The Effect of Personal Development Planning on Attitudes,Behaviour and Understanding

This paper explores the impact of a personal development planning (PDP) project on the attitudes, behaviour and understanding of students in Years 11 and 12. It examines levels of motivation, personal understanding, communication skills and the responsibility of the students with regard to their own learning at the beginning of the project and again after 6 months. Findings may be of interest to tutors involved in PDP, action planning and similar initiatives driven by the one‐to‐one dialogue.     

ENHETLIGHET OCH DIFFERENTIERING I SKOLELEVERS KAMRATVÄRDERINGER

Søvik, N. 1977. Individual Instruction in Norwegian (The PODIN Project). Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 21, 197‐232. As the principle of integration instead of segregation has become dominant in the planning and organization of the Norwegian school (1st to 9th grade), different kinds of individualized instruction have been recommended to the teachers to use. The main problem behind the project reported here was to investigate whether, and to what extent, an experimental program of individualized instruction within an ordinary school class would improve students’ performance in oral and written Norwegian compared with traditional instruction. It was carried out in three parallel studies with first‐graders and a new series of three experiments with second‐graders.     

Multigenerational Head Start Participation: An Unexpected Marker of Progress

One‐quarter of the Head Start population has a mother who participated in the program as a child. This study uses experimental Head Start Impact Study (HSIS) data on 3‐ and 4‐year‐olds (N = 2,849) to describe multigenerational Head Start families and their program experiences. In sharp contrast to full‐sample HSIS findings, Head Start has large, positive impacts on cognitive and socioemotional development through third grade among the children of former participant mothers, including improved mathematics skills and reductions in withdrawn and aggressive behavior. Evidence suggests that differences in program impacts between single‐ and multigenerational Head Start families are driven largely by differences in family resources and home learning environments.     

Developing competence profiles for educators in environmental education organisations in the Netherlands

This qualitative study explores the meanings and possible merits of introducing competence profiles for enhancing professional development in the environmental education sector in the Netherlands. It presents the three most important environmental education jobs and their underlying competencies alongside their core professional challenges, as identified by environmental educators and experts in the Netherlands. The jobs are: education practitioner, programme leader, and organisational manager. The core professional challenges for the education practitioner entail: developing demand‐driven instructional programmes and spontaneous, ad‐hoc programmes, and addressing task and goal orientations. For the programme leader, they are acquisition of new projects, quality assurance, and project management; and for the organisational manager, they are human resource management, financial management, representing the organisation and showing its performance. The results of the study should inform educational institutions how to develop relevant programmes for future environmental educators, and for the professional development of environmental educators in environmental education organisations.     

Building an evaluation framework for a competency‐based graduate program at the University of Southern Mississippi

This article describes an ongoing project to build an evaluation framework for a competency‐based graduate program at The University of Southern Mississippi. Many traditional methods of evaluating performance at academic institutions provide only a partial assessment of individual program performance. In an increasingly competitive global economy, program evaluations should also consider the perspectives of students, graduates, and employers in order to develop curricula that will address the critical skills sets needed for strategic and value‐added performance improvement work in the 21st century.     

Videobased lesson analysis: Effective science PD for teacher and student learning

The Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis (STeLLA) project is a videobased analysis‐of‐practice PD program aimed at improving teacher and student learning at the upper elementary level. The PD program developed and utilized two “lenses,” a Science Content Storyline Lens and a Student Thinking Lens, to help teachers analyze science teaching and learning and to improve teaching practices in this year‐long program. Participants included 48 teachers (n = 32 experimental, n = 16 control) and 1,490 students. The STeLLA program significantly improved teachers' science content knowledge and their ability to analyze science teaching. Notably, the STeLLA teachers further increased their classroom use of science teaching strategies associated with both lenses while their students increased their science content knowledge. Multi‐level HLM analyses linked higher average gains in student learning with teachers' science content knowledge, teachers' pedagogical content knowledge about student thinking, and teaching practices aimed at improving the coherence of the science content storyline. This paper highlights the importance of the science content storyline in the STeLLA program and discusses its potential significance in science teaching and professional development more broadly. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., J Res Sci Teach 48: 117–148, 2011     

