A teachable pattern describing and recognizing program

The paper discusses an adaptive pattern recognition program that learns to recognize coded line drawings, and to describe the structure of the pattern by giving the hierarchical organization of its subparts, and the spatial relationships between them. Emphasis is on mechanisms that allow learning (directed by feedback from a human trainer), and on the methods of abstracting, storing, and retrieving chunks of graphic information for use in subsequent pattern recognition and description. Some similarities to the perceptual process in humans are noted.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/33007/1/0000391.pd

Leading For The Bottom Line: A View Of Leadership In A Bottom-Line Context

This paper sets out to establish and describe a new approach to leadership called Bottom Line Leadership. The essence of Bottom Line Leadership is that a leader’s most critical responsibility is to clearly identify, communicate and gain buy-in for the ultimate bottom-line objective of the organization he/she leads, subject to constraints imposed by the market and by the organization itself. In comparison to other leadership models that focus on the general attributes or behaviors characterizing effective leaders, Bottom Line Leadership emphasizes the link between an organization’s purpose and a leader’s behavior. The philosophy that serves as the foundation for this article stipulates that employees, in any type of organization, need to be crystal clear about the purpose and bottom-line objective of the organization they work for. Having this clarity of objective enables employees to not only understand the importance of an organization’s strategy and mission; it also allows them to make sound decisions in support of the organization’s goals. We believe that it is essential that leaders in organizations instill this clarity of purpose and help create the conditions that allow people to channel their energies into the appropriate activities. What results from our leadership and management research is a “virtuous circle” model coupled with a checklist that prescribes precisely what Bottom-Line Leaders do. To arrive at our model of Bottom-Line Leadership, we review the teachings of some of the most popular leadership and management thought leaders. We conclude that effective leadership actually encompasses both traditional leadership attributes (create / inspire / influence) and traditional management capabilities (deploy / control / execute). In short, what we find is that Bottom-Line Leaders instill clarity of purpose in their organization, gain commitment to the ultimate bottom-line objective, and engage employees in these efforts. They do this by deploying methods of communication, inspiration and motivation that constantly maintain a connection to, and are aligned with, the ultimate bottom-line objective the organization is striving to achieve. They also work tirelessly to ensure that employees are in a position to make decisions and take actions in manners supporting the bottom-line objective. In our view, leaders are those who do the right things right and get their people to do likewise

From Professional Business Partner to Strategic Talent Leader : What’s Next for Human Resource Management

The HR profession is at a critical inflection point. It can evolve into a true decision science of talent, and aspire to the level of influence of disciplines such as Finance and Marketing, or it can continue the traditional focus on support services and program delivery to organizational clients. In this paper, we suggest that the transition to a decision science is essential and not only feasible, but historically predictable. However, we show that making the transition is not a function of achieving best-practice professional practices. Rather, it requires developing a logical, deep and coherent framework linking organizational talent to strategic success. We show how the evolution of the decision sciences of Finance and Marketing, out of the professional practices of Accounting and Sales, provide the principles to guide the evolution from the current professional practice of HR, to the emerging decision science of talentship

Breaking Through the Noise: Literacy Teachers in the Face of Accountability, Evaluation, and Reform

In an era of increased accountability, it is important to understand how exemplary teachers navigate the demands placed on them by their schools, districts, and states in order to support student learning aligned with their beliefs of effective instruction. To understand these negotiations, tensions facing exemplary literacy teachers were examined through a qualitative interview study. Participants included nineteen experienced PK-6th grade teachers from across the U.S. Results of the study indicate that teachers experience discrepancies between their beliefs and state and local mandates, and they discuss a variety of strategies for negotiating these discrepancies. Findings suggest that schools can support effective literacy instruction by cultivating cultures of autonomy for teachers and strengthening teachers’ sense of agency

Mind Maps: Useful Schematic Tool For Organizing And Integrating Concepts Of Complex Patient Care In The Clinic And Classroom

