Analysis of Professional Development Plan Essay Example for Free

Analysis of Professional Development Plan Essay The definition of professional development varies in school districts and educators agree that the term is ever changing and involves the use of technology. Some educators have said that the term has an operational definition. In the article, key design factors in durable instructional technology professional development, author John Wells offers the following definition for educators within the context of the technological age:Professional development†¦goes beyond the term training with its implications of learning skills, and encompasses a definition that includes formal and informal means of helping teachers not only learn new skills, but also develop new insights into pedagogy and their own practices, and explore new or advanced understandings of content and resources. [This] definition of professional development includes support for teachers as they encounter the challenges that come with putting into practice their evolving understanding about the use of technology to support inquiry-based learning (p.2). Professional development may encompass various characteristics such as goals and outcomes aligned to the districts, relevant topics in trainings, opportunities for staff collaboration, development maintained by an on-site coordinator, high quality and professional training and evaluations to determine effectiveness of program. James Polk, author of traits of effective teachers, states, the need for a strong professional development program is well established in research (p.2). Mr. Polk (2006) cites a recent study of factors contributing to three aspects of the teaching process that, teachers ranked professional development in the top third of importance on each aspect (p. 2). In analyzing the professional development plan of my school district, Richland County School District One, I noticed several issues that were identified by Mr. Polk. Mr. Polk outlined several problems associated with the traditional in-service programs that are deemed ineffective. Mr. Polk (2006) states that:assumptions, such as periodic in-service being sufficient to develop new teaching methods and improve practice, teachers being able to learn by listening to a speaker, and professional development being a luxury  rather than an integral part of district improvement, are all negating factors in the implementation of patronization of training programs (p. 2). Mr. Polk further identifies research-based, more effective assumptions such as professional development should be perpetual, and school change involves external and internal organizations and personal development. In professional development programs, the instructions to teacher should be demonstrated or modeled, practiced with feedback and professional development should be integrated into the daily life of teachers. Mr. Polk (2006) states that if professional growth rests solely on bimonthly, two-hour in-service sessions after the students are dismissed early, then any training received will unlikely be reflected in student mastery (p.2). Richland County School District Ones (RSDI) professional development program has several components such as the Plan Do Check Act (PDCA), Avatar, and classroom walkthrough. According to the Richland County School District Ones website, Plan Do Check Act is used in designing curriculum and delivering classroom instruction, in providing student support services, staff goal setting and evaluation, developing any new program, product or process design, planning strategically and starting a new improvement project or implementing any change. The Plan component is identifying the learning problem and gathering the needed data. The Do component is analyzing the causes and implementing the plan on a trial of pilot basis. The Check component of PDCA is gathering the data results of the solution and analyzing the data. The Act component is implementing the instruction for all students and modifying the improvement plan. Avatar is the districts professional development management system that allows for teaches to sign up for trainings offered by the district. All the trainings are offered after school or in the summer; this contradicts the recommendation offered by Mr. Polk that professional development should be integrated into the daily life of the teacher during the school day. The classroom walkthrough team is a district employee, the principal, assistant principal, and the professional development on-site coordinator. The team conducts the classroom walkthrough by observing the instructional strategies of a teacher for a total of five to ten minutes. The teacher is not offered prior information or feedback on the classroom walkthrough to correct or enhance his instructional strategies. The Richland County School District One website offers the levels of engagement of the students who the team should identify during the walkthrough. The levels; Authentic Engagement, Ritual Engagement, Passive Compliance, Retreatism, and Rebellion and their definitions are cited on the web page but teachers would not know their level due to lack of communication from the classroom walkthrough team. The problem of the poor quality of professional development was identified in the South Carolina schools that I have researched. For example, in Richland County School District Two, the districts professional development program mirrors Richland County School District Ones program by only focusing on providing monthly in-service trainings on half-days for students or summer in-service activities. Both districts also provide the occasional monthly state or national conference in the teachers subject area and online training, i.e. Educational Television. Richland County School District Two differs by offering their Richland School District Twos Technology Education Collaboration Mentors Program. The program is for school-selected representatives from every school in the district. The program focuses on helping fellow staff members develop personal technology skills and integrate technology into their classroom. Besides this program, I was unable to find any difference from the two dist ricts and the professional development training. Richland County School District One and District Two professional development programs consist of low quality training once a month, irrelevant topics, lack of feedback from teachers and administrators, and concepts but lack of implementation. The districts programs lack the scope, high quality, accessibility (besides the Avatar system in RSDI), relevancy, and feedback from students. The majority of the districts professional development program is the poor quality program described by Mr. Polk; two-hour  in-service sessions after the students are dismissed early from school. Reference Polk, J. (2006). Traits of effective teachers. Arts Education Policy Review, 107, p. 23-30. Wells, J. (2007). Key design factors in durable instructional technology professional development. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 15, p. 101-123. www.richlandone.org/ipda/Training_Tools/pdca.htm and www.richland2.org

