Planning and Preparing for Teaching and Learning Essay

At present my role is of a hairdressing teacher in a further education college. I currently teach hairdressing on the NVQ level 1, 2 and 3 programs. Gravel’s, A (2006, p5) suggests that it is all about helping someone to reach their full potential, whether this is for personal or professional reasons, and for me, helping to make a difference to someone’s life can be very rewarding. Within this assignment I am aiming to discuss the learning outcomes as outlined in Unit 1 – Planning and preparing for teaching and learning to define the roles and responsibilities of a teacher. Reece and Walker (2003, P4) describe a modern teacher as being a facilitator and when comparing a modern teaching role to more traditional teaching methods, I agree that this is true. As the modern role requires the teacher to be able to communicate with the learners in such a way as to inspire and encourage all learners to engage within their chosen subject. To be able to do this is vital when teaching within further education as groups consist of not just different age ranges but also learners from different learning backgrounds, with individual needs and abilities. Due to this diversity, it becomes more important for teachers to explore new and inventive ways when approaching schemes of work and session plans, whilst ensuring it covers all the aims and outcomes of the syllabus set out by the awarding body (VTCT) and follows an internal strategy which is monitored by an external verifier to ensure that standards are being adhered to. By doing this it will ensure that the aims and o bjectives planned in a session are meaningful and relevant to all learners. One of the roles of a teacher is to identify learners’ needs thus ensuring the learners are not only on the correct course but also on the correct level for their ability. It is my responsibility to facilitate initial assessments, assessing and monitoring the various learning styles for each individual learner, taking into consideration the learners prior experiences, knowledge and motivation both academically and within their home life in order for individuals to achieve their full potential. During this initial assessment the learner is encouraged to disclose any disabilities and/or learning difficulties so that any need for additional support may be identified and the appropriate measures can be put into place to support them. This could be in class support, adapted or specialised equipment or resources or referring them to a specialised department for support or guidance. It is also the responsibility of the teacher to know what will need to be disclosed and what is to be kept confidential. Due to government requirements, to improve basic core skills further assessments (BKSB) are carried out which identify learners’ levels in numeracy, literacy and ICT. The completion of these tests allow for any additional learning needs to be identified thus ensuring that support is put into place to assist the learner. This allows for more effective learning to take place and will allow the teacher a deeper insight into the learners’ level of learning therefore allowing the teacher to challenge the more capable learner whilst allowing the less able learner to be encouraged. Another role of the teacher would be to plan for the academic year. This would include producing a scheme of work for each unit covered. The scheme of work is a working document and is frequently evaluated and reflected throughout the year and adapted as I gain a deeper knowledge of each learner’s requirements. This knowledge is gained through the initial assessments which would include a learning style questionnaire, observations carried out during sessions and from each learner’s ILP (individual learning plan) which is a document produced by each individual learner that takes into consideration the learner’s strengths and weaknesses. While more traditional teaching methods are based on the principle that all learners should get equal attention, follow the same curriculum and are assessed at the same level (‘One size fits all’), an ILP presumes that the needs of each individual learner are different, and therefore should be addressed on an individual basis. Research has shown that putting emphasis on the individual learner’s role is vital to a productive learning experience. It is important to take this into consideration when producing resources and session plans to ensure that all sessions are inclusive to all learners. Regularly updating and assessing the individual learner’s ILP enables me to review a learner’s progress, negotiate priorities with the learner and agree with them an individual learning plan. By doing this it will allow the learner to take responsibility for their own education whist ensuring that they are following the same curriculum design. I would then input the individual goals set onto an assessment tracking system (Pro-monitor) this information is available to all teachers in that curriculum area so that they are aware of individual goals set ensuring continuity and in turn creating an assessment cycle action plan for the academic year. This process allows for the learner’s progress to be continually reviewed against the goals that have been set and allows for them to be amended in order to extend. It is the responsibility of the teacher to have a detailed profile of the learners, to allow for differentiation in session plans. The responsibility is to plan lessons that will incorporate varying learning styles to ensure that learners have equal rights to learn. The completion of attendance records, carrying out one to one interviews and clear differentiation sheets for all learners should be completed and regularly updated and records kept. It is the teacher’s responsibility to recognise the limitations and boundaries within their role, therefore referring learners to the relevant departments for support that falls outside of their expertise for example, the ESOL, Learner Support, and Counselling departments. As Dow and Truman said, â€Å"Teachers do not – and certainly should not – act alone, nor should they imagine that there are no limits or boundaries to their responsibilities† (Dow & Truman, 1995). The teacher needs to remember the aim of ’Every Child Matters’ (ECM, 2003) and that every child has the right to learn in a safe learning environment that promotes openness and trust. Ensuring the layout of the classroom is suitable, gives all learners an equal opportunity to engage in activities. However in my specific role as a hairdressing teacher this is not always possible when working in the salon where all learners have individual stations to work at. Whilst this is beneficial for independent learning I always ensure that there is an open space to gather learners for demonstrations and group work.

