A Postcolonial Study of Organizational Culture and Professional Collaborative Practice in a Southeast Asian International School

International School Philippines (ISP) (a pseudonym) is an international school established during an era of colonization in the Philippines. While the school’s mission has evolved, the organization now navigates a complex postcolonial and cross-cultural landscape. This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) problematized the school’s vision of establishing an organizational culture of professional collaborative practice within a culturally diverse teaching faculty. Examining the constructs framing the problem reveals that cross-cultural approaches to human behaviour should consider how individual culture relates to organizational phenomena such as professionalism, collaboration, and leadership. Additionally, leadership approaches chosen to guide organizational change at ISP should be framed in postcolonial and cross-cultural theory. Synthesized through a culturally responsive lens, authentic and adaptive leadership are presented as a singular change leadership approach aligned with ISP’s change context. A critical organizational analysis points to school leadership as the primary driver of organizational change and cultural responsivity as the antecedent to professional collaborative practice in the cross-cultural and postcolonial ISP context. As such, developing culturally responsive leadership throughout the organization is the preferred solution to the problem and the focus of a four-stage change implementation process. Change monitoring—in the form of developmental evaluation (DE) and the plan, do, check, act (PDCA) improvement cycle—and strategic communication are activated throughout the change process. Establishing culturally responsive leadership throughout the organization is believed to be essential to the eventual development of an organizational culture of professional collaborative practice at ISP

Building a prescribed fire program on the Colorado Front Range: the role of landowner engagement

2020 Fall.Includes bibliographical references.Despite recognition of the value of prescribed fire in scientific literature and policy, a number of factors impede its widespread implementation in the United States. Social acceptance of prescribed fire is a key factor, making consistent and effective outreach an important part of efforts to increase prescribed fire implementation. The Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest, located in northern Colorado, has set a goal to increase the level of prescribed burning, on its land and at a larger landscape level when possible. As part of this effort it has been working to improve active stakeholder involvement and education about forest restoration planning and implementation, with special attention paid to those who might be most directly impacted by future prescribed fires. Through a case study on the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest, this thesis analyzes: strategies the USFS and its partners have used to communicate to landowners and meet their goals; challenges and benefits associated with outreach; and how outreach has been perceived by its recipients. To address each of these questions, I interviewed 23 individuals from the US Forest Service, its governmental and non-governmental partners, and community members in the study area. This thesis consists of four chapters: a brief introduction, a report of my findings developed for practitioners, an article intended for submission to a journal, and a conclusion. The US Forest Service report is a technical document which reviews the goals for outreach, strategies employed to achieve those goals, how community members perceived strategies used, and researcher insight into how outreach might be improved for future projects. My findings show that outreach providers in the study area had two primary goals: to garner understanding of and support for forest restoration projects in the community, and to encourage private landowners to consider implementing projects on their own land. These strategies were emphasized differently based on the specific goal and the outreach recipients' phase of learning. The second stand-alone chapter, which will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, offers a comparison of outreach provider and recipient perspectives on goals and outreach strategies used. I found that most of the community members I interviewed perceived a high level of wildfire risk to their homes and other material assets, and that was often their reason for seeking information initially. Providers and recipients of outreach generally perceived that interactive strategies, such as project tours and personal communication, were the most effective in achieving their goals. However, providers faced problems with capacity for this type of outreach, and recipients struggled to find information independently after they had established a general understanding of forest restoration techniques. In each chapter, I offer recommendations for improving future outreach programs based on feedback from interview participants and my own observations. Following initial data collection for this project, a prescribed fire in the study area escaped and was declared a wildfire. I conducted follow-up interviews with 16 of the original 23 interviewees to understand how outreach informed community members before, during, and after the escape, whether changes to the outreach program would or should be made following the escape, and whether community members' perspectives on forest restoration had changed after such an event. My conclusion chapter introduces key findings from these follow-up interviews, and summarizes key findings about initial interviews from the previous two chapters. Key findings in this chapter show that outreach recipients prefer a standardized email notification system no matter what entity is burning, and that those who were supportive of prescribed fire before remained supportive after the escape. Findings from this study can be used to improve the ongoing outreach program in this study area, while adding to existing literature on prescribed fire outreach and informing similar efforts in other locations. Further research in other communities is necessary to identify contextual factors that influenced my findings

