Saturday, August 31, 2019
Learning in a Group Essay
1. What do you learn from working in a group? I learnt that by working in a group, we work towards a shared purpose and common goals in doing so shared our varied experiences and skills and in the cooperation with each other. Students are much likely to perform well when they work effectively in a group. This is because good group work creates synergy – where it combine effect of the group is greater than the sum of individual effort. Working together as a group can apply individual perspectives, experiences and skills to solve complex problems, creating new solutions and ideas that, and be beyond the scope of any one individual. As well as enhancing class performance. Good group work benefits individual too. It enables mutual support and learning, can generate a sense of belonging and commitment. I also learnt the following benefits on working in groups: †¢Apply a mix of skills that go beyond the scope of one individual. †¢Solve complex problems that take more than one mud. †¢Generates new ideas. †¢Provide support and help group members. †¢Give students a sense of belonging. †¢Enhance communication. †¢Help students to learn from each other and develop. †¢Generate commitment. Q.2 what do you think can be done to make this course (Lifelong Education/ more interesting. INTRODUCTION Lifelong learning skills are wide concern in tertiary education. Fostering these skills requires reconsideration and changes to traditional approaches to teaching and learning. We are living in a time of knowledge explosion. University or colleges are unlikely to be able to teach all the essential knowledge a student needs for their whole career within a four-year period. Moreover, much of the knowledge student learn in the university will be out of date when they leave, because of the rapid technical developments. This means student and have to master a self-learning method and a set of lifelong learning skills in order to meet the demand of their future, professional lives. Quality teaching and learning in tertiary education should aim to develop student’s lifelong learning skills. Each teacher should make a contribution in developing these skills when teaching a certain course. How to make the course (lifelong Education) more interesting includes †¢Group working tutorials; workshop tutorial classes are aimed at developing student’s self directed leaving, group work and interpersonal skill the classroom for intervals should have movable desk and class. Each interval class should contain about 15 student and last one hour. The tutor will ask question to guide students to think and to work together to determine potential solutions to a problem. Some questions will challenging and relevant to real world, while some are from previous lectures and assignments. Student in each group are expected to work with each other, to share their ideas to discuss, and to debate and convince each other, thus creating an active and interactive learning environment. One student in each group will be asked to give a short presentation to the whole class. †¢Interaction in lectures Whatever the similarities and differences in learning styles and intelligence among your student, you can help your entire student by employing a range of active learning approaches (talking and listening, writing, reading, reflecting) and by using varied teaching techniques and strategies. †¢ The course lifelong education is suppose to be handle by a professional lecturers, people like Prof .M.B Shitu, Mal. Sani Bala Hassan, those who during the lectures will give students the opportunity to think and talk, and set some time during lectures for asking question or encouraging student to answer and ask question: In this way student understanding can be assess and make them engage with the activity. There is also need to introduce hardware demonstration in lectures. Although software demonstration are cheap and convenient, it is a virtual world . When doing demonstration let student predict what will happen next, and ask them to observe things going on and explain the theory behind it .Some question may follow to make the student learn interactively and to establish connections between pre-existing knowledge and new information. In this way student are expected to develop observational skills and thinking and these will make the course more interesting. †¢The lecturer supposes to use two o three case studies in the course. Case studies tell real and complete story, usually interdisciplinary and set in a real world context, and have academic and professional significance and social implications. With case studies, students can develop problem solving skills for seeking and assessing information and interdisciplinary knowledge. †¢Students should be taught according to their aptitude. Give excellent student’s additional training. For example, a few exemplary students will be encouraged to give mini lectures to review material or less important sections. Thus, they develop oral and leadership skills from the process of searching for information and inquiry about classmates understanding. †¢Lecturers for the course must consider the features of their courses and the characteristics of their learners before they think about what kind of knowledge and skills students will learn from the course. Then they must decide which teaching strategies are suited to their course. They should try and adapt contemporary teaching strategies to create a more student – centred teaching and learning climate for developing students’ lifelong learning skills. Students are expected to develop problem solving skills, lateral thinking skills, group work ability, self-directed learning skills, and communication skills in the cause of lifelong education. †¢Lecturers’ must adopt student-centred approaches in teaching and learning. The so called student-centred approach means that teachers should think about how the learners learn and make the student actively involved in the teaching process. In most cases, a combination of several teaching outcomes. Lectures in this course should work out the suitable strategies for themselves, the students and the course content. CONCLUSION Teaching and learning is a cooperative process between teachers and students. Before a lecturer tries to teach in a different way, he/she needs to introduce students to new teaching and learning theories. And also need to seek colleagues support and finds to implement appropriate changes. The work may be challenging and time consuming. Hopefully, opportunities will coexist with challenges. A good lecturer motivates him/her self in pursing quality teaching.
