuFour Eaker,1998; Bransford, 2000). However, there are also a number of obstacles to the implementation or the success of instructional coaching, including logistical factors (such as potential coaches lack of time), institutional factors (such as a lack of managerial support for coaching), and professional factors (such as coaches lack of relevant skills). Leaving aside these barriers, good coaching design may not be so much a matter of pedagogical design as it is a matter of change management. Bransford (2000) and other researchers have already explained the evidence for best practices in specific aspects of coaching design; the issue is not so much the content of coaching design as it is the necessity of convincing teachers to go along with coaching. In this regard, there are some helpful theoretical contributions from business literature, which has long struggled with the question of optimal change management in organizations. Jensen and Kerr (1994, p. 408), based on a case study of change at Pepsi, argued that the following five questions had to be satisfactorily answered before constituents bought into a change agenda: Why must we change, and why is this change important? What do you want me to do? What are the measures/consequences of change/no change? What tools and support and available to me? Whats in it for me? These questions of change management emerge at the point of implementation: i.e., as soon as it becomes necessary to transition from a theory of the professional learning community to an actual implementation, requiring intellectual and emotional buy-in from teachers. But change management is an issue that is better tackled not by coaching designers, whose responsibility is to transfer principles such as those of Bransford (2000) to local pedagogical contexts, but at the level of what can be called effectiveness maximization of the PLC. Effectiveness Maximization and Theoretical Approaches There is wide-ranging agreement on the importance of PLCs, and even on the operational and conceptual details that PLC must satisfy in terms of coaching design. The crux of the problem lies not necessarily in those details but more in the question of how to maximize the effectiveness of PLCs. First, there is the logistical question. If there is little institutional time, resources, and guidance put into PLC program creation and management, then coaching programs are unlikely to be effective. However, even organizations that have hurdled over the logistical challenge and implemented some form of PLC must still solve the question of how to maximize their coaching programs effectiveness, including the considerations of change management as highlighted by Jensen and Kerr (1994). There are some convincing arguments that PLCs resist straightforward methods of evaluation and improvement, which creates a fundamental challenge at the level of effectiveness maximization. Revans (1979), the pioneer of the action research concept, saw the creation and functioning of a PLC as a holistic process, one that cannot be dissected and improved on a part-by-part level. To Revans (1979), a functional PLC is something that both managers and participants can recognize only by taking part in it. This dynamic has something of a chicken-and-egg quality to it, as an effective PLC requires planning, but the proper inputs of planning may only become apparent after a PLC has been launched. Even with this limitation in mind, it is still possible to both measure and improve the effectiveness of a coaching component of a PLC by surveying participants about how they are benefiting from the specific coaching program, and employing these insights to structure the back-end processes that feed into the PLC. Borko (2004) argued that it is certainly possible to measure factors such as teacher (or, for that matter, any other form of professional) learning and satisfaction; moreover, teacher performance in classrooms can also be measured by such standards as student evaluations and standardized test scores. The point is that, when a PLC is working properly, its results will show themselves in a number of domains. It is incumbent on managers or others who oversee these programs to collect baseline data in order to measure the programs achievements, and also to identify the areas that need renewed attention and resources. Maximizing the effectiveness of PLCs thus comes down to both measurement and targeted action (Dufour, Dufour, Eaker Karhanek, 2004; Saphier West, 2010; and Knight 2009), whose basis can be the experience of mentees. It is necessary, at this point, to consult some theories of motivation and organizational development in order to consider how to best maximize the effectiveness of PLCs. Much of the literature on PLCs takes it for granted that teachers are motivated to buy into the program; however, it need not be the case that teachers are motivated, or that PLCs are constituted so as to maximize the strengths of the organization. Fortunately, theoretical literature has made it easier to understand the overlap between PLCs, motivation, and organizational development. Herzberg (1966) argued that: someone who is motivated is truly a sight to behold, as they put all of their heart and soul into an activity. Love of work is certainly the strongest motivator of people (p. 141). Coaches exist partly to instill mentees with love of work, via a number of mechanisms, including that of instrumentality, or making sure that people have the tools that they need to accomplish a work task. Note that instrumentality was also part of Jensen and Kerrs (1994) framework for appropriate change management. If people lack the tools to achieve what is asked for them, they will not only resist change but also lose motivation. As such, administrators