Cultivating common ground: the story of food (and the food in stories)

Demystifying the story of food – from seed to store to stomach and how that cycle perpetuates – is a core tenet of food literacy and the central aim of this project. While exposure to environmental issues is critical to developing awareness, young learners are often burdened with crisis-laden facts about the state of our world and our food systems. Approaching difficult subjects using a narrative approach is one way to mitigate this burden. In this project, children’s literature that centres on farms and food production/food gathering in settler and Indigenous contexts is used as a launching pad for discussions about food security. Food is an enduring theme in children’s and young adult literature, and is particularly prevalent in narratives from the past, where food gathering and production are often rooted in their environmental contexts. These food narratives provide a pathway for young readers to critically investigate contemporary environmental concerns from a safe space. This project investigates how children’s literature can be used as part of a critical food pedagogy to enhance the food literacy of young learners and encourage them to find common ground between the physical world and the worlds they read. In locating, analyzing, and experiencing food environments in literature via an affective, indirect approach, food literacy - which is foundational to the development of environmentally responsible behaviour – is enhanced

A Case Study on the Efficacy of STEM Pedagogy in Central New York State: Examining STEM Engagement Gaps Affecting Outcomes for High School Seniors and Post-2007 Educational Leadership Interventions to Reinforce STEM Persistence with Implications of STEM Theoretic Frameworks on Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning

STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) has gained significant notoriety and momentum in recent years. STEM literacy highlights the vital connection between an educated STEM workforce and U.S. national prosperity and leadership. STEM educational and job placement goals have been a national priority for over the past 20 years. However, the STEM gap is widening—contributing to increasing STEM pipeline leakage and the social injustice milieu of a noncompetitive workforce— undermining efforts to create prosperity and sustain global leadership. The pace of STEM jobs filled lags the rate of technological advancement and the surges in skilled STEM labor demand. The aggregate disparity over time has troubling implications. The purpose of the study was to examine the STEM gap touchpoints for a Central New York high school during the transition period upon entering college or the workforce. A qualitative case study used Lesh’s translation model as a research framework. A semi-structured, focus group protocol was employed to gain a fresh perspective on the STEM gap problem and identify purposeful interventions. A major finding was the slow pace of adopting institutional reforms that replaces standardscompetency-based learning with progressive application- and outcome-based pedagogy. The study has implications for school districts, secondary schools, and higher education teacher preparedness programs in STEM pedagogy and curriculum development. A knowledge-based, progressive STEM theoretic framework with pedagogical scaffolding is conceptualized rooted in artificial intelligence and machine learning. The study presents recommendations for school districts, secondary education teachers, state education and legislative leaders, higher education institutions, and future research

Business Models for Sustainable Consumption : Identifying and Overcoming Barriers to Rental and Reuse of Home Furnishings

It is widely recognised that society is consuming at levels and in ways that are unsustainable. Sustainable business models, broadly defined as those that consider economic, ecological and social value, hold promise for shifting consumption patterns. By facilitating activities such as rental and reuse, including second-hand, repair, refurbishment, and upcycling, they can help to provide more sustainable options for consumers to acquire, utilise and dispose of products. This, in turn, can extend product lifetimes, keep products from going to waste, and reduce the need for new production. Yet despite the potential of these business models, there are still relatively few of them in the business-to-consumer market.This thesis aims to understand why we do not see more rental and reuse business models in practice, and how these models can become more prevalent. It does so by addressing two research questions: what barriers rental and reuse business models encounter, and how these barriers can be overcome. It focuses on the home furnishings sector, while also bringing in lessons from and for other consumer goods.Through interviews with consumer goods rental companies, document analysis of company marketing materials, and a case study of Sweden’s pioneering reuse-based shopping mall, ReTuna, the thesis finds that rental and reuse business models encounter a number of barriers regarding finance and economics, product design, capabilities, relationships, consumers, and policy. Home furnishings pose particular challenges due to their bulky nature, wide range of products, and uncertainties regarding consumer use patterns. The thesis also finds strategies through which the barriers can be addressed, including reducing or eliminating the barriers directly through the design of the business models, involving other actors, associating new offerings with concepts that are already familiar to consumers, and outweighing or offsetting the barriers by emphasising added benefits. In addition, it suggests that consumer-related barriers regarding desire for ownership and hygiene concerns about not-new goods may not be as substantial as previous research would imply.The findings in this thesis are relevant for researchers interested in understanding how business models that can facilitate sustainable consumption can become more prevalent, as well as for companies and other societal actors seeking or struggling to offer opportunities for rental and reuse of home furnishings and other consumer goods