The Role of Formal and Informal Groups

The Role of Formal and Informal Groups Within the University of Phoenix Online By: Stephen Ruiz MGT 340 – Organization Theory and Behavior December 2011/January 2012 – Online Mondays Professor Robert Schlagheck, MS January 20, 2012 Formal and informal groups play a significant role within The University of Phoenix Online (UOP). A formal group would be â€Å"one defined by the organizations structure, with designated work assignments establishing tasks† (Robbins, 2011, p. 276). A typical organizational chart would be an example of a formal group, where places and roles within a hierarchical organization are clearly defined. An informal group would be â€Å"neither formally structured nor organizationally determined† (Robbins, 2011, p. 276). Informal groups often â€Å"develop around social or project groups† (Schatz, 2012). An example of an informal group could be a few employees who chose to take a walk during their break time each morning. UOP has several formal groups. First, there is a leadership team that is comprised of a Vice President, Senior Directors, Associate Directors and Managers. Their roles are defined and collectively they are in charge of measuring and maximizing productivity and defining organizational objectives. Lately this group has been focusing on employee satisfaction after it was revealed, through employee surveys, that there was a growing dissatisfaction among employees. Things like inflexible work schedules and inconsistent communication from the leadership team were to blame. To improve this situation I would do many of the things this group is doing now but in a more aggressive manner. In addressing the inflexible work schedules, employees are now able to flex time more easily. I would implement alternative work schedules, more specifically, 4-10 work weeks. Regarding the inconsistent communication, we now have all division teleconferences to make the communication more uniform. Again, this strategy has been too infrequent and reactive instead of proactive. I would hold implement more frequent communication opportunities. Perhaps a weekly all finance or all enrollment communication. Next there are work teams. These are formal groups with a manager and ten employees. These team are formed based on the geographical regions that they service. The manager is responsible for motivating and providing support to the team members. The team members or advisors are responsible for assisting students. In my case, processing financial aid files, and providing customer service to students, while maintaining acceptable retention and accounts receivable levels. An improvement I would implement would be similar to the Fiedler model discussed in the text. In the past year, I have had 5 different managers. I would try to establish manager-team that have styles that compliment each other. There are a plethora of informal groups at UOP. These groups are encouraged at UOP. There are reading groups, walking groups, and even a ping pong group to name a few. Personally, I am a member of a small lunch group and a larger social group. The lunch group is made up of 3 others. We all are in the same position and have common interests such as movies and sports. I would refer to these employees as friends. The larger social group is less defined but is a network of past and present team members and we share information, â€Å"the grapevine†. I would refer to these members as acquaintances. In the end, formal and informal groups can be both positive and negative. The structure and defined roles and objectives are positive. Personal conflict and gossip would be examples of negative attributes of groups References Robbins, S. P. & Judge, T. A. (2011). Organizational Behavior. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Educational, Inc. Schatz, T. (2012). Basic Types of Organizational Structure: Formal and Informal. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness. chron. com/basic-types-organizational-structure-formal-informal-982. html