SOAP in practice: learning outcomes of a cross‐institutional innovation project conducted by teachers,student teachers,and teacher educators

This paper reports on a case study investigating learning outcomes at the individual and organisational level of a cross‐institutional innovation project based on the SOAP approach. SOAP integrates Schooling of teachers, Organisational development of schools, Action‐ and development‐oriented research, and Professional development of teachers. The innovation project was aimed at combining teachers, student teachers, and teacher educators in an alliance to design and develop new competence‐based vocational educational arrangements for pupils. An inductive qualitative analysis of 37 semi‐structured interviews among the participants revealed seven main categories of individual learning outcomes: attitudes, project design and management, collaboration, action theory, teaching practice, educational principles, and developments within secondary vocational education. Three main categories of organisational learning outcomes were identified: institution‐level learning, project‐level learning, and combining institution‐level and project‐level learning. A tension was identified between the participants’ individual interests in learning and personal development, and the need for organisational learning aimed at improving organisational processes.     

Appreciating the Complexity of Project Management Execution: Using Simulation in the Classroom

As the popularity and importance of project management increase, so does the need for well‐prepared project managers. This article discusses our experiences using a project management simulation in undergraduate and MBA classes to help students better grasp the complexity of project management. This approach gives students hands‐on experience with many facets in the project management life cycle and provides them with feedback on their performance as project managers. This article provides an overview of the simulation exercises, guidance for classroom integration, and evidence of effectiveness.     

Modernizing schooling through performance management: a critical appraisal

This paper examines the ways in which a culture of performance has impacted on schooling in the English setting and draws parallels with other post‐industrializing nations. There is a growing awareness amongst researchers and practitioners that improving the quality of teaching and learning through performance management is not working. In education policy terms the UK Government has made much of the importance of modernizing the teaching profession in raising levels of achievement, attainment, and success in schools and colleges. The proposed trade‐off for teachers is improved pay for improved standards. Advocates of such reform point to the benefits derived from greater devolution of market principles to frontline professionals which, it is argued, enhance performance, remuneration, and motivation (Barber 2001). Critics, on the other hand, have criticized the deprofessionalizing tendency of tying performance management to government targets, which fail to connect with the contextual realities of teaching and learning in the classroom or education workplace (Elliott 2001, Merson 2001). Recently such criticism was rejected by the (then) Secretary of State for Education as cynicism. ‘In education it is those who offer cynicism in the guise of experience who can drive young teachers to look for other careers. We shall always try to combat cynicism wherever it threatens progress on standards’ (Morris 2001: 9). This paper seeks to avoid such inference by arguing for greater authenticity in the way education practice might drive, rather than being driven by, the policy and performance agenda.     

School Leaders as Learners: what attitudes and preferences do they have?

Leadership development is a key issue for success in leading educational reform and school improvement. Demands for more flexible, responsive, and enterprise‐driven schooling require that school leaders can create the kind of conditions which sustain vigorous processes of continuous school improvement. To meet this requirement, school leaders must be in command of a broader range of leadership and management expertise than was traditionally required of them. The changing environments make it essential for school leaders to have a high level of awareness of their preferences for leadership development and a commitment to improve their professional performance. This paper discusses findings of a survey‐based study of school leaders’ attitudes and preferences for professional development in Western Australia. Surveys conducted among principals and deputy principals of primary (n = 233) and secondary (n = 180) schools reveal some important similarities, as well as differences, in the extent to which primary and secondary school leaders have recognized the potential for work‐based and peer‐assisted learning.     