Friday, August 30, 2019
Learning and Memory.An introduction to theories of learning Essay
Learning and Memory Introduction            Cleaning the room is the target behaviour in Bobby’s case. Mr. Kelly tries to keep on reminding his eight year old child to clean his room but it is always in vain. Since Mr. Kelly needs help in increasing the frequency of his child cleaning his room it could be assumed that bobby is trained and knows how to clean his room. The possible reason as to why he keeps on refraining from this task is however unclear.            Operant conditioning is a method of learning that incorporates acquisition of behaviour and facing the consequences of the behaviour. In this type of learning rewards are given to the learner either to encourage or discourage future repetition of the same behaviour (Olson & Hergenhahn, 2013). Operant conditioning can be used to encourage Bobby in cleaning up his room. Through the various components of operant conditioning Mr. Kelly can apply to encourage Bobby clean his room. Operant conditioning has two major concepts, reinforcement and punishment, which could be used in different ways to encourage bobby to clean his room.            Reinforcement involves using reward that would otherwise increase the chances of bobby cleaning his room more often. Mr. Kelly could use various rewards such as giving bobby time to watch T.V, buying little gifts that are issued each time bobby cleans his room. Such motivating factors will encourage bobby to clean up his room. Reinforcement is of two types, positive and negative reinforcement, both ways can be capitalised in changing the behaviour of bobby. In positive reinforcement for instance Mr. Kelly needs to look for items such as toys or bars of chocolate, preferably Mr. Kelly could choose some of the items bobby loves most and use them to reward bobby after cleaning the room.            Continuous use of negative reinforcement over a long period of time would lead to Bobby developing an attitude towards cleaning his room. Thus positive reinforcement could be applied. For reinforcement to be effective both method should be used concurrently. Fixed ratio schedule and variable ratio schedules can be used to implement and encourage bobby to always clean the room. Fixed ratio schedule will always reward bobby after a number of times he has cleaned the room. This method will give immediate positive responses from bobby but would be consuming for Mr. Kelly. Variable ratio schedule would award bobby after irregular intervals of response from him. This can be very effective to reinforce Bobby to clean the room because the reinforcement can come all through the first week and make the reluctance of cleaning the house an extinct behaviour.            I will apply the operant conditioning to account for Jackie’s development of the behaviour of phobia towards dogs. This is because the operant conditioning shows or explains why the organisms will acquire learned behaviour that they exhibit. The vital focus of operant conditioning is by use of reinforcements as punishments or reward so as to increase or decrease the likelihood of occurrence or repetition of certain behaviour (Staddon & Cerutti, 2003). In the case of Jackie, she received a negative reinforcement from the dog bite and hence the phobia towards dogs development. Also the stitches and the time that she spent on medication made her develop the negative attitude towards dogs. This is because, in operant conditioning, it is clear that continued use of negative reinforcement will lead to the victim developing an attitude towards that object or behaviour.            Some of the behaviour modification that could be designed to help Jackie to overturn the phobia that she has with dogs could be: Jackie could first of all spend time with her spouse with a company the trained dogs. This will help Jackie to see that dogs were not wild and they always do not bite any time you had an encounter with them. This will somehow help her reverse the phobia she had towards dogs and also help her see the positive side of the dogs. She should also be allowed to spend time with the trained dogs with the dogs being guided by the trainer to remain lively, obedient and helpful to Jackie. This will act as a positive reinforcement towards Jackie’s behaviour. She will slowly by slowly start liking dogs and hence they will have a happy life with her partner thereafter.            There are two main principles of operant conditioning that are evident in the case of Emma. First by the parents trying to offer Emma some kind of reward, they are trying to positively reinforce the behaviour of cleaning her room and toys through the principle of positive reinforcement. Also through putting her out, they are applying the principle of positive punishment by trying to add something bad so that she cannot repeat the same mistake.            Operant conditioning theory could be applied in this case to correct Emma’s behaviour through application of the four main principles of operant conditioning. The parents could apply the principle of negative punishment which is to take something good away so as to decrease certain behaviour. Through application of this principle, they could cut away buying of toys to Emma so that she could be reinforced to clean the room. Also through negative reinforcement principle, which is taking something bad so as to reinforce behaviour could be applied by Emma’s parents. They could stop putting her in time any time that she cleans her room so that she can be reinforced to always clean her room and toys.            