Professional Development Program - Essay Example

Professional Development Program Abstract Bass (1990) in ‘Bass and Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership’ said that in his earlier study on leadership studies, the focus was on a descriptive approach, and it was revealed that leadership qualities included the differentiation of superior qualities, personal traits, differing degrees of intelligence, moral force and heredity. However, the third edition of the Leadership Handbook shows signs of shift in principles and method. According to Bass, leaders; be it teachers or managers, have become increasing subject of inquiry. The overall overview of leadership has changed, with emphasis on social, cultural and psychological inquiry. The Handbook pays immense importance to the contribution from cognitive social psychology, and reveals how the social, political, communications and administrative sciences have expanded (Bass B, 1990). Teachers are leaders, and it is they who teach us from the very beginning of our education how to become respected and respectful in society. Teachers find themselves the epicenter of study and focus, and so must be able to identify themselves as role models for others to follow. Knowledge Management (KM) and Information Resource Management (IRM) play an important role in the way a teacher can mould and be respected. This is what the following study seeks to deliver in the interest of leadership. In order to do this, a brief survey instrument was used to identify the type of professional development activities needed to benefit teachers and students. In order to study this, the following criteria were made mandatory: It had to be made for use with high school teachers. It contained 10 agreeable and disagreeable questions The survey would be put forward to every teacher and administrator in the school. The survey was undertaken with the view to provide a summation of what professional development was required at the teaching level Baker and Dwyer in, ‘Effect of Instructional Strategies and Individual Differences: A Meta-Analytic Assessment,’ makes an analysis of the educational objective by conducting a meta-analytic study on 1,341 learners in 11 studies. The groups were put through the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT), made to interact with the same instructional module, and completed the same criterion tests. The study was to assess the effect of the variations within the independent variables in terms of their effects in reducing the effect of learning style achievement differences associated with field independent (FI) and field dependent learners (FD). Though the results were consistent with prior research related to visualization, feedback and rehearsal, the result generated significant hypothesis for the instructional use of varied types of visualization, feedback, rehearsal strategies and presentation mode for reducing achievement differences on different types of educational objectives associated with individual learning styles (Baker R. M and Dwyer F, 2005). 1.0 Introduction Knowledge is the driving force of all living creatures on earth. Without knowledge, life would be void. Distinguishing between the right and wrong would not have been possible without knowledge. It is this knowledge, a form of information, which exists and drives a human being to greater heights. The level of knowledge that an individual derives is subjective, and Knowledge Management forms the structural and functional basis on which Information Management or Information Resource Management is built. Knowledge, as we know is the assimilation of information, and Knowledge Management is the management of this information in a logical sequence. It is such a powerful tool in the repertoire of successful company managers today, that global conglomerates use this tool to create, communicate, and apply in their quest for perfection. Knowledge Management can be defined as the art of creating value of an organization’s intangible assets, such as human centred assets, intellectual property assets, infrastructure assets, and market assets. The idea of employing Knowledge Management to business enterprises is to access cutting knowledge and expertise to create new possibilities that can produce superior performance, develops innovativeness, leverage existing information and facilitates across boundaries to improve organisational goals. Knowledge Management (KM) and Information Resource Management (IRM) involve similar processes such as acquisition, creation, and renewal, archival, dissemination. Even though Knowledge Management has the power to improve performance and assist management in decision making, there remain challenges. These include: 1. Intellectual Capital: Managing tacit knowledge is never easy, as it involves the human mind and cannot be documented. 2. Culture: The prospect of sharing information and job insecurity remains a barrier in the transfer of knowledge. 3. Obsolescence: With advancement of technology, information continuously gets updated, leaving behind recently generated information as obsolete. This makes it imperative to transfer knowledge early to avoid obsoleteness, which is difficult. 4. Overloading: If knowledge is not transferred, the chances of accumulation occur. The obsolete information along with new knowledge thus leads to overload and subsequently backlog. 5. Technology: Technology is the platform to knowledge. The rapid growth of technology helps the development of knowledge to the extent that, unless harnessed properly, this exercise will remain elusive and inconsequential (Knowledge Management, drtc.isibang.ac.in) Thus it is imperative that planning must occur to examine what kind of program development will significantly increase the chances of an organization in achieving its ultimate goal. In this case, I have taken the step to introduce Knowledge Management as the most appropriate course designed to train teachers, and instill in them the confidence to inculcate the same in their students. Development includes first assessing the needs of the specific organization (in this case it’s an educational institution) and devising a plan of correction consisting of expected outcomes, required support and/or activities and the potential impacts or benefits. 