should bear in mind that every tool (including time) put in the hands of PLC members effects the motivation of individual members, and therefore the overall success of the PLC. According to the theoretical foundation provided by organizational psychologists such as Herzberg, Vroom (1964), and Maslow (1993), instructional coaching should have a salutary effect on mentees in so far as coaching instills mentees with instrumentality and motivation. One part of this dissertations purpose is to measure the impact of good coaching, as reported by mentees, and also to assess the impact of bad or nonexistent coaching. Doing so is an exercise in the measurement of organizational motivation and morale as conceptualized by a number of influential theorists in the field. For example, Banduras (1997) social learning theory is sometimes cited in the coaching literature and explains human behavior in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioral, and environmental influences. The central aspect of Banduras (1977) theory is the claim that humans learn by watching others model behavior. Thus, psychological theory now provides firm support for the i dea of coaching as a transfer of desirable behavior from senior to junior members of a community. Clearly, then, theory has a great deal to tell us about the scientific basis for PLCs, and also about how best to maximize their effectiveness. Some of the theories surveyed in this section, for example, have emphasized the importance of motivation and instrumentality in the PLC. One final theory that ought to be considered is that of so-called toxic mentorship. It will be recalled that, as early as Arnold (1898), there is an assumption that, when teachers come together for purposes of development, mutual reinforcement and learning will inevitably take place. It is taken for granted, both by Arnold (1898) and by Mitchell (1873), that senior teachers have the best interests of the profession, and of their junior colleagues, in mind. This assumption, however, might be naÃÆ' ¯ve. There is now a great deal of research on dimensions of coaching and mentorship that fail due to the attitudes of senior teachers. Webb and Shakespeare (2008), Atkin and Wilmington (2007), and Grossman (2007) have all discussed so-called toxic mentorship as one of the ways in which coaching goes wrong, for example when coaches are burned out, unhelpful, scornful of their own profession, unethical, or not involved enough or knowledge to provide adequate feedback. The aforementioned res earchers have called attention to toxic mentorship in the nursing field, in which there has been more of an attempt of late to critique bad coaching. However, educational literature in general has not yet grappled as extensively with the concept of the toxic mentor, which is another reason why it is timely and relevant to ask mentees about this concept, as part of a more general data-gathering project on the measurable impact of mentorship on productivity and morale. Conclusion This literature review has covered a great deal of ground in attempting to illuminate the concept of the professional learning community, all the way from the seventeenth century to the present day. The conclusion is reserved for discussing an important lacuna in the research, and employing this lacuna to lend context to the research carried out by this dissertation. It will be noted that, for all of its history, teacher development in general and the PLC in particular have been defined by people other than the constituents. At first, superintendents had the greatest input into the process; later, principals took on this mantle. Throughout the process, senior teachers exercised a great deal of influence, as they had the prized knowledge that was to be passed on and passed down to junior colleagues. In the century of literature surveyed here, it is interesting to note that very few, if any, researchers have focused on the ability of mentees to provide important feedback about the nature of coaching within the PLC. It is almost invariably assumed that some outside authority, whether the superintendent or principal, is the owner of the process, while senior teachers are the drivers of the process. This attitude may be about to change because, in PLCs as in business communities, there is a move to recognize the centrality of the so-called customer. In this case, the customer of coaching is the mentee, the recipient of coaching. In both private business and public policy contexts, the customer has increasingly become both the owner and the driver of certain processes. Businesses conduct surveys of customers in order to determine what to produce. Public sector organizations, similarly, turn to the citizen-stakeholder as the ultimate owner of a process, and try to orient processes accordingly. It may be that, in coaching, the focus is about to shift from the top of the pyramid to the base: That is, from the traditional owners of coaching to its customers, namely teachers. It is possible that teachers will, in future, play an enhanced role in guiding the direction of coaching, specifically by providing input as to what kind of coaching works and what kind does not. Of course, this kind of input does not constitute the sum total of what is needed to create an effective PLC, but it is also unthinkable that learning communities can long thrive or survive without being driven by the interests and predilections of their own customers. It should also be noted collegiality has been a foundational value of the PLC. Indeed, the functioning of PLCs from the nineteenth century onwards has required a spirit of collegiality in that members of such communities must be open to critique, generous with help of others, and committed to coexistence and mutual advancement.

