Creating Social Learning Opportunities for Elementary Students with Dialogic Discussion

abstract: ABSTRACT It is critical for students to be provided with opportunities to learn in settings that foster their academic growth. It is equally important that schools endeavor to be a place where students’ social and emotional needs are met as well. However, due to lack of funding, over-testing, inappropriate evaluation measures, and other persistent policy pressures, our public schools have often resorted to a focus on raising standardized test scores through direct instruction with an increasingly narrowed curriculum. As a result, schools have often become places in which students, rather than being seen as valued future members of a productive society, are part of the bleak statistics that shine a spotlight on how our schools have failed to motivate and connect with the students of today. Consequently, many educators have come to believe they are not influential enough to make a significant difference, and have resigned themselves to accepting their current situation. The problem with this thinking is that it minimizes the purpose of the job we promised to do – to educate. The innovation I implemented and describe in my dissertation can be characterized with one word – dialogue. Dialogue that occurs for the purpose of understanding and learning more about that which we do not know. In this innovation, I endeavored to demonstrate how social learning by way of dialogic discussion could not only support students’ academic growth, but their social and emotional growth as well. Results from the data collected and analyzed in this study suggest social learning had a highly positive impact both on how students learned and how they viewed themselves as learners. Education is one of the cornerstones of our country. Educational opportunities that help meet the academic and social-emotional needs of students should not be seen as a privilege but rather as a fundamental right for all students. Equally, the right to express one’s thoughts, opinions and ideas is a foundational element in our democratic society. Failing to connect with our students and teach them how to exercise these rights in our classrooms is to fail ourselves as educators.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 201

Values-Based Network Leadership in an Interconnected World

This paper describes values-based network leadership conceptually aligned to systems science, principles of networks, moral and ethical development, and connectivism. Values-based network leadership places importance on a leader\u27s repertoire of skills for stewarding a culture of purpose and calling among distributed teams in a globally interconnected world. Values-based network leadership is applicable for any leader needing to align interdependent effort by networks of teams operating across virtual and physical environments to achieve a collective purpose. An open-learning ecosystem is also described to help leaders address the development of strengths associated with building trust and relationships across networks of teams, aligned under a higher purpose and calling, possessing moral fiber, resilient in the face of complexity, reflectively competent to adapt as interconnected efforts evolve and change within multicultural environments, and able to figure out new ways to do something never done before

New Leaders, New Thoughts: Perspectives on Leadership in the 21st Century

Winona State University\u27s Change Leadership graduate course is comprised of seventeen individuals from different generations, with a broad range of skills, backgrounds, and professional expertise. Despite differences, all share a common goal; the desire to become more effective leaders in today’s evolving world. These 21st Century Leaders study, apply basic theory, and develop skills for management and leadership within organizations. Emerging leaders hope to impact the growth, sustainability, and integrity within those organizations. These New Leaders have studied problems and issues influencing individuals and group behavior within organizations to develop collaborative practices, strategies and to empower and advocate for others. New Leaders, New Thoughts is a collection of theory and perspectives on leadership. “There are many issues facing leadership that make studying leadership a must. For example, being able to relay a task, a process, a vision, a mission, or simply transfer daily events all require what many leaders have a difficult time achieving: effective communication.” -Alex Howell This book was created for the fall 2018 Change Leadership course taught by Dr. Barbara Holmes for the WSU Leadership Education Department.https://openriver.winona.edu/leadershipeducationbooks/1002/thumbnail.jp

Establishing a Data Science for Good Ecosystem: The Case of ATLytiCS

Data science for social good (DSSG) initiatives have been championed as worthy mechanisms for transformative change and social impact. However, researchers have not fully explored the systems by which actors coordinate, access data, determine goals and communicate opportunities for change. We contribute to the information systems ecosystems and the nonprofit volunteering literatures by exploring the ways in which data science volunteers leverage their talents to address social impact goals. We use Atlanta Analytics for Community Service (ATLytiCS), an organization that aids nonprofits and government agencies, as a case study. ATLytiCS represents a rare example of a nonprofit organization (NPO) managed and run by highly-skilled volunteer data scientists within a regionally networked system of actors and institutions. Based on findings from this case, we build a DSSG ecosystem framework to describe and distinguish DSSG ecosystems from related data and entrepreneurial ecosystems

Work Organisation and Innovation - Case Study: Radiometer, Denmark

[Excerpt] Established in 1935 by two engineers, Radiometer invented the world’s first blood gas analyser in 1954 in connection with the struggle against the childhood polio epidemic. This invention resulted in the development of a company that produces medico-technical products and services for hospitals. The company’s headquarters are in Denmark, where the largest group of employees (948) work. Worldwide, Radiometer has a total of 2,300 employees and subsidiary companies in 23 countries

