...early-adulthood. A significant number of organizations, such as commercial ones, are adopting mentoring programs as a vital part of their professional development plans. Mentoring is an effective tool to foster professional development to both the mentor and mentee. The practice of mentoring beginning teachers emerged in the 1980s as a professional development strategy for achieving a variety of goals. Teacher mentoring programs are now perceived as an effective staff development approach for beginning teachers. Cooper and Miller (1998) state that the benefits of mentoring include :faster, more effective integration of new teachers, retention of quality professionals, increased transfer of skills from one generation to another; gains in productivity and performance; increased learning from professional development activities; enhanced communication, commitment, and motivation; and a stabilizing factor in times of change. Zimbabwe introduced the attachment model for the first time in 1995. Shumbayawonda (2001) says “In 1995 Zimbabwe introduced the attachment model where student teachers were placed under the charge of experienced qualified teachers”. Definition of terms Mentor Furlong and Maynard (1995) in Shumbayawonda (2011) defines a mentor as one who acts as a coach, helping the student teacher to gain skills, to reflect on their practical teaching experiences. Zey (1984, in Shumbayawonda (2011) says that a mentor is a person who over-sees...
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...EDU 695 Week 5 DQ 2 Professional Learning Communities NEW To Buy This material Click below link http://www.uoptutors.com/edu-695-ash/edu-695-week-5-dq-2-professional-learning-communities-new Professional Learning Communities One component of the 21st Century Professional Development framework encourages sharing knowledge with fellow faculty, using face-to-face, virtual and blended communications. When we think of sharing knowledge, we often think of using professional learning communities. In several of your courses, the concept of a professional learning community (PLC) is presented and elaborated on. A professional learning community consists of individuals with an interest in eduction. The focus of a professional learning community can be taking measures to ensure students learn, creating a culture of collaboration in the school, for school improvement and more (DuFour, 2004). In this discussion, you will deliberate about the use of professional learning communities as they relate to the 21st Century Professional Development framework with an emphasis on technology. Initial Post: Think about the 21st Century Professional Development framework and technology when working in your mock professional learning community. Next, imagine your state legislatures have asked the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office to advise them regarding the creation of a blended professional learning community across the districts within the state. As an educator who is well versed in employing...
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...deal about theories, history, change, and influential people. For my final reflection, I have chosen professional learning communities, conflict, and motivation as the three topics that I will address. I chose these topics for many reasons, but the main reason for choosing was simply that I wanted to follow my heart. It was important to me to choose topics that I could relate to or that I had a vested interest in. These topics are also very relevant in my current working situation. Through this reflection, I hope to gain further insight to these topics and to build my capacity as an instructional leader. Overview of Topics Professional Learning Communities A Professional Learning Community (PLC) is a group of educational professionals who come together to work collaboratively with the ultimate goal of improving student achievement. According to DuFour (2004), in a PLC, educators engage in on-going dialogue and questioning about teaching and learning. Engaging in meaningful collaborative conversations encourages deep professional learning, and this teacher learning may result in higher levels of student achievement (Dufour, 2004). The research conducted by Ferguson (2013) explored the struggles faced by a school administration in implementing a PLC. The study found that in spite of all of the frustrations associated with implementation, creating a professional learning communities created a more collaborative culture in which teachers worked together to benefit all...
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... GIFTED CHILD TODAY Features Avenues to Professional Learning Online Technology Tips and Tools for Professional Development in Gifted Education Catherine A. Little1 and Brian C. Housand2 Abstract: The use of online methods for professional development activities is on the rise, with more schools exploring creative ways of providing teacher learning opportunities. Online professional development offers a promising direction for providing increased learning opportunities, promoting professional collaboration, and supporting teacher facility with technology resources. In gifted education, online activities may present effective ways of connecting gifted education professionals across multiple schools and districts and providing professional learning experiences in gifted education for colleagues in general education. In this article, the authors discuss key features of professional development and considerations for applying them in an online learning context. The authors emphasize the importance of coherence with the curriculum, active engagement, sustained attention, and administrative support. They then discuss five avenues or approaches for implementing online professional development, representing a range of interactive elements and opportunities for blending live and online components. Within each avenue presented, the authors share specific resources that would support implementation in the professional learning context. “ Online activities may present effective...