Henry Adams :: essays research papers

The Education of the Henry Adams reviews Adams’s and the United States’s education and growth during the 19th century. Adams was an old man who had Puritan beliefs about sex and religion. In this autobiography, Adams voices his skepticism about man’s newfound power to control the direction of history, in particular, the exploding world of science and technology, where all certainties of the future have vanished (anb.org, 1).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Adams grew up in the United Stated where he was a Puritan. Puritans believed that sex (women especially) was just a form of fertility and reproduction; otherwise “sex was a sin'; (Adams, 384). “American art, like the American language and American education, was as far as possible sexless'; (Adams, 385). The only sculptures and paintings of women that Adams viewed with understanding were those like the Virgin Mary, who was always seen as non-sexual. For example, “America was ashamed of her…have strewn fig-leaves so profusely all over her'; (Adams, 384). However, during this time of the technology revolution, women were beginning to be viewed differently, especially in Europe. Women were viewed as beautiful and mortal beings. People such as Rodin were representing women in paintings and sculptures sexually. Sex was becoming something more than just a means of reproduction. Suddenly Adams was far, far away from his Puritan custom-bound life.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  People were no longer motivated by religion, being saved by God, and going to heaven; science, technology, money, and power had taken over the drives of man. Religion (a common “scale'; of the past) had taken the backseat to science, technology, money, power, and the new ideas and art of sex (all new “scales'; of the present and the future). “In opposition to the medieval Virgin, Adams saw a new godhead—the dynamo—symbol of the modern history’s anarchic energies'; (anova.org, 1). Adams desperately wanted to learn about the new world of technology, the “dynamos';, yet he felt helpless to find this new knowledge and to comprehend it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Adams was overwhelmed by the technology of the dynamos. When Adams saw the dynamo, it became a symbol of the future, of infinity (Adams, 380).

Suicide in A Perfect Day for Bananafish by J. D. Salinger Essay

A Perfect Day for Bananafish follows the events leading up to the eventual suicide of Seymour Glass. In the story, Seymour is described as a lost spirit who sees himself as being fundamentally different from his social environment following his wartime experience; he leaves the war â€Å"seeing-more† and as a result, awakens to find that he has lost touch with the material world. Salinger uses the story’s dialog as the medium for conveying Seymour’s struggle; he establishes the shallow nature of the environment Seymour is exposed to using the dialog between Muriel and her Mother while simultaneously giving clues about Seymour’s character from the perspectives of the two women in his life. Seymour’s character is built upon further in the second half of the story during the scene in which he converses with Sybil, and also when Seymour is in the elevator moments before he commits suicide. The subtle clues Salinger weaves into the dialog suggest that Se ymour commits suicide to escape the dilemma of either conforming to the materialistic world and sacrificing his spirituality, or choosing not to conform and consequently live estranged from his own wife and the society in which he lives. The opening of the story serves to create the precedent that Muriel is shallow. The first passage describes how Muriel â€Å"uses† her two and a half hour waiting period before her mother’s call. She accomplishes multiple tasks such as painting her toenails, reading a women’s pocket-size magazine article, brushing her hair, and removing a stain from a skirt. Salinger describes Muriel as â€Å"a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing.† The references to Muriel as â€Å"a girl† are repeated throughout the story to signify her immaturity; her concern for trivial... ...nd his own life. Many of these clues can be found in the story’s dialog. They suggest that Seymour’s suicide is the manifestation of an awakening gained through his war experience; he is separated from the shallow environment he lives in and can find no other escape. Perhaps Seymour commits suicide in an attempt to break through the barrier that separates him from Muriel and the rest of society. Or maybe Seymour’s mental faculties were damaged by his wartime experience, leaving him disturbed and unstable. The text can be read many ways; however, there is no single interpretation that captures the complexity of Salinger’s short story. While the clues that Salinger leaves throughout the story influence the reader’s perspective on Seymour Glass, ultimately the meaning and justification of Seymour’s suicide depends on the reader’s personal connection to the protagonist.