Aging Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Aging - Research Paper Example Aging refers to the biological process of growing old and developing physical characteristics that are associated with old age (Oswald, Jopp, Rott & Wahl, 2011, p 239). Aging is a multidisciplinary phenomenon that encompasses studies from various fields such as biology, genetics, sociology and psychology. Aging can also refer to the individual’s change in roles and responsibilities such as roles towards the family and society. Another meaning of aging is the physical changes that reduce the efficiency of body organ systems such as heart, blood circulation system and lungs. This occurs due to decline in rate of cell replications as an individual gets older (Oswald, Jopp, Rott & Wahl, 2011, p 245). Gerontological nursing refers to the study of the aging processes as individuals progress from middle age to later life. Gerontology studies the mental, physical and social changes associated with older people and changes in social policies aimed at taking care of the aged population (Scheibe & Carstensen, 2010, p 143). Gerontology nursing applies to community nursing through integrating advanced knowledge and skills in delivering quality and safe health care to the aged in the community. The branch of nursing focuses on health screening, counseling, and crisis intervention in order to provide quality care to older people (Oswald, Jopp, Rott & Wahl, 2011, p 248). According to U.S Census Bureau statistics released in 2010, the country’s age composition changed greatly between 2000 and 2010. Individuals aged between 45 to 65 years increased by 31.5 percent and accounts for about 26.4 of the total population. The number of Americans aged 65 years and above numbered 40,267,984 in 2010 and represented almost 12.4percent of the total population (Oswald, Jopp, Rott & Wahl, 2011, p 248). Accordingly, the aged individuals increased by 15.3 percent or 5.4 million citizens since 2010. Surprisingly, there were 53, 364 people aged more than 100 years. Target goals of Healthy People 2010 aims at reducing tooth loss, ensuring the aged receive flu vaccine every year and ensuring 90 percent of adults aged 65 years and older receive pneumonia vaccine. Accordingly, the target goals aim at getting colorectal cancer screening at the age of 50 years and ensuring 70 percent of women receive a mammogram at the age of 40 years. The targets aim at preventing falling through ensuring the aged citizens have healthy bones, increasing leisure and ensuring the aged increase intake of fruits and vegetables (Scheibe & Carstensen, 2010, p 143). There are numerous community issues affecting the elderly population. One of the issues affecting elderly people is poverty since majorities of these individuals depend on social security benefits. Another issue affecting this group is high risk of chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart related diseases. The elderly also suffer from sensory impairments and poor oral health problems such as vision impairment, hear ing impairment and loss of tooth. Other issues include lack of adequate access to vaccinations, poor diet quality, inadequate physical activity, obesity, inadequate physical activity and cigarette smoking behaviors (Scheibe & Carstensen, 2010, p 144). Community nursing practices must offer quality and safe nursing care to the elderly through carrying out an assessment of nursing needs. The assessment phase must collect data about each elderly person, the disease symptoms, surrounding environment such as close family members, access to recreational facilities and income level of the elderly person (Wick, 2010, p 121).