Extinction of behaviour in operant conditioning theory can be defined as the disappearance of previously learned behaviour if the behaviour is not reinforced (Hunt et al, 2008). As we have earlier said, reinforcement is the necessity for learning and in which certain behaviour grows. It is either a means to encourage or discourage certain behaviour (Olson & Hergenhahn, 2013). For instance, the Emma is conditioned to the behaviour that when she screams hard and through the toys away, her parents will collect them and clean them up for her. If the parents stopped this behaviour, Emma could not adopt this behaviour because it will lack reinforcement and slowly it will cease and become extinct. References Hunt, Elgin F. and Colander, David C. (2008). Social Science, An Introduction to the Study of Society. Olson, M. H. & Hergenhahn, B. R. (2013). An introduction to theories of learning (9th ed.). Upper Saddle; River, NJ: Pearson. Staddon, J. E. R., & Cerutti, D. T. (2003). Operant conditioning. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 115-44. Source document
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Fidel Castro's History Will Absolve Me and the Cuban Revolution Essay
Fidel Castro's History Will Absolve Me and the Cuban Revolution - Essay Example This paper will address the circumstances surrounding the revolution and Castro’s justification for the revolution. An analysis of Batista’s leadership in Cuba will give grounds on how Castro appeared. Batista started as an army officer but rose up the ladder of ranks in the army with time. He received a commendation from the American government representative that he stood out among the Cubans and possessed a great deal of the ability to rule. This made him realize that he would lead the people in his way. Events led to one another, and eventually in 1942 he won elections and become president. His rule was very oppressive, and he concentrated on maintaining his relationship with the American government but not serving the people1. In 1952, he forcefully grabbed the position of general and imposed himself as a dictator on the Cuban people. This came after signs that he was going to lose an election. Batista’s reign greatly oppressed the people, and he amassed wea lth for himself while the common poverty levels increased among the Cuban people2. Castro and his colleagues rose to fight for change in the society. Castro believed in communism and was determined to change the condition in Cuba. In 1953, he led an attack on the military camp in Santiago3. Together with others who realized the kind of oppression the Cuban people were facing he intended to overthrow the tyrant Batista and establish communism in Cuba. Unfortunately, the attack failed, and the organizers faced the strong vengeance from Batista. A large group of them died in the attack while those who survived ended up in custody. Castro defended the group in court, and only a few of them ended up in jail. However, his own case proved difficult to handle because the justice system denied him the freedom to exercise his rights. The system tried all in its ability to prevent his hearings. In addition, the system did not allow him to have a defending attorney. These situations led to Cast ro writing down a speech that he would use to defend himself because that was the only hope left. On his appearance to court, he delivered the speech â€Å"History Will Absorb Me.†In this speech, he highlighted his justification for organizing the attack. Castro made it clear that his inspiration to fight for the freedom of Cuba came from the Cuban hero Jose Marti4. Marti spent his life advocating the freedom of Cuba and left behind many publications that Castro used for reference. Castro considered Marti his master, as he highlighted in his long speech during the trial. According to Castro, the revolution had all justifications that it would need. The Cuban people were suffering without any intervention from the government. While the Cuban people were perishing in poverty, Batista continued to impose taxes with some aimed at helping America settle its debts. In the speech, Castro elaborated the extreme abuse of power of Batista’s regime. Being a lawyer, he quoted the constitutional clauses that the prosecutor was using against him and declared that none of them described what he had committed. In his explanation, there was no government in Cuba but rather a dictator. The fact that no government existed invalidated the document they called a constitution in all the clauses mentioned5. In addition, Castro introduced his revolutionary vision. He mentioned five laws that he had intended to implement had the revolution succeeded. He realized that the dictatorial system had taken power away
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Introduction to business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words