TRAINING IN SUPPORT OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN ELDERCARE CAMPAIGN: REPLICATION OF AN AMERICAN INDIAN HOME‐CARE TRAINING PROGRAM

In 1991, the federal Administration on Aging initiated the National Eldercare Campaign to broaden the base of commitment and societal involvement to assist today's vulnerable elderly. With Administration on Aging funding, the project described in this study sought to enhance services to American Indian elders by training individuals as home‐care workers. The project replicated a previously developed American Indian paraprofessional home‐care worker curriculum at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College in Cloquet, Minnesota. This program, which is transferable to Indian and non‐Indian communities, addressed three contemporary aging issues. First, it addressed the need to incorporate diversity and minority aging knowledge into the curriculum of postsecondary education. Second, it provided more accessible and better quality community‐based in‐home care to meet the needs of frail elderly. Third, this training program confronted the pervasive lack of employment opportunities in many American Indian and other minority communities.     

Rhythmic Rhymes for Boosting Phonological Awareness in Socially Disadvantaged Children

This study evaluated the ability for two rhythmic rhyming programs to raise phonological awareness in the early literacy classroom. Year 1 (5–6‐year‐olds) from low socioeconomic status schools in Bedfordshire, learned a program of sung or spoken rhythmic rhymes, or acted as controls. The project ran with two independent cohorts (Cohort 1 N = 98, Cohort 2 N = 136). Program‐related gains from pre‐ to post‐tests of phonological awareness (Rhyme Detection, Rhyme Production, and Phoneme Deletion), were statistically significant with the exception of Rhyme Detection in the Spoken group (Cohort 1) and Rhyme Production in the Sung group (Cohort 2). The Spoken program achieved medium and large effect sizes for Cohort 1 on measures of rhyming awareness (although the effect size was small for Cohort 2). Comparatively, the Sung program was associated with smaller effects (small, negligible, or with a small positive effect for Controls) across tasks and cohorts.     

Performance analysis case study of United States to India software development migration process

This performance analysis case study examines the migration of Custom Software Solutions, Inc. software development and maintenance, according to Gilbert's (1996) human performance theory, from teams in the United States to teams in India. Findings reveal the need for changes in project management guidelines, cross‐team communication, resources, and organizational clarity. Suggested interventions include improving project management and organizational communication practices and establishing new protocols such as Web‐based project forums and interactive learning modules.     

A General Framework for Performance Management Systems: Structure,Design, and Analysis

Employees may spend their time on the job behaving in a variety of ways. The purpose of a well‐designed performance management system should be to channel and motivate employees to concentrate their energies on value‐added performance. The extent to which an organization achieves this outcome depends upon the design and structure of its performance management system. The basic framework of any performance management system as presented here involves four levels of operations, policies, and practices: (1) executive leadership; (2) the infrastructure of strategy, measurement and control, and work process; (3) human resource policies and practices in attracting, hiring, developing, and compensating employees; and (4) workplace working conditions shaped and driven by the practices of managers and supervisors and the dynamics of the work group or team. The issues that performance improvement specialists need to consider in analyzing an organization's performance management system are noted.     

Development,Dissemination, and Assessment of a Food Safety Systems Management Curriculum for Agribusiness Students in Armenia

This study addresses the development, dissemination, and assessment of a Food Safety System Management (FSSM) curriculum offered to college‐aged, agribusiness students in Yerevan, Armenia. Prior to beginning the program, demographic data were collected and a paper‐based pretest was administered to access the food safety knowledge, behavior, and attitude of participants (n = 29). For assessment of a skill, participants’ handwashing techniques were videotaped and scored before the program commenced. Immediately after completion of the entire curriculum, a paper‐based post‐test with identical questions for food safety knowledge, behavior, and attitude was administered and handwashing skills were assessed. ANOVA with repeated measures was used to evaluate significant differences (α = 0.05) for food safety knowledge using a pretest, post‐test, and a 3‐mo follow‐up. A paired t‐test was used to evaluate handwashing skills before and after the curriculum was presented. The pretest score (44.93%, ± 2.87) for food safety knowledge (n = 29) differed significantly (P <0.0001) when compared with the post‐test score (73.21%, ± 3.28) and the 3‐mo follow‐up (n = 23) score (67.76%, ± 3.93). Participants’ (n = 9) handwashing skills prior to delivery of the FSSM curriculum differed significantly (P <0.0001), when compared to handwashing skills after completion of the curriculum. Students’ food safety attitudes and behavior assessed using a five‐point Likert scale, also improved significantly as a result of the FSSM program. The 3‐mo follow‐up survey on food safety attitude and behavior was consistent with the post‐test survey results. The information from this project may be of interest to education experts, Extension professionals, food industry personnel, or regulatory agencies, in the development and dissemination of an international food safety program.     