Academicians are always trying to answer the question, “What is the most effective way to teach?” Finding the answer to this question is no easy task but recognizing that each teachable moment must be shaped based upon the learner, task, and the environment enable the academician to consider viable teaching strategies that would promote the learning goals. The purposes of this paper are first, to describe one teaching strategy “Mind Mapping Learning Technique (MMLT)”; second, to provide an understanding of how the MMLT is used to promote critical thinking skills in graduate students; and finally, to assess students perceptions regarding the use of the mind mapping learning technique as a tool to enable them to better organize, prioritize, and integrate material presented in a course

EXAMINING SCHOOL READINESS

This research study was conducted to provide information on school readiness. While there is no national definition for school readiness, states and organizations have developed various definitions to highlight readiness skills that have been deemed important for kindergarteners. The early childhood developmental domains that are often cited in these individual definitions are physical (fine/gross motor), social-emotional, cognition (academics), and communication skills. By considering a holistic approach of school readiness, a child’s development is not isolated to mastering one domain to be “ready” for school. While most states do not have a statutory school readiness definition, many have been measuring school readiness skills for several years. In the 1980’s, a number of states screened or tested children’s readiness skills using standardized assessments before kindergarten entry. In the 1990’s, the attention moved from using a child’s score to determine their placement to assessing a child’s strengths and weaknesses in various skill areas that were associated with identified school readiness criteria. Over the last few years, the focus has continued to shift to include monitoring state-wide school readiness levels and guiding planning and instruction. With no universal definition of school readiness, no universal school readiness measurement instrument exists. However, there are school readiness instruments currently being developed to address the needs of states and school districts. The need for reliable and valid instruments to focus on the various developmental skill levels of young children across domains is apparent. The school readiness instrument, the AEPS (Assessment Evaluation Programming System)-3 Ready, Set 4.0, is being developed to do just that, providing a holistic approach to measuring school readiness. Skills in the following areas are to be assessed on the AEPS-3 Ready, Set 4.0: gross motor, fine motor, adaptive, cognitive, social-communication, social-emotional, literacy, and math. The instrument is to be used by kindergarten teachers to access students in the categories listed above once the school year starts. The information gathered from the AEPS-3 Ready, Set 4.0 would provide teachers with authentic, holistic data on the school readiness skills of children in their class. Through teacher surveys, this school readiness study aimed to answer if field users agreed on the content of the AEPS Ready, Set 4.0 in terms of sequence, breadth, clarity, relevance, and functionality and if field users agreed on the scoring, item and criteria, and usefulness of the AEPS Ready, Set 4.0 for its intended purposes

Understanding Recent Spikes and Longer Trends in American Murders

On September 7, 2016, four of the nation’s newspapers of record weighed in on the connected crises in crime and policing. The New York Times revealed the tensions between the Mayor’s office in Chicago and several community and professional groups over a plan to overhaul Chicago’s police disciplinary board – a plan developed in the wake of the shooting of an unarmed teenager, Laquan McDonald, and the release of a video of that killing. The Wall Street Journal related a vigorous defense of New York City’s “broken windows” policing strategy – a strategy that has been a recurring source of tension between the city’s minority communities and the police, and whose value in crime reduction has been sharply debated. The Washington Post’s lead editorial decried Chicago’s “deadliest month in two decades” that left city officials at odds over the basic elements of public safety policy and strategic responses to the seemingly intractable violence. The Chicago Tribune weighed in as well. In it, Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson declared that the crisis is “not a police issue, it’s a society issue,” pointing to the need for stricter gun controls

Using Case Work as a Pretest to Measure Crisis Leadership Preparedness

Today’s leaders must thrive in a world of turbulence and constant change. Unstable conditions frequently generate crises, emphasizing the need for crisis leadership preparedness, which is missing from many business curricula. Thus, the purpose of this work was to develop a learning module in crisis leadership preparedness. As a baseline measure or pretest, 217 graduate students were asked to analyze two crisis leadership cases during the first week of an entry leadership class. Content analysis provided the method to identify where student analyses fell short. These gaps in learning then informed the creation of student learning objectives. Applying inquiry-based learning, I then suggest instructional methods that I incorporated into an active learning module to better prepare today’s leaders for crisis leadership