2.0 Overview As teachers continue to teach, it is essential that they continue to learn as well. Professional development opportunities provide the needed knowledge and practice that lead to implementation of proven strategies. An important aspect of knowledge management is the adoption of adaptive learning, and generative learning. In adaptive learning, one is inclined to use a successful technology over a period of time, hoping against hope that the product is accepted and in demand over a long period of time. In the early 1960s to late 1970s, most American and British car manufacturers built their cars, big and strong and they did well in the local markets. Americans preferred their cars to be large and safe, rather than small and stylish. This soon changed with the arrival of the Japanese. Japanese were very enterprising and were in tune with the modern world. The rise of petrol played into their hands. Japanese car manufacturers studied the impact of petrol on the people and devised plans to develop smaller cars that were fuel-efficient and very stylish. Manufacturers like Nissan Motors, Honda Motors, Mitsubishi Motors and so on, who produced slightly bigger version of cars, stopped their production and concentrated on R&D. After a while, these manufacturers were able to roll-out smaller and much better looking cars, which immediately caught the attention of the people world-wide. The cars began to sell well and soon dominated the car industry. Americans were left wondering what had hit them. American streets till recently dominated by Fords and Chevrolets, gave way to Hondas, Nissans and Mitsubishis. The Japanese had done their homework. They had studied the customer’s requirement and improved upon their existing infrastructure due to better knowledge management or generative learning, whereas the Americans and British car manufacturers were more inclined to follow their time-tested adaptive learning to generative learning. Generative learning, unlike adaptive learning, required looking at the present world in a different way, whether it meant targeting a customer’s needs or in understanding how to run the business. For years, U.S car manufacturers sought competitive edge over their competitors through aggressive controls on inventory, incentives against overproduction, and rigid adherence to production forecasts, which in itself was quite difficult. Despite the attractive incentive schemes on offer, the Japanese car manufacturers saw the challenge differently and through their innovativeness, eclipsed the American car manufacturers. They realised that eliminating production delays was the key to reducing instability and improving cost, productivity, and services. They worked to build a strong network of suppliers and redesigned physical production processes to mimimise raw material procurement, production set-up, and in-process inventory to attract better customer loyalty (Daryl Morey et al, p.22-23, 2000).1 3.0 Literature Review Before we take a look at what Knowledge Management or Information Resource Management is, a survey was conducted to understand the basis on which further studies could be conducted to understand whether teachers, as they continue to teach, they too imbibe professionalism through continuous learning. The survey included a set of questions (please refer PowerPoint slide 4 and 5). What this Professional Development can do is to make teaching enjoyable and make teachers think and work more positively, thereby enhancing the relationship between teachers and students. Teachers find themselves under severe pressure to perform and walk out of their responsibilities frequently. KM and IRM will not only help new teachers think positively, but they can introduce their learning practices to students too, who will benefit immensely, making teaching and leaning pleasurable. To make this program successful, groups of teachers should be put into groups and made to discuss their problems. Once this is completed, the group must be taught KM and IRM. KM will not only enhance the teachers thinking ability, but will also allow them to explore new avenues that were ignored or unheard of. This interactive session will unfold new ideas and practices that these teachers can use in class and see the difference. The group of teachers can then practice and continue with these practices continuously to make their PD program a success. The result of this practice can be seen from the way students perform in tests and how teachers begin to enjoy teaching. Knowledge Management, a technique most fondly used in production, manufacturing and service industries has not found much relevance in education, till recently. Knowledge Management as we all know, is the technique of using information and knowledge that is accessed to generate outputs that are inherent in any organisational growth. Education, where knowledge is the fulcrum of attention, has failed to fully appreciate the potential of KM. However, with globalization and education forming prominence, knowledge management has come to see enormous potential. In libraries and bookstores, on the teacher’s shelf or the internet, knowledge can be accessed via selection of subjects, such as history, physics, engineering and so on. However, before accessing this so-called knowledge, one needs to understand the need or potential use of this knowledge. Knowledge can be classified according to its value, or anticipated obsolescence, before it is classified under strategy, client value, product development and/or organisational learning. As in the case with education, KM can be labeled under organisational learning, as education imparts knowledge to students who attend institutions; an organisation. In the field of education, knowledge management can be used to describe everything from the application of new technology to harnessing the intellectual capital of students. Knowledge is an ocean of information that can be imparted to students through systematic and analytical methods to reach a higher audience. Technology has developed over the years and with more and more students enrolling for degrees and doctorates