New Business Start Up Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

New Business Start Up - Essay Example As they are planning to introduce a totally new product and brand to consumers, they are anxious about the consumers' response and reaction. For that detailed survey was carried out. It must be notified that Radiant Co. products target skin conscious people of upper middle and upper class. Sample size focused on age groups of 15 onwards. The Survey primarily focused on age level between 15-25 because sun protection and beauty conscious people are mostly found in this age group. But other age groups were also explored to know their behavior. In the soap market many brands dominate the scene, making their presence felt in one way or the other either through aggressive advertising or promotional schemes. LUX dominates the soap market through its outstanding market share, as supported by the survey result its market domination is 51%. LUX with periodical revitalization of its brand has kept the product in the British for a long period of time. Therefore, LUX appears to be the major competition for Hibuty in the soap industry, especially when one of its soap is providing sunscreen formula as an additive feature. Next stands SAFEGUARD, with 23% market share. SAFEGUARD is gaining a lot of popularity as a medicated soap fighting germ all- round -the- clock. There is a future threat to Hibuty of its emerging as a new competitor, although not a direct one as SAFEGUARD presents itself as medicated rather a sun protective soap. Other soaps include Nivea Milk, English Lavender, Safeguard, Lifebouy and Dove. Most Influencing Factors in Soap Purchasing The major influencing factor of potential Hibuty customers, in making their purchasing decision for soap is GOOD QUALITY. 60% of the market gives performance of the soap a priority when buying it. Second most influencing factor determining their soap purchasing decision is brand loyalty with 25% of the market getting affected by it. Third factor being again brand loyalty (23%), fourth most influencing factor is easy availability (30%); fifth most affecting factor is less price (36.5%). Least most influencing factor is status of soap marked as imported (50%). Survey reveals that soap purchasing decision in not at very much influenced by foreign status of the soap. The survey shows that there is opportunity for any soap that offer good quality at reasonable price, potential customers of Hibuty are not very price conscious as they consider LESS PRICE option among the least influencing factors list. Commonly found skin type Survey purports that most common skin type found is oily with 40% of the customers having it. Normal skin types consist of 32% of the market, t-zone or combination skin (13%), sensitive (5%). Preference of fragrance in

Sensory Perception Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Sensory Perception - Essay Example This means that whenever a certain sensation is perceived through the different senses of the body, information becomes processed as per what has already taken place in the past making it an issue of associating events. As a result, this is backed by the Pavlovian theory of reinforcement, and this makes information to be perceived as accurate provided a given stimulus is introduced every time to produced similar effects (Ban & Gantt, 2008). However, this pavlovian theory plays a significant role in labeling sensory information as inaccurate in events when experience contradicts sensory input. In most cases for sensory information to be perceived as inaccurate, a process termed as the construction of doubt takes place within an individual, whereby it creates a break down in the association between stimulus and expected results (Asratyan, 2001). The breakdown in belief takes place slowly and accounts for the largest factor that leads to inaccuracy of sensory information due to the pres ence of contradicting experiences from time to time leading to inconsistencies in perception of stimuli. In order to believe in sensory information, an individual’s intent also features in that it all depends on what the individual expects to perceive or gain from the sensory experience. This can be taken from the psychological situation of the individual making belief in sensory information to be accurate or inaccurate based on their state of being. For example, a fiercely hungry person perceives food on almost all instances including those that have nothing to do with relief from hunger. In addition, the external environment plays a key role in the accuracy, which is especially so in the case of cognitive impenetrability (Barth et al, 2012). The concept of cognitive impenetrability contributes to the inaccuracy of sensory information based on the environment in that the external environment may have objects and aspects that are not apparent to sensory organs, but these, bas ed on experiences are apparent to cognition. Consequently, cognitive impenetrability accounts for data inaccuracy in cases where one does not logically and critically process or analyze sensory information to make an immediate decision. This makes sensory data largely unreliable and invalid in spite of perceiving the immediate environment correctly as per available senses, but in the absence of cognition and experiences. Sensory information can further be made accurate or inaccurate based on confounding of different sensory organs and the data perceived. One sensory organ can pick information correctly, while another can take in information from a different angle making the information conflicting and interpretation becomes difficult. This also makes sensory information processed inaccurate by not following dynamics of the environment and the input of all the senses (Hwang, 2008). Besides the different factors mentioned in influencing the accuracy of sensory information, analysis an d assessment of sensory data, nature and nurture are involved. Nurture plays a large part in interpretation and evaluation of date through application of acquired information and experience in learning, also known as perceptual learning. Nurture allows interpretation of data as per active or passive cognition, in which case it serves to correct internal errors (Barth et al, 2012). These are errors emanating from nature in perception, as nature allows interp