Introduction to business - Essay Example Deeply Responsible Company Contributing positively to our communities and environment is so important to Starbucks that it’s one of the six guiding principles of our mission statement†(Starbucks Home Page 2008). In order to respond to social responsibility issues, star bucks make them as a core of its business strategies. Talking about its product, Starbucks underlines: â€Å"We’re passionate about ethically sourcing the finest coffee beans, roasting them with great care, and improving the lives of people who grow them. We care deeply about all of this; our work is never done†(Starbucks Home Page 2008). This statement shows that as a well-managed company of today, Starbucks will make every effort to meet its obligations to society (Moon and Quelch 2002). To help them with this, some companies have written objectives and policies in this area. In spite of this, social objectives and goals exist in an area that is not always easy to assess and objectively appraise. Just because it is not easy is no excuse for not trying to do something constructive about it (Beauchamp and Bowie 2003). To gain some semblance of control in this area and to make certain that social objectives are actually being met, more companies have started using a social audit to measure, monitor, and evaluate the contributions that the company is making to society. As helpful as an information and social responsibility status report might be to both the company and the stockholders, care must be taken in generating this data and the resulting report. The company must determine the best medium for disclosing the information to the public. The disclosure medium, whether a specific section of an annual report or a separate document, must be devoted to social responsibility activities in order to show in a meaningful and effective manner the interrelationship of company resources and company commitments (Carroll and Gannon 1997). In order to meet social responsibility principles, Starbucks
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Effective Team and Performance Management Essay - 3
Effective Team and Performance Management - Essay Example Effective teams are categorized by traits of trust, mutual respect, cooperation and affability among the team members. Usually, successful teams are ones which have strong leadership and pay a lot of attention to how the team is built. They have a shared vision and sense of ownership so that all members feel responsible and work for the completion of the goal set by the team leader. Another important characteristic of successful teams is the communication factor, teams that do well have an open system of information exchange, team members coordinate among themselves to get the job done and are truthful with each other about work related issues. (Effective Teamwork, Constructing Excellence). This assignment is based on a series of lectures geared towards helping participant groups learn how to best work in groups and helping team members realize what their individual strengths and weaknesses are when working as a part of a collaborative team and how these contribute for the better or for the worse towards the achievement of the end goal. Each lecture involves a different activity, which allows participants to learn different aspects of being part of a team by involving themselves in the activity and reflecting upon it. Our team leader was chosen by a process of voting. All team members took a vote as to who should be our team leader and team member ‘a’ got 3 votes which was the maximum number of votes any team member got and thus the role of leader was delegated to team member ‘a’. Our team was to collaborate across a time period of 8 weeks. We would be attending 8 seminars, one every week and each time a task would be allocated to us and we would have to decide how we would go about it as a team. Once done with the procedure of attaining the goal that was expected of us in the task, we were to reflect upon the strengths, weaknesses, causes of these strengths and weaknesses and possible ways of improvement. One of the exercises was abou t being ‘lost on the moon’. In this task, we were to imagine that we had just crash landed on the moon and the mother ship was 200 miles away. There were just 15 items we had left for survival on our trip from the landing site to the mother ship and we had to rate the items from 1 to 15 in order of importance for survival, 1 being the most important and 15 being the least important. The keys issues we faced here were mostly centered in the difference of opinions among the group member as to what item should be given what rank of importance. The items varied greatly in nature and different people felt that different items were more important for survival when lost on the moon. Our team leader ‘a’ proposed that we brainstorm this situation according to rank so for example we started with rank 15 and all team members suggested which item they thought was least important and the reason why they thought so. This was to the end of convincing other members of thei r reasons so that we could narrow down to one item per rank by agreeing on one thing. And thus we moved up ranks till we reached rank one with our most important mutually agreed upon item. This tactic combined the use of collaboration and brain storming to bring about cohesion in the thought process. Another task was that of ‘the egg flying contest’. Our challenge as a team was to 5 of the 7 resources mentioned to be able to build a mechanism that would enable the egg to not break when dropped from a height of 2 meters. Under our leader, we chose 5 critical items from the given list based on a discussion among the team members concerning building a mechanism to stop the egg from breaking.