Abdul Kalam

Abdul Kalam From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia †¢ Ten things you may not know about images on Wikipedia †¢ Jump to: navigation, search Abdul Kalam 12th President of India In office July 25, 2002 – July 25, 2007 Vice President(s) Bhairon Singh Shekhawat Preceded by K. R. Narayanan Succeeded by Pratibha Patil Born October 15, 1931 (age 76)[1] Dhanushkodi, Rameswaram, Madras Presidency, Political party Not affiliated Spouse Never married Religion Islam Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (Tamil: )(Hindi: ) born October 15, 1931, Tamil Nadu, India, usually referred to as Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam ^) was the twelfth President of India, serving from 2002 to 2007. A notable scientist and engineer, he is often referred to as the Missile Man of India for his work and is considered a progressive mentor, innovator and visionary in India. He is also popularly known as the People's President. His term as president ended on July 25, 2007. Contents [hide] †¢1 Honor s †¢2 Political views †¢3 Personal life †¢4 Books 5 See also †¢6 References †¢7 External links [edit] Honors Kalam has received honorary doctorates from as many as thirty universities . [2] The Government of India has honored him with the nation's highest civilian honors: the Padma Bhushan in 1981; the Padma Vibhushan in 1990; and the Bharat Ratna in 1997. Kalam is the third President of India to have been honoured with a Bharat Ratna before being elected to the highest office, the other two being Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Zakir Hussain. He is also the first scientist and first bachelor to occupy Rashtrapati Bhavan. Referred to as the â€Å"People's President†, Kalam is often considered amongst India's greatest presidents, going on to win a poll conducted by news channel CNN-IBN for India's Best President. In October 2007, Kalam will receive a Honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of Wolverhampton. [3] [edit] Political views Kalam's probable views on certain issues have been espoused by him in his book â€Å"India 2020† where he strongly advocates an action plan to develop India into a knowledge superpower and into a developed nation by the year 2020. Kalam is credited with the view that India ought to take a more assertive stance in international relations; he regards his work on India's nuclear weapons program as a way to assert India's place as a future superpower. Kalam continues to take an active interest in other developments in the field of science and technology as well. He has proposed a research programme for developing bio-implants. He is a supporter of Open source software over proprietary solutions and believes that the use of open source software on a large scale will bring more people the enefits of information technology. Kalam's belief in the power of science to resolve society's problems and his views of these problems as a result of inefficient distribution of resources is modernistic. He also sees science and technology as ideology-free areas and emphasizes the cultivation of scientific temper and entrepreneurial drive. In this, he finds a lot of support among India's new business leaders like the founders of I nfosys and Wipro, (leading Indian IT corporations) who began their careers as technology professionals much in the same way Kalam did. [edit] Personal life APJ Abdul Kalam was born in 1931 in a middle-class family in Rameshwaram, a town well-known for its Hindu shrines. His father, a devout Muslim, owned boats which he rented out to local fishermen and was a good friend of Hindu religious leaders and the school teachers at Rameshwaram. APJ Abdul Kalam mentions in his biography that to support his studies, he started his career as a newspaper vendor. This was also told in the book, A Boy and His Dream: Three Stories from the Childhood of Abdul Kalam by Vinita Krishna. The house Kalam was born in can still be found on the Mosque street at Rameswaram, and his brother's curio shop abuts it. This has become a point-of-call for tourists who seek out the place. Kalam grew up in an intimate relationship with nature, and he says in Wings of Fire that he never could imagine that water could be so powerful a destroying force as that he witnessed when he was six. That was in 1964 when a cyclonic storm swept away the Pamban bridge and a trainload of passengers with it and also Kalam's native village, Dhanushkodi. Kalam observes strict personal discipline, vegetarianism, teetotalism and celibacy [4] . Kalam is a scholar of Thirukkural; in most of his speeches, he quotes at least one kural. Kalam has written several inspirational books, most notably his autobiography Wings of Fire, aimed at motivating Indian youth. Another of his books, Guiding Souls: Dialogues on the Purpose of Life reveals his spiritual side. He has written poems in Tamil as well. It has been reported that there is considerable demand in South Korea for translated versions of books authored by him. [5].