Teaching Object‐Oriented Design Without Programming: A Progress Report

This project is demonstrating the feasibility of using the object‐oriented paradigm to teach students software design in a nonprogramming context. The program, developed using principles of user‐based, prototyping design, teaches students to create responsibility‐driven designs of computer games. Investigations with high school students with little or no knowledge of computers and senior computer science majors have demonstrated that students can indeed learn to use Class‐Responsibility‐Collaborator (CRC) cards to produce creditable high‐level designs in a relatively short time whether or not they have programming experience and can generalize what they have learned to a new design. Although the computer science majors created more complete designs and demonstrated a deeper understanding of the design process than the high school students, these students still found the experience valuable. Both sample groups generally found the process interesting and relatively painless.     

Performance‐based certification—How to design a valid,defensible, cost‐effective program

Initiating a certification program is the overall intent of this book. Judith Hale starts with the program's business case, navigating you through requirements, standards, and assessments, and concluding with implementation and tips for “going global.” The book provides you with a roadmap for starting and implementing a certification program. Whether you are a C‐level executive or a performance improvement practitioner, this book has the explanation and rationale for implementing a certification program, using examples demonstrating learning points clearly and effectively. Performance‐Based Certification‐How to Design a Valid, Defensible, Cost‐Effective Program (ISBN: 978‐1‐118‐02724‐0) is published by Pfeiffer.     

Determining Optimal Skillsets for Business Managers Based on Local and Global Job Markets: A Text Analytics Approach

We are experiencing a significant shift in management practices—moving from intuition, experience, and gut‐feeling driven decision‐making to one that is driven by data, evidence, and computational sciences. This shift, which is often called the analytics revolution, is not only changing the business landscape from a practical perspective but also redefining the white‐collar job market. The goal of this study is to employ a data‐ and analytics‐driven approach to analyze a large and feature‐rich dataset (which is composed of the recent job postings and the extant published literature) to characterize the state of the current business job market, especially to magnify the analytics related features and expectations including the geographic (i.e., local vs. global) differentiators. Using several graphical and tabular representations, in this paper we report on our thought‐provoking findings that collectively illustrate the changing face of knowledge, skills, and abilities required by the current local and global business job markets.     

The impact of school management practices on educational performance: Evidence from public schools in São Paulo

This study examines the causal impacts of a school management program on educational outcomes in São Paulo/Brazil, estimated with the use of a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. I conclude that specific management practices such as performance monitoring, targets setting and incentive schemes have significant positive impacts on 8th-graders' math scores, especially on low performance students. I was unable to obtain similar results for language. I further investigated whether these results were associated with student or staff selection and infrastructure investments or whether they were actually driven by changes to pedagogical and managerial practices. My findings suggest that the latter explanation is more plausible.     

Individual differences in learning entrepreneurship and their implications for web-based instruction in e-business and e-commerce

This paper reports on outcomes from a White Rose Centre for Enterprise funded project Managing Innovation in the Digital Economy. This project aims to incorporate learning for enterprise into undergraduate and postgraduate curricula in information management and information systems. The paper presents results from a survey distributed to postgraduate information management and information systems students following completion of a module in E‐Business and E‐Commerce delivered by the Department of Information Studies at the University of Sheffield. The findings suggest that differences in levels of prior knowledge of business studies and in cultural background can impact on students’ acquisition of domain knowledge and intellectual and information research skills during collaborative development of a business plan. Implications of the results for web‐based instruction are addressed, by identifying teaching and learning strategies that support differential treatment of learners in terms of content and process. It is concluded that empirical investigation of individual differences within a student body can inform more effective methods for information systems and information management graduates to learn about and for entrepreneurship.