Monday, August 26, 2019
Human secource develobment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words
Human secource develobment - Essay Example Researchers Huselid (1997) and Rao (1999) claim that an employee with strong self-esteem, innovative knowledge and skills is an integrative part of company success. Therefore there is a strong motivation for HRD in any company. What is HRD and what role does it play in development and success of any company? Actually, it is a pivotal question and before evaluation of external partners’ role in SHRD of PowerCo, it is desirable to define SHRD referring to the outer sources. Thus Garavan (1991) claims that HRD deals with management of human resource development with focus on long-term company business goals and corporate strategy. Furthermore companies are thought to have interdependent and connecting relationships among employees. The works of other researchers underline that the main goal of strategic HRD brings closer objectives of the company. Furthermore in strategic context of HRD employees of the company through mission and strategic goal trainings increase both organisational and individual development. SHRD creates a learning culture of the company, involves corporate strategy in every aspect of the life of the company (McCracken and Wallace, 2000, p.288). Nevertheless, HRD deals not only with training, but goes far beyond it. Thus HRD should be considered as a broader concept which involves not only training of employees, but a proactive tool of strategic improvement of the company. Furthermore SHRD can transform corporate culture involving strategic planning unlike HRD which responses to specific problems through efficient and relevant responses to specific problems. In the book by Walton (1999) it is underlined that human resources are the most important organizational resources which can shape all other business resources. PowerCo tends to correspond to this statement, because it ensures constant positive working experience, which improves
Sunday, August 25, 2019
Change management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words
Change management - Assignment Example Based on my personal reflection on the group case study, relevant change management theories and class discussion I intend to reflect on my personal perspective of managing change. My discussions will comprehensively indicate lessons learned from group case study, how my perspective on change management had been altered in the course of the semester and the implications of my current perspective of change management on my approach to future organisational change. I tend to regard Prosci’s ADKAR model of change as my personal perspective of managing change. According to Zimmermann (2011), ADKAR is a goal oriented change management model that is focused on individual level in an organisation. This model enables change management committee or relevant authority to focus their objectives on specific organization related results. I am of the opinion that organizational change entails adoption of new mindsets, internal and external policies, practices and organizational behaviours that are primarily pegged on the framework of individual’s culture and organizational culture. Therefore, ADKAR’s model in my perspective effectively enables individual and further organizational adjustment of prevailing culture and subsequently the behaviour. My analysis of the model indicated that it highly emphasized on employees’ transition into the new organizational status as opposed to other models of organizational change that are proc ess oriented. Surprisingly, I observed that all models of organizational change implement ADKAR’s elements of change either directly or indirectly since all organizational change entails behavioural and psychological transition of employees. With reference to the case study of my group, pay@pump of Caltex, creation of awareness that is an aspect of ADKAR model was instrumental in the implementation of Caltex’s operational changes. Consequently, my adoption of ADKAR’s model was informed by its universal practicality
TV ratings Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words