Window Display (Pasta) Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Window Display (Pasta) - Term Paper Example Beginning with the idea of â€Å"fall into CSR†, we wanted to bring together an autumnal atmosphere and a suggestion of serendipity – hence the upside-down trees dropping their leaves on to a representation of academia (the folders). The leaves hint at the significant relationship between nature and consumer/family science, but we wanted to take this suggestion further. We felt that certain aspects of the SCAMPER model – namely Substitute and Reverse – would make this connection much more obvious. The pasta is a substitute for branches; as it is clear that our trees have recently dropped their leaves, we felt that the unpredictable shape of tree branches should be visible, rather than leaving the cardboard tree blank. The shape of the pasta does not exactly mirror the shape of branches, but it evokes a similar atmosphere, and adds greatly to the interest of the branch shapes cut into the cardboard. The way in which we used the Reverse concept of SCAMPER is, I find, delightfully subtle: the pasta is a processed foodstuff, which is glued to the cardboard trees instead of (unprocessed) leaves. The reversal of the typical manufacturing process, again, emphasizes that in CSR we are very aware of the links between processed and unprocessed goods. That said, I feel that one improvement we could have made would be to use a processed good made from leaves, or had the unprocessed goods of pasta in the display. The reason that we decided against this was because the unprocessed ingredients of pasta (flour, water, egg, salt) do not have the same autumnal ideas as leaves and fall. Furthermore, we felt that pasta has certain connotations which we felt would be a suitable presence in our display, particularly in relation to the family part of CSR. Pasta is often referred to as a comfort food, and is evocative of a family home and the commitment that thrives within such an environment. It is also a â€Å"healthy carbohydrate† (Baer-Sinnott) and a good basic staple for

Theology the Church Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Theology the Church - Essay Example All through the world, men of God are renowned as true Prophets in the House, through a mission to envisage the body to be reinstated to the basics of the Apostolic Church that Jesus is building. The Lord is starting to illustrate the body a greater exposure and maturity of this often deserted ministry gift. Popular reconstruction starts with 'tombless' visions, and the separate appearance of an initially 'appearance free' empty tomb story, first in a pre-Marcan form and then as in Mark 16.8. The other evangelists then compile and develop the Marcan material in line with their distinctive redactional emphases. Thus, Matthew's descriptions develop his Jewish apocalyptic eschatology and illustrate the risen Jesus as Lord of the church in its new job to the Gentiles, as also contradicting Jewish opposition. Luke significantly improves the physicality of the renaissance, and highlights Jesus' fulfillment of Scripture as well as the centrality of Jerusalem for the source of a Spirit-filled mission of the church. John's account, marked all through by his high Christology, stresses the trust merit of the apostolic Easter indication and its call to faith in Jesus as Messiah and Son of God, while also rising the compound association between the Beloved Disciple and Simon Peter. Beyond this, lege ndary analysis traces apocryphal and Gnostic accounts with their more and more intricate development of the appearances and conversations of the risen Jesus. For scholarly reforms like this, the earliest customs knew no empty tomb and no appearances. Once such stories had begun to mount up, every new feature was prepared, sometimes more or less ex nihilo, to respond to the instant apologetic and pastoral desires of the evangelist's particular community. As the post-Easter public statement spread from Jews to Gentiles, the other titles developed for Jesus. The inculturation of the gospel in Gentile cultures required using terms that for the people uttered their faith in him as God and redeemer for them, and which in turn augment Christian considerate of the gospel itself. The titles for Jesus in the time of the Apostolic Fathers especially belong here and were very much influenced by the heresies combated. These improvements show that we approach an understanding of God through terms that are known to us as human beings. The more varied and multicultural the people who know Jesus, the more varied and compound will be the terms used to express this knowledge. Hellenistic Christianity lasted till the Vatican II. Simply from this time did Christianity become really a world religion, one that expresses itself in languages and notions of all peoples and cultures. This might explain why images of Christ have multiplied in current years. As marginalized men and women around the world seek to obtain Christ, they find in the gospels, their own cultures and personal experiences appropriate terms for expressing their faith in him. Vatican II supports in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. Because Jesus himself is the locus of God's congregation of humanity to the divine self, he cannot be constrained to any one church set up on a partisan basis. Christ provides the church its basic meaning. In him, the church