Computer Communications :: essays research papers

Computer Communications Communications. I could barely spell the word, much less comprehend its meaning. Yet when Mrs. Rubin made the announcement about the new club she was starting at the junior high school, it triggered something in my mind. Two weeks later, during the last month of my eighth grade year, I figured it out. I was rummaging through the basement, and I ran across the little blue box that my dad had brought home from work a year earlier. Could this be a modem? I asked Mrs. Rubin about it the next day at school, and when she verified my expectations, I became the first member of Teleport 2000, the only organization in the city dedicated to introducing students to the information highway. This was when 2400-baud was considered state-of-the-art, and telecommunications was still distant from everyday life. But as I incessantly logged onto Cleveland Freenet that summer, sending e-mail and posting usenet news messages until my fingers bled, I began to notice the little things. Electronic mail addresses started popping up on business cards. Those otherwise-incomprehensible computer magazines that my dad brought home from work ran monthly stories on communications-program this, and Internet-system that. Cleveland Freenet's Freeport software began appearing on systems all over the world, in places as far away as Finland and Germany - with free telnet access! I didn't live life as a normal twelve-year-old kid that summer. I sat in front of the monitor twenty-four hours a day, eating my meals from a plate set next to the keyboard, stopping only to sleep. When I went back to school in the fall, I was elected the first president of Teleport 2000, partially because I was the only student in-the school with a freenet account, but mostly because my enthusiasm for this new, exciting world was contagious. Today, as the business world is becoming more aware of the advantages of telecommunications, and the younger generation is becoming more aware of the opportunities, it is successfully being integrated into all aspects of our society. Companies are organizing Local Area Networks and tapping into information resources through internal networking and file sharing, and children of all ages are entertained by the GUI-based commercial systems and amazed by the worldwide system of gopher and search services. As a result, a million more people join the 'net every month, according to a 1994 article by Vic Sussman in U.S. News & World Report. They say that the worldwide community used to double its knowledge every century. Right now, that rate has been reduced to seven years, and is constantly decreasing. I've learned more since I started traveling the information highway

