Philosophy of Teaching Essay -- Education Learning Careers Essays

Philosophy of Teaching Twelve years ago, I was not interested in becoming a teacher. I was content with my life. Then, I had two wonderful children. As they became school age, my opinion of teachers was immensely altered. I have spent countless hours within my children’s school, became personally connected to the wonderful individuals who were their teachers, and developed a respect for these tireless workers. These individuals have created a desire within me to enhance children’s lives and improve society through education. Children are life’s blessings. All children have the ability to learn. Just as all children are individuals, they also possess diverse individual learning styles. A successful teacher must have the necessary skills and personal drive to recognize these differences in abilities and deliver an