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...Sickels Implementing Change through Professional Development July 11, 2012 As an assignment to reorganize this learning organization to be a more professional learning community there will be numerous suggestions submitted that will make this change happen. Even though these changes will cause a great deal of pain and discomfort in some, overall the goals of this plan are to move the organization to the next level and make us a more acceptable educational institution. Hopefully, this will strengthen our capacity and we will be able to grow substantially because of these changes. As you may or may not know, the basis of many of these changes will be taken from suggestions made from the work of DuFour, DuFour, and Eaker’s research which has taken many years of research and development. These suggestions will serve as the framework into our new future and will serve us for years to come. The Professional Learning Communities (PLC) concept As a development design the Professional Learning Communities (PLC) concept will be employed as the foundation to the schools reorganization. How does and what exactly is PLC as it relates to reorganization will be described as follows: In order to better understand PLC a clearer view of learning organizations will assist in this process. Learning organizations are united by a shared vision of student and staff learning together. They have common values of respect,...
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...Implementing Change through Professional Development Implementing Change through Professional Development As the instructional leader of the organization, I believe that the implementation of professional learning communities (PLCs) will be the most promising path for sustained and substantive improvement of our school. According to DuFour, DuFour, and Eaker (2008), leaders can take comfort in knowing that there is abundant research to support PLCs. The function of the instructional leader is to teach the employees what the characteristics of a learning organization are and how to achieve these characteristics within the organization. A true leader uses their power for good and gets their faculty on their side not by manipulation, but by taking the personal power route to gain full support and trust from his or her employees. Culture for organizational culture is a set of values, norms, and practices that prevail in an organization transformation-based direction of turnaround. This means enhancing the coordination between the people and to match resources with environment and capabilities. Cultural values are often embedded in people through their direct experience with family, most important, and thereafter in social groups of which they often perceived to be associated with. DuFour et al. (2008) stated that a leader could present the following findings from researchers both inside and outside education to convince those who find research persuasive. Schools should...
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...Practices for Professional Learning Communities,” (2014) the author, Celine Provini, defines a Professional Learning Community as a “whole-staff involvement in a process of reflection upon instructional practices and desired student benchmarks, as well as monitoring of outcomes to ensure success.” These “communities” have been becoming more prevalent as educators continue to focus on student achievement and professional growth. Provini adds “PLCs enable teachers to continually learn from one another via shared visioning and planning, as well as in-depth critical examination of what does and doesn’t work to enhance student achievement” (Provini, 2014). These ensembles of dedicated educators seek to enhance not only their...
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...Reviews Professional Learning Communities (PLC’s) have become common place within educational communities. PLC’s are a collection of educators working collaboratively towards a common goal to increase positive outcomes of students in the learning process. Educators may be involved in multiple groups of PLC’s pertaining to the different groups of students that they serve through their job descriptors. PLC’s were born out of the newest attempt of educational reform surrounding educational standards, in order to focus on best practices within the classroom that achieve the best outcomes. The following websites have been reviewed as a part of research into PLC’s. www.ascd.org The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development...
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...change is either ignored or left to others, especially the client, to implement” (p. 165). Dufour and Eaker (1998), report that trying to change beliefs and habits will be complex and difficult to achieve. They state, “…if a change initiative is to be sustained, the elements of that change must be embedded with in the culture of the school” (p. 133). As stated by Fullan (2008), “Systems can learn on a continuous basis. The synergistic result of the previous five secrets in action is tantamount to a system that learns from itself” (p 14). Performance and outcomes will always change so the system will have to learn from itself in order to move forward with changes for continual success. In addition, Bandura (1997) supports the idea of a system learning from itself when he says that people can and do control their own...
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...Assignment 3: Ethical and Socially Responsive Business Marco Bryant Strayer University BUS 100 Prof. Andrea Banto November 10, 2013 Assignment 3: Ethical and Socially Responsive Business Chipotle Provide the Company description from Assignment 1. Because of the human aspect of ethics and its links to business success, corporate leaders must be careful about their behaviors, and how they address problems. For this assignment, you must select the code of ethical conduct for one (1) of the following restaurants: Cheesecake Factory, Ruby Tuesday, Chipotle. As a basis for your written assignment, you will assume that you are the CEO of your chosen restaurant. Write a three to four (3-4) page paper . 1. Describe key areas of the selected company’s code of conduct that are of significant importance to the business, and explain why. State all the areas covered by the code of ethics. Describe each element in detail and explain why they are important to business. Discuss each area/ element in a specific paragraph. 2. Explain the key steps that the company should take to ensure that employees follow the code of conduct. Clearly state the steps the company should take to ensure that the employees follow the code of conduct. Discuss each step in detail. 3. Suggest three (3) ways in which the restaurant can engage in socially responsive activities in the community within which it operates. Specify three ways in which the restaurant...