World History: The Worst Dictator of Them All

I will be comparing and contrasting three dictators, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. These three men are considered to be the world’s mass murdering dictator and I would like to investigate which one of them is the worst one of them all. Hitler who was Fuhrer for Germany is infamous for his doings in World War II and his killing of Jewish people. Then there is Stalin who caused the great terror in USSR and used cunning schemes to achieve his goals and was a key person during the Cold War. Finally there is Mao Zedong the great Chinese revolutionist who fought against the Chinese Nationalist Party and changed China in many ways using many social and economic policies. I will be judging â€Å"worst dictator† by the amount of death, social and economic problems caused during their rule and will also consider the rise to their power as a basis to judge these three dictators. I will be giving worst dictator to whoever has the most death and worst social and economic problems considering their position. In the social and economic problems caused it will be mainly be the leader create talking about policies and whether or not it was successful or not. I will also take in the consideration of propaganda used by dictators to influence the people’s trust. Firstly, Mao Zedong the President of the People’s Republic China or formerly known Chairman of the People’s Republic China started out to be a mere librarian working in a Chinese college. He then joins the Chinese communist party that rebels against the existing ruling Nationalist party in China, the KMT. Mao led his rebels across china fighting and running away from the KMT. However in October 1st of 1949 he creates the People’s Republic of China and turns China into communist. Many Chinese liked and followed him due to his status as legendary revolutionist who bettered the poor and fought for the people who could not fight. In 1958, he sets out to do the Great Leap Forward, which was simply put a 5-year plan type of scheme where the goal was to modernize China radically. This reformation involved large agricultural communes and about 75,000 farmers, these communes did their own collective farms and families. Following Marxist principles all wages were equally shared amongst the families in the commune. Each family also received a small strip of land. However by 1962 this reformation stopped due to Soviet Union could not afford to back up China and this failure caused Mao to resign from his post as Chairman of PRC. Many had died of starvation and about 50 million died at this point. Even though he resigned Mao was openly still playing politics, in 1966 he would start an initiative called the Great Cultural Revolution.Ap World History Units 1-3 Study Guide This involved in the Chinese government allowing critics of the government to openly speak out against the government and China. This was totally against what Mao had installed when he was Chairman, he took away all forms of freedom of speech and had installed many Marxist ideas that were implied by Soviet Union. After the critics finished criticizing the government and Mao, he gathered up college students and made them attack the critics. Proclaiming that these student body were the Red Guard, who had a responsibility to protect China, Mao started ordering unexplainable orders. During this time there was a politician by the name of Liu Shiaoqi who had notions of wage differentiation and freedom of speech. Mao gave out orders such as banning education, never to consider intellectuals as superiors, and killed roughly around 78 million Chinese people by this time (including Tibet incident). However this was all indirect killing. He then gave almost all his power to the Gang of Four who caused many troubles and the Chinese public despised them. Everyone liked Mao even though he killed so many people and caused so many disturbances. His image as great revolutionary leader is still believed today by many Chinese people and much of his wrongdoings is erased from Chinese history. Mao Zedong’s points are his mass murder of his own people and destruction of class system, which caused many problems, while rising to power his cunning ideas and tactics are admirable, and he always fought for the peasants at all times which is considered as a good thing. Even though he killed many people all these killings were accidental or more like unplanned. He also had a cult of personality, which still exists today. Next is Josef Stalin the General secretary of the Central Committee of the communist Party. This man succeeded Lenin who was the leader of USSR and first ever man to successfully implement communism into a country and was considered a Great revolutionist. He rose to power from his position as a secretary of the party to Leader of USSR by using Lenin’s cult of personality and pretending to be number one disciple. He would team up with his opponents who wanted his position against one main army then change up his teams. In this way he would always be on the winning side and his opponents never considered him a big threat, in this way he tricked and conned his way to become one of the most ruthless leaders USSR has ever seen. After his consolidation of power he soon worked on getting rid of all opponents and all future opponents. He first got rid of Leon Trotsky who was Lenin’s second in command to Mexico. Then one by one he got rid of all intellectuals in USSR. Soon he was the only one in USSR with any proper intellect. This purge of Intellectuals depleted USSR’s brainpower completely. After getting rid of the brainpower in USSR he started to implements plan to modernize USSR. His goal was to be able to stand side by side against the Capitalist nations. To achieve these goals he used death camps called Gulags to maintain a rigid control over all counterrevolutionary actions. Then killed the kulak, landlords who owned farm property, and then killed any peasants have any success. In this way Stalin created a mass famine, which killed 23,000,000 people. Unlike Mao, he did this on purpose due to his fear of counterrevolutionaries and opposition to his power. While Stalin boasted that USSR was having successful economic situations during the Great depression in America parts of Ukraine did not have food and many died. After this incident, he acted a major part in ending the World War II. They defeated the Nazis who invaded European country. However Stalin ordered Russian army to stay put in the country they had just liberated from the Nazis. In this way he was able to procure Satellite states. In the Tehran and Yalta meetings amongst the Big Three, he was able to argue equally amongst Churchill and Roosevelt. In this way he was allowed to keep satellite states however the next American president and Stalin did not get along as well. Eventually Cold war started and Stalin implemented mass production of arms. He died on 1953. Even though his methods were harsh he was able to modernize USSR into a world power that was at one point equal to America. Stalin is still considered as a hero amongst some Russians, this is mainly due to history books in Russia do not talk about Stalin’s misdeeds. His misguided methods were very harsh however it produced results, which Stalin sought for. His mass murder of 23,000,000 people was done on purpose unlike Mao, which makes him a very scary man. Stalin’s personality was one of a calculative and methodical almost like a serial killer. He wanted to satisfy his own goals, which was to be better than the Capitalist nation, mainly America. Stalin’s points are that he killed many people during the modernization of USSR, his cunning methods when he was rising to power, his method to spread communism by using satellite states, and he also made USSR into a Super Power. His successor Nikita had to use De-Stalinization due to Stabilize USSR and make sure it was a safer place to be in. Finally, Adolf Hitler the most famous mass murder and mastermind behind World War II. His genocide of Jewish people is famous amongst all people. He was a painter in Vienna before he formed the Nazi party. He looked for rich patrons to support his work but the Jewish patrons, most patron are Jewish. However they all rejected him and his hatred towards Jewish people started to grow. He then joins a political party and later on forms the Nazi party. He becomes the leader of this party and leads the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. He was arrested in this event and then held at prison for 5 years. He wrote his book â€Å"Mein Kampf † and starts to scheme political methods to get his revenge on the Jews. His pride as Germans started rising and he became very Nationalistic after the Great depression which caused the Germany to fall down with America due to the huge debts owed by Germany given out by America. This was to pay war reparations to other countries, from World War I. Hitler saw this as a sign of weakness on America’s part and started to do special speeches to the German people using carefully rehearsed speeches. In this way the Nazi party was elected to German Reichstag. Soon Hitler massed enough influence to become Chancellor of Germany and switched took over instead for democracy he becomes the Dictator of Germany and creates a one party state. Soon he felt compelled to take back what was rightfully German and took back Rhineland. Then soon took Austria, next came Czechoslovakia and then the other European nations started to feel threatened and attacked Germany. This was the start to World War II however before all this when Hitler was just the President of Germany he used his SS to destroy and harass all Jewish people and objects. He used terms as sub-human and started the mass genocide of Jews in Europe, this lead to about twelve million Jews dead. Hitler was a very nationalistic person and could not be considered sane considering the fact that he took revenge by climbing to the top most position in Germany which he used to say he was against and then killing twelve million innocent Jews are serial killer kind of actions. His points are his sudden rise to power and he was just plain crazy. As a dictator he was just crazy compared to the other two dictators. I think the worst dictator goes to Mao Zedong, due to mass murder of seventy-eight million people and being a former intellectual but still destroying all beings proclaiming to be intelligent is beyond comprehension. Even though he wanted to modernize China and help out the peasants and make everyone equal, there is no point in destroying the education system and making a group of people suffer just to make another group happy. Also the fact that he was a former librarian just makes it all the worse he should have realized the value in having intelligent people. Unlike Hitler who was crazy I think Mao Zedong as he became older became senile and dumb which is why he started the Great Cultural Revolution. Also even though his actions before becoming Chairman of China was very calculative after he became Chairman of China he seems to lack importance to life. He does not care about how many people die just for his policies to work. Which just shows a crazy person or a sick person’s mind. However I believe he just turned senile and slowly lost his edge.