Engagement and temporary teams: considerations for value engineering study teams and facilitators

The purpose of the current research is to contribute to the VE community’s understanding of how the dynamics of temporary teams may influence participant engagement, by answering the question, “what factors impact individual team member engagement on a VE study team?” In today’s business environment, the traditional permanent work team is no longer a reality for many employees (Jacobssen & Hallgren, 2016). Even those who do maintain membership in a permanent team are often tasked with serving on additional committees, task forces and decision-making teams to aid their organization in developing new products or navigating change. Value Engineering (VE) study teams present a unique scenario in which small, in-person teams of technical subject matter experts must solve complex problems in just a few days, having had no previous interaction. These teams can be classified as “temporary.” To understand what factors contribute to a participant’s engagement during a VE study, ten, semi-structured interviews were conducted with VE study team members. Themes from the interview data aligned with the literature’s framing of intellectual, social and affective engagement (Soane et al., 2012). Technical expertise, direct engagement by the facilitator, clear roles, prioritization of teambuilding, and viability of the project, were among the factors cited as impacting team member engagement. Recommendations were made related to prioritizing pre-study activities, creating a VE team member cadre for continued team member development, and setting the tone for engagement. These findings and recommendations may be applied to temporary team settings other than VE teams as well, in terms of the importance of context setting, early team member interaction, psychological membership and psychological safety for team success

Education of Students of the Study Program Informatics in the Field of Corporate Social Responsibility

Universities as the centres of knowledge play an important role in education and  application of the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR). They are not just institutions of higher education and research granting titles but they together educate responsible people with excellent knowledge able to solve questions and problems globally and share their knowledge that the wider community can benefit from. The aim of this article is to show which teaching methods could be used to educate students of the study program Informatics in the field of corporate socialresponsibility in Slovakia. The success of the CSR implementation, to a large extent, depends on the level of involvement of university teachers and appropriate teaching methods they choose. Corporate social responsibly literacy means, that studentwill be able to apply basic concepts years later in situations relevant to their professional personal lifeline

Exploring the critical success factors of virtual-agile IT projects: a grounded theory study

Business dynamics and competition have necessitated IT organizations to use virtual style of working depending on the principles of agile methods. Virtual-agile IT projects are most relevant in the context of software and web development, new product development and information system projects. Organizations where fulfilling the demands of clients, face several complexities during projects; mainly obstructed by differences in location, time, culture and working dynamics etc. This paper aims to explore some useful practices undertaken in IT industry to deal with such criticalities. The research uses qualitative methods and grounded theory methodology to generate emerging themes recognized as codes or concepts; which were further transformed into categories based on their properties and dimensions. Categories or sub-categories identified were arranged using coding paradigm which helped to identify a core-category. Consequently, the relationships were refined, arranged in a unique way in selective coding phase and a storyline was generated elaborating the relationships between various categories, sub-categories and concepts. Finally, a conclusion is made and recommendations are proposed for future research

Rethinking ‘Simplified’ Bookkeeping: A Case Study of the Shared Services Centre

It is more than a decade that the way of organising the bookkeeping function through the shared services model has been widely adopted by organisations. Large multinational companies usually offshore bookkeeping activities to shared services centres (SSCs), established in cheaper locations. However, a phenomenon of SSC bookkeeping is relatively a black-box in academia. Academic literature on bookkeeping practices in recent times, as well as bookkeepers involved, is scarce. In particular, there is a widely held view that activities constituted by this supporting function in this age of advanced computerisation are ‘simplified’ and ‘low-skilled’. Therefore, this thesis explores this relatively-neglected (but important) area in accountancy, with the purpose to enhance understanding of the extent of simplification and deskilling of SSC bookkeeping. By conducting an interpretivist case-study of a SSC in South East Asia, owned by a large European airline, a new perspective on bookkeeping practices is offered. The thesis, theoretically informed by an ‘institutional’ lens of Burns and Scapens (2000), supplemented with a view of new institutional sociology, argues that SSC bookkeeping is not a low-skilled and simple practice, and that there is an incongruence between the widely held perception of simplified bookkeeping and the actual complex nature of (in particular, SSC) bookkeeping practices. Also, this thesis illuminates that the beancounter image does not capture characteristics of bookkeepers in the SSC who are shaped to be mindful, active, adaptive, and socialised. Furthermore, the case study enables us to see the way the bookkeeping function can play an active and influential role, when being a ‘core’ function in the SSC. Indeed, knowledge created by this thesis is original and interesting, since it challenges the widely held perception. Moreover, grounded on the empirical evidence, contributions to Burns and Scapens (2000) and organisational routines research are proposed