Six Community College Presidents: Organizational Pressures,Change Processes and Approaches to Leadership

A total of six Maryland community college presidents were guided through conversations to identify the organizational challenges and uncertainties that have forced organizational changes in their respective colleges. Another thrust of the research was to discover what organizational change processes these presidents have implemented to overcome the challenges and to describe what leadership approaches they have used to lead change. Seven challenges, two general change process categories consisting of 12 different steps, and three leadership approaches emerged using a qualitative ethnomethodological research technique. The presidents' definitions of leadership and its essence, along with their leadership development experiences, are also presented.     

The Harvest of PT: ISPFS Past Presidents' Recommendations for the Preparation of Performance Technologists

Much of the preparation for performance technologists has been embedded in other disciplines such as instructional technology, organizational development, and human resources. Changes in the work environment are forcing instructional technologists to examine their priorities and to reexamine the primary skills they need to work in the field of performance technology. This interview study examines the collective advice, concerns, and recommendations of fifteen of ISPI's past presidents. They offer advice on essential skills, voice concerns about the general application of instructional technology, and comment on ISPI's role in the preparation of performance technologists in a world of fast-moving organizational problems, challenges, and opportunities.     

The influence of organizational image on college selection: what students seek in institutions of higher education

Colleges and universities rely on their image to attract new members. This study focuses on the decision-making process of students preparing to apply to college. High school students were surveyed at college open houses to identify the factors most influential to their college application decision-making. A multi-methods analysis found that institutional characteristics were more influential than interpersonal or informational resources used by students. More specific results revealed that size, housing, and knowing someone who attended a school predicted students' views of the school's atmosphere. Key findings are discussed and recommendations offered to address issues related to organizational image.     

常熟市机构养老的现状、问题与对策

机构养老是社会养老的重要组成部分,对加快完善社会养老具有深远的影响.目前,常熟市机构养老已具有一定规模,形成了政府主导、社会参与的格局,城乡机构养老建设协调发展,分层分块管理模式初见成效.但是,机构养老在制度建设、理念推广、财政来源、运作机制等方面还存在不少问题.因此,要从政府部门、养老机构和社会三个方面共同努力.政府部门要加大工作力度,提高责任意识;养老机构要创新管理,提高服务水平;全社会要共同参与,营造良好的机构养老环境.     

T4 MAP™: A Scholar‐Practitioner Model for Performance Improvement

The world of work is changing and we must adapt how we apply human performance technology (HPT) expertise to address our 21st century challenges. This is a formidable challenge. The scholar‐practitioner model seems ideally suited to this high‐speed world by combining the ability to apply theory and rigorous processes to solve practical problems. The T⁴ MAP (T⁴) models a new action research process grounded in human and organizational development (HOD) theory. It incorporates quantitative and qualitative data and so equips scholar‐practitioners and practitioners to address workplace problems and advance theory by enabling a deeper contextual understanding of people in the organization. A T⁴ pilot demonstrated the ability to generate salient data that helped teams identify performance improvement opportunities and enabled participants to take accountability for implementation. It offered a basis for grounded theory and presented opportunities for future research.     

Structured Field Research for Master's Theses

Developing analytical and organizational skills to handle real-life decision problems is an explicit objective of the postgraduate programme in Industrial Management at KU Leuven. Because the final test is in eating the cake, a system of field research for the Master's thesis project was developed. In recent years, this project activity has been reshaped according to our total quality management policy, leading to a professional approach of selecting, conducting and evaluating these projects. This paper elaborates on this experience and describes the added value to the pedagogical process.     

The role of mediating organizations for school reform: independent agents or district dependents?

This paper examines the role of mediating organizations in helping schools engage in whole school change as part of a school district's reform agenda. Specifically, it examines the Learning Community Program in Los Angeles, a programme designed by an external school reform organization, to assist schools in planning and implementing LEARN (Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now). The programme's success is shaped by the district and school contexts in which it operates. As mediating agent, the Learning Community Program must balance the challenges facing the schools ‐‐ particularly their readiness to engage in reform ‐‐ with the demands of the district for scale, accountability and resources. As it does so, it faces the challenges of maintaining program flexibility, building sustainable changes, and preserving its organizational independence. These pressures generate three central dilemmas and threaten to undermine the success of the district's reform and the Learning Community Program ‐‐ scale versus sustainability, district mandates versus site autonomy, and organizational independence versus survival. It concludes that mediating agencies can be constrained by their dependence on policymakers for critical resources.     