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...Successful sports professionals can earn a great deal more than people in other important professionals. Some people think this is fully justified while others think it is unfair. Stakeholders People Sports professionals: those who been successful in sports games, champions, heroes, sports stars Other important professionals: hard working people, specialists, scientists, managers Keywords: Unfair: injustice, bias, sort of discrimination, inequality Fully justified: fair, Agree | Disagree | (KP) Many sports stars earn money than any other professionals | Professionals working harder and serve the humanity with many technological advances | (SS) They make them stars to left their country’s pride and repetition | Professional like doctors spend most their lives studying to succeed in a highly competitive career with many professional milestones. | (DD) Most the money they gain coming from abroad, so it helps their country economy | to Professional like doctors spend most their lives studying succeed in a highly competitive career with many professional milestones. | Moreover, large part of the money they earn goes toward their club | Similarly, scientists spend most their time in the research laboratory to develop new technology breakthrough or product | Many people think that sports stars have the right to earn a large amount of money since they use their talent and most valuable time to practice and exercise. Others think...
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...Being Professional in the Workplace Being professional is one of the main factors to focus on while in the workplace today. “However, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the civil work environment is the exception rather than the norm (Suzanne).” Being professional can show those around you, whether it is customers, friends, or managers, that you take your job seriously. Throughout this paper I will highlight the some of the main characteristics that it takes to be professional in the workplace. These characteristics include: having a nice appearance, having a good attitude, being punctual, and being honest and trustworthy. The first key factor that one should possess to be professional in the workplace is a good appearance. When I think about appearance I think of two sayings that I have heard throughout my life. The first is “dress to impress” and the second is “ everyone remembers the first impression.” In my opinion these two statements relate directly to the importance of appearance not only in the workplace but in life as well. Some of the key areas to a have a good appearance are having a clean body and clean non-wrinkled clothes, which is something that some people forget about for some reason. Being clean shaven is a must for men unless they cannot due to religious reasons. People take you more serious when your appearance is a top priority and it makes you look professional. Secondly, having a good attitude and remaining positive...
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...Week 2 Assignment Wednesday oct 8, 2014 1.What is professionalism? Professionalism describes the qualities, skills, competence and behaviors expected of individuals belonging to any given profession. Professionalism in the workplace is based on many factors, including how you dress; carry yourself, your attitude and how you interact with others. The definition of professionalism indicates that each person perform their tasks with genuine earnest and honesty. It refers to a person doing his / her job with sincerity, and maintaining professional etiquette and ethics in the workplace. 2.Why is goal setting important? Setting goals is a fundamental component to long-term success. The basic reason for this is that you can’t get where you are trying to go until you clearly define where that is. Goals help you focus and allocate your time and resources efficiently, and they can keep you motivated when you feel like giving up. Furthermore, setting and achieving goals translates to feelings of success for both individuals and companies, which in turn spurs greater productivity and confidence. 3.What are Ways of teamwork in the physician’s office? Developing an effective and highly functional staff that puts practice performance first, though, is easier said than done. To a large degree, that’s because medical practices are comprised of a small group of people who work together but perform very different roles. As practice administrator, you can encourage teamwork by modeling good...
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...Learning from experience is one of the best modes of learning. This is because one gets to learn from their own mistakes and they can understand how to do things right. Experiential learning has produced the best experts in the world. This is why all education systems require a field experience. Field experience has changed a lot of minds and influenced decision making. Through field experience, people have made significant career decisions courtesy of a critical incident or general knowledge. This essay explores a school experience marred by lack of administration and proper personnel and facilities to handle special needs cases. The experience is a teaching assistant who is in a school that doesn't have steady top-level leadership which is very critical in every institution. Further, it has admitted a student who needs particular attention since he has been diagnosed with Craniosynostosis and has significant complex needs yet it lacks the proper personnel with expertise on how to handle such a case. This situation forces the teaching assistant to step up and take it upon themselves to find ways in which they can help this student. Choosing education as a profession is considered more of a calling...
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...Chapter 5 Summary There is wide spread agreement in education regarding the purpose of ongoing teacher professional development. It intends to qualitatively and quantitatively extend an educators’ skill set so that they are continually effective in the classroom. Like any other profession teachers must keep their skills sharp and updated as the educational system is only as good as its players. The key to this quality education for all students is the classroom teacher, but not just any classroom teacher (Killion & Harrison, 2006). Students must have skillful, highly effective teachers who have consistent access to ongoing professional development (Sparks & Hirsch, 2000; Guskey, 1997; Guskey, 1998; Maldonado, 2002). NCLB offers broad guidelines for effective professional development acknowledging the integral nature of ongoing professional development that seeks to insure teachers continually possess the knowledge and skills necessary to successfully perform their duties (Lauer & Dean 2004). NCLB requires all 50 states to provide “high-quality” professional development that will ensure every teacher is both highly qualified and highly effective. The federal government’s definition of high-quality professional development includes activities that improve and increase teachers’ academic knowledge, are part of school and district improvement plans, provide teachers the knowledge to meet state content standards, are sustained, intensive and classroom focused, support...
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