through distant education, new methods are needed to address this complexity. Embedded knowledge can be related to the technical or intellectual core of an educational institute’s activity. In education, it is the essential subject knowledge of educators. Educators seek to stress the need to impart knowledge that can be assimilated by students uniformly. Modules that meets the need of students in different parts of the world, teaching apparatus, multi-language converters and satellite communication are all part of knowledge management (Dr Edward Sallis and Gary Jones p.3& 48, 2002). The ability to manage and exploit knowledge remains the main source of competitive advantage for manufacturing industries of the future. Towards this effect, knowledge management will help enhance production management and avoid or minimise losses and weakness that usually come from poor performance. This is equally true when it comes to increased competition and the company’s ability to survive in the global marketplace. Knowledge management helps improve production through the application of core principles. The best production practices worldwide have a common ideology, an ideology based on the investigation in reduction of cycle time, reduction of variability, increase in transparency, and continuous improvement in the production process. The rationale underlying these principles is uniformity, wherein production is an amalgamation of hibernation, transportation, inspection, and transformation. According to this concept, transformation activities are the only ones that actually add value. Hence, all other activities should be reduced or eliminated from the assembly-line to increase the efficiency of transformation activities (Berawi M. A, and Woodhead R. M, 2005)2 In 1993/94 ABB Industry Ltd launched a new DC drive product and production line in their Pitäjänmäki plant in Helsinki, Finland. The product and the assembly were complicated and there were thousands of product variations. It took approximately half an hour for a product to be assembled, as it was done from scratch by a single person. The setting was further complicated by the constant development of product and the production technology due to continuous change. A multimedia based information support system prototype was developed to tackle this problem. Its usability was studied by end user observations (n=4) during orientation (training) and assembly (supporting), interviews and log file analysis (Nieminen et al. 1995)3. The communication network was analysed by interviewing all team members in the supply chain (n=30). 3 years later the line manager was interviewed to get a retrospective view on the system. The findings included: 1. Even experienced assemblers required continuous information on technical details, such as screw sizes, wirings and so on. 2. Quality of the products declined when the system was off-line due to network failure. 3. Management and maintenance of work instructions became easier. 4. Flexibility of the unit improved as quick transfer of people from one task to another became possible. 5. Moving and copying of the production system became easier as the support system allowed the organisation to copy and move the working methods and cultures in addition to hardware. 6. Pictures drew prominence over text and digitised speech. 7. Despite several end users having no previous experience on computers, all users were able to work with the system after only 20 minutes of training. 8. Introduction of the system encountered almost no resistance for change at all. The end users preferred computer based information support to paper based documentation. It remained that despite these changes, information still came directly from the supervisors and product designers. As the products and tasks evolved on a daily basis, the required real-time authoring and upkeep of the multimedia documentation did not always go smoothly (Nieminen M et al, 1995). 4.0 Conclusion We have been able to study three different industries with focus on Knowledge Management. It was found that Knowledge Management has indeed the ingredients to make for a successful overture. Further, we were able to conclude that for a successful introduction of a shop-floor information support system, the following are imperative. These are: 1. A clear definition of the objectives of the new system 2. Solid co-operation between the developers and end users of the system 3. An in-house agent driving the project from conception to end The same principle when applied to teachers can bring good results. As observed in the Power Point Presentation, the school administration should choose to implement appropriate professional development opportunities in order to provide constant growth to their educators. In a time were growth seems to be the goal that everyone is striving to achieve, professional development will build a bridge to achieving that goal. 5.0 References 1.0 Baker R. M., Dwyer. F. (2005), Effect of Instructional Strategies and Individual Differences: A Meta-Analytic Assessment, International Journal of Instructional Media, v32 n1 p69 Wnt 2005, Eric # EJ698803, Journal Articles 2.0 Bass, B. (1990), Bass & Stogdill’s handbook of leadership: Theory, research and managerial applications (3rd edition), New York, NY: The Free Press. 3.0 Berawi M. A., Woodhead R. M. (2005), Application of knowledge management in production management: Research Articles, In Human Factors in Ergonomics & Manufacturing, Volume 15, Issue 3, John Wiley and Sons Ltd, UK ISSN: 1090-8471, Retrieved 5th November 2007, portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1077309.1077310 4.0 Kasvi J.J.J., Nieminen M., Pulkkis A., Vartiainen M. (1998), Knowledge Management on the Shop-Floor, 1995, Retrieved 5th November 2007, www.knowledge.hut.fi/projects/itss/haamahakasvi.htm 5.0 Knowledge Management, retrieved 5th November, 2007, Web site: http:// drtc.isibang.ac.in/~ram/km.pdf 6.0 Morey. D., Thuraisingham. B. M., Maybury. M. T., Knowledge Management: Classic and Contemporary Works, MIT Press, ISBN 0262632616, 2000 7.0 Sallis. Dr. E., Jones. G., Knowledge Management in Education: Enhancing Learning and Education, Routledge, ISBN 0749434953, 2002 Read More