Restructuring agricultural extension in the Arab republic of Egypt

Abstract

This paper reviews and recommends strategies for restructuring Egypt's extension policy, organization and delivery. Egypt's extension system is examined with a view to suggesting ways to strengthen its development to meet the accelerating challenges of the global market, high-intensive skill technologies, and the growing demand for organizational efficiencies. The paper is organized into eight sections: strategies for strengthening agricultural extension in Egypt; a critical assessment of the current situation, and a review and recommendations regarding; policy; organizational management; extension linkages; farmer participation in extension program development; the promotion of farmer association, and provides a detailed schema for advancing extension's; field methodology.     

A case of supporting distributed knowledge and work in the U.S. Navy: The challenges of knowledge management to human performance technology

Conclusion The goal here has been to offer just one possible path that HP technologists might take to meet the theoretical and practical challenges presented by knowledge management precepts and practices. Thinking about knowledge as a process and contemplating interventions at collective and organizational levels are not easy tasks, especially given our conventional roots. Fortunately, there are emerging perspectives that may greatly facilitate the HP technologist’s venture into this arena. My suggestion is that we begin to use these and related theories to inform and improve development.     

Learning to read

This paper traces the philosophical and programmatic evolution of Pratham's accelerated reading programme ‘Read India’. It outlines the experiences that led to the development of the accelerated reading technique and the organizational contexts in which this approach has been played out.     

认知风格对决策中框架效应影响的研究进展

决策作为一种高级认知活动,存在于人们的日常生活中。决策过程中的理性与非理性是决策理论争论的一个热点。Kahneman和Tversky(1981)提出的"框架效应"体现了决策过程中问题表述对理性决策的干扰,描述了决策问题中因情景表述的改变而导致选择偏好改变的现象。认知风格作为一个重要的个体认知活动差异变量,对决策过程产生了重要的作用,尤其是对框架效应产生了不可忽视的影响,该现象已引起了研究者们的高度重视。在回顾决策中框架效应的提出、框架效应的影响因素,以及认知风格如何影响框架效应等几方面内容的基础上,总结分析了以往研究中存在的不足以及未来需要解决的问题。     

Development of a Metric to Test Group Differences in Ecological Knowledge as One Component of Environmental Literacy

Abstract

Environmental literacy has been defined in numerous ways and attempts have been made to measure how environmentally literate people are. Many attempts to measure literacy have instead measured people's knowledge about pollution and their attitudes toward the environment. According to many environmental education experts, knowledge and attitudes are important components of environmental literacy, especially if the goal of environmental education is to change behavior. However, the experts also indicate that, to change an individual's behavior, knowledge about the environment must be associated with environmental sensitivity, personal beliefs, and decisionmaking and problem-solving skills. The research presented in this article contributes to environmental literacy research by offering a tested, valid survey instrument to measure ecological knowledge—one component of environmental literacy. In this article, we provide an example of how this instrument can be applied by comparing knowledge levels among diverse groups of Ohio citizens.     

Do Principals Affect Student Outcomes: An Organizational Perspective

This research study investigated the principal's role as instructional manager, its relationship to student achievement, and how principals influence teachers to accomplish the school's goal of increasing student learning. Conceptually, principal instructional management includes those processes, both mental and physical, that the principal uses which result in other people executing formal and informal duties to achieve organizational goals. It deals mainly with planning, organizing and controlling teacher behavior to achieve organizational goals, but also includes monitoring and controlling resources. Subjects for the study included elementary school (K‐8) principals and teachers in 27 schools. Student achievement gain was determined by regression analysis where current achievement was regressed on prior achievement and SES for two years of data. Principal instructional management behavior was measured by a modified form of the Instructional Management Rating Scales, or IMRS (Hallinger, 1983). The results from the study question whether principals should be led by researchers and policymakers into thinking that increasing their instructional management behaviors will turn ineffective schools into effective ones. School improvement is a complex process that involves a host of factors which principals can influence, but not control. While principals play an important role as part of the schools' efforts in school improvement, the role of the principal in school improvement, must be placed in its proper perspective.     