TV ratings - Coursework Example For example, if channel CBS shows Criminal Minds at 10pm and has a rating of 25 then, according to Nielson, 25% of the household audience is watching the program. In addition, an individual needs to find the market share of a program as it is the estimate percentage of the number of households who have television and are watching the program. For example, if channel ABS airs the program Dance with the stars at 8.00pm and has a market share of 40 this means that 40% of the people watching TV at that particular time are watching the same program. Moreover, to have spot trends in the market help Media Managers identify audience problems. For example, if channel fox airs master chef at 7.00am, which has weak ratings, then there is a possibility that the ratings could recover after some time. This is because the program may be aired at a time when the target audience is not available. Lastly, tracking numbers of people helps to know if people are watching the program. The Nielson report captures viewers of all age groups. However, it may be difficult to know the actual numbers between women and men ages, as much as these numbers matter most to advertisers. The result is that the audience splits due to the gender and age groups, therefore the number of people watching certain programs reduce significantly (Beville, 9). The target audience for most of the top ten programs attracts young families. This is because programs such as modern family, is a family program and the parents together with the kids can watch the program that is suitable for all family viewing. In addition, programs like criminal minds and the big-bang theory allows all members of the family to watch. 18-49 years is the target age of most of the top 10 programs. I feel the target audience for the top 10 shows attracts families because, the programs are friendly to everyone in the family and parents do not have to censor worst scenes,
Saturday, August 24, 2019
The UK Government is Increasing the Retirement Age Literature review
The UK Government is Increasing the Retirement Age - Literature review Example Therefore, increasing the retirement age will mean more advantage to the elderly employees in the UK construction industry, considering that employers are reluctant to offer employments positions to older workers. Age discrimination could worsen, considering the negative attitudes that exist with regards to performance of the aged. Negative attitudes claimed that Low performance of the aged has contributed largely to early retirement among employees (United Nations, 2009, p. 52). The negative attitudes with regards to low performance of the aged could be improved with good performance and contributions of the older employees who have for a long time been denied the opportunity to prove their efficiency at an old age. Employee Age Discrimination According to Lewis, Lewis, and Thornbory (2006, p. 160), older workers are discriminated against on the claims that at an old age, employees tend to have less physical strength and incapability to endure hard conditions in work environments su ch as the construction industry. More to this, the older employees are also discriminated on claims that their cognitive capacity is low compared to younger employees. However, eliminating age discrimination in the UK construction industry would be attracting, motivating, and retaining the aged staffs that are fit for leadership and motivation of the younger employees. More so, employers could gain much reputation as transparent and an equal opportunity employer for development of skills and empowerment to the members. Direct discrimination involves treating individual employee less favorably with regards to their perceived or actual age associated with the individuals where no legitimate aim is justified. Indirect discrimination occurs in situations where policies, procedures and practices that apply to all employees exist, but in specification to the individuals perceived to be old. These practices, procedures, and policies may include application requirements for a particular job that excludes a particular group of disadvantaged individuals, where no legitimate aim is justified. This practice amounts to violation of the law, since the UK legislations demand that employers should not discriminate against employees by their age and incase so, the case must be justifiable fact as a legitimate objective of the organization (Fineman, 2011, p. 59). Harassment implies situations where unwanted behavior towards the aged employees has the purpose and impact of violation of a person’s dignity with regards to intimidation, human degradation, hostility, and humiliation of employees. On the other hand, victimization refers to an unfair treatment brought forward as a complaint by an employee who is regarded to have been treated unfairly based on age. The threat and complaints of age discrimination in the construction industry seem to be rampant at an early age compared to other industries. The increase in the retirement age by the UK government may lead to increas ed case of discrimination against the aging employees. Older workers are often put under pressure by both employers and fellow young employees to retire against their wish (Adams and Beehr, 2003). The UK construction industry is faced by rampant age discrimination claims among employees who are entering their phases of prime
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