A PVS-Simulink Integrated Environment for Model-Based Analysis of Cyber-Physical Systems

This paper presents a methodology, with supporting tool, for formal modeling and analysis of software components in cyber-physical systems. Using our approach, developers can integrate a simulation of logic-based specifications of software components and Simulink models of continuous processes. The integrated simulation is useful to validate the characteristics of discrete system components early in the development process. The same logic-based specifications can also be formally verified using the Prototype Verification System (PVS), to gain additional confidence that the software design complies with specific safety requirements. Modeling patterns are defined for generating the logic-based specifications from the more familiar automata-based formalism. The ultimate aim of this work is to facilitate the introduction of formal verification technologies in the software development process of cyber-physical systems, which typically requires the integrated use of different formalisms and tools. A case study from the medical domain is used to illustrate the approach. A PVS model of a pacemaker is interfaced with a Simulink model of the human heart. The overall cyber-physical system is co-simulated to validate design requirements through exploration of relevant test scenarios. Formal verification with the PVS theorem prover is demonstrated for the pacemaker model for specific safety aspects of the pacemaker design

Requirements-Driven Adaptation of Choreographed Interactions

Electronic services are emerging as the de-facto enabler of interaction interoperability across organization boundaries. Cross-organizational interactions are often “choreographed”, i.e. specified by a messaging protocol from a global point of view independent of the local view of each interacting organization. Local requirements motivating an interaction as well as the global contextual requirements governing the interaction inevitably evolve over time, requiring adaptation of the corresponding interaction protocol. Adaptation of an interaction protocol must ensure the satisfaction of both sets of interaction requirements while maintaining consistency between the global view and the local views of an interaction specification. Such adaptation is not possible with the current state-of-the-art representations of choreographed interactions, as they capture only operational messaging specifications detached from both local organizational requirements as well as global contextual requirements. This thesis presents three novel contributions that tackle adaptation of choreographed interaction protocols: an automated technique for deriving an interaction protocol from requirements, a formalization of consistency between local and global views, and a framework for guiding the adaptation of a choreographed interaction. A choreographed interaction is specified using models of organizational requirements motivating the interaction. We employ the formal semantics embedded in requirements models to automatically derive an interaction protocol. We propose a framework for relating the global and local views of interaction specification and maintaining consistency between them. We develop a metamodel for interaction specification, from which we enumerate adaptation operations. We build a catalogue that provides guidance on performing each operation and propagating changes between the global and local views. These contributions are evaluated using examples from the literature as well as a real-world case study

Virtual Recovery: Bringing the Kingdom to an Online Community

Soon after Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascension, the fledgling church community divided into two camps: One favoring the inclusion of Gentile converts only if they observed traditional Jewish Law and custom (e.g., circumcision) and the other, led by Paul, asserting that following Jesus did not require such formality and legalism. A lengthy debate concluded by reaching into the Gentile community to provide a captivating kingdom message of hope, love, and compassion. Today, the traditional, physical church community faces a growing challenge: reaching into a growing online community by providing a captivating kingdom message, while recognizing that potential recipients of the message may be averse to physical church attendance. Lifehouse Church, in the northern suburbs of Washington, D.C., has wrestled with how it can best address this gap and has undertaken a strategic development plan. This study addresses a potential Lifehouse Church online ministry by reaching both internally and externally via quantitative and qualitative analysis, with a sample population of about 100 and sample size including 38 quantitative responses and eight substantive interviews. The resulting insights offered some important conclusions, including the need for positive, tailored, and targeted messages that resonate with the unique needs of the virtual audience. These conclusions offer a foundation and suggest ample opportunity for future research into how best to bring Christ’s message to the online mission field from a community church forum