基于环境保护的排污费制度改革探析

目前的排污费制度存在着自身缺陷,达不到环境治理的目标。税收作为一种体现国家环境政策的重要经济杠杆,在保护环境方面的作用日益凸现。通过对于排污费制度的缺陷的分析,阐述了排污费改税的理论和现实可行性。提出了进一步实施排污费改税的具体措施,使排污税在环境管理中有法可依,发挥税收的刚性,增强国家宏观调控能力。     

Changes in Students' Use of Lifelong Learning Skills During a Problem‐based Learning Project

ABSTRACT In a climate of continual change and innovation, lifelong learning is a critical professional development objective which has a direct impact on organizations' effectiveness and ability to compete and innovate. To help learners continually upgrade their skills and knowledge so they can effectively address emerging organizational and professional needs and opportunities, educators must prepare learners for their professions using teaching methodologies that develop learners' capacity for and disposition toward lifelong learning. Problem‐based learning (PBL) is one such method. PBL uses professional problems of practice as a starting point, stimulus, and focus for student activity, and one of PBL's stated educational outcomes is students' use of lifelong learning skills. This study examined the changes in students' use of lifelong learning skills while participating in a PBL project. Twenty‐six undergraduate university computer science students completed a 15‐week C++ programming course. Using guided reflective journal responses as process data, students were observed to increase their application of lifelong learning skills during their PBL experience. Design and research recommendations are shared.     

Video diary: a method for exploring learning dispositions

This paper presents an innovative method for qualitative research in education. The video dairy technique was developed and used alongside other qualitative methods to map the socio‐cultural landscape of primary‐school children's learning dispositions prior to their transfer to secondary school. The larger project comprised a case study of a group of children transferring from one Year 6 classroom to their local comprehensive secondary school, with particular reference to their learning of mathematics. Theoretically framed by Pierre Bourdieu's sociological tools, the study explored the impact of three fields—school, family and peer group—upon children's learning dispositions and trajectories at this school interface. The alternative perspectives afforded by the diary entries highlighted the inter‐relatedness of the three fields of interest, often in ways that had not been anticipated or considered. I will explain practical aspects of the process and consider some of the challenges that might be experienced by researchers using video diary techniques.     

Renewing professional organizations and action learning

This account concerns the renewal of established professional organizations though action learning. In order to revitalize one national organization, an executive group of leaders committed to co-leading and co-learning through a friendly, computer-supported governance structure. Manifestations of our work together were an accelerated decision-making process and creation of interdependent committees (e.g., research committee, policy committee). Keys to the innovative learning described are peer learning supported by turn taking of the executive leaders and synchronous learning buoyed by asynchronous communications technology. We awakened to the reality that if our organization was to grow, as executive leaders we had to manage our own teaching and learning and tap one another's expertise. We also learned that while face-to-face meetings and annual conferences foster goal attainment, collaboration and camaraderie, they limit the momentum necessary for organizational revival in a rapidly changing world. Organizational capacity is developing quickly as the leaders experiment with action learning interventions that are raising the overall caliber of this professional association.     

B2C Mass Customization in the Classroom

The purpose of this article is to describe an internet‐based mass customization assignment in Operations Management/Supply Chain Management classes where students utilize the Web site of a company that offers a customized product. Students evaluate the user interface, judge the value proposition of the product they demonstrate, and discuss issues of product design, process design and scheduling, inventory management, Supply Chain Management, marketing, and competitors. The students learn about mass customization from both the producer's perspective and the consumer's perspective. Through their own research and the class presentations students are able to develop a better understanding of the implementation requirements and challenges of mass customization. The assignment is highly interactive and has been successfully used in Operations Management and Supply Chain Management courses at under‐graduate and graduate levels and at multiple universities. In addition, practitioners interested in implementing a mass customization process can use the assignment as a brainstorming or benchmarking exercise.