Design Decisions For Understanding Software Architecture

Comparison of Different Architectural Styles Arpita P.Biswas Student Rahul Maheshwari Student Prof. Hema Gaikwad Asst. Professor SICSR SICSR SICSR Abstract: Software architecture is important because of communication among stakeholders, Design decisions for understanding software, transferable design of a system. Software architecture represents a common design of a system that most if not all of the system s stakeholders can use as a basis for mutual understanding, negotiation, agreement, and communication. Software architecture manifests the earliest design decisions about a system, and these early bindings carry weight .It is also the earliest point at which design decisions governing the system to be built can be analyzed. Software architecture constitutes a relatively small, intellectually understandable model for how a system is structured and how its elements work together, and this model is transferable across systems. There are different types of architectural styles: Distributed architecture, data flow architecture, implicit asynchronous architecture, data centered architecture, hierarchical architecture and interacti on oriented architecture. This paper compares all the architectural styles and aspects of comparison are category, styles, advantages, disadvantages, examples. Keywords: Distributed Architecture, Data Flow Architecture, Implicit AsynchronousShow MoreRelatedDesign And Structure Of A Computer System1307 Words   |  6 Pages464 –Software Architecture Assignment-01 B.Vivekanand Cwid: 802327106 1. Architecture: The overall design or structure of a computer system with hardware and the software required to run it. (Or) A fundamental design of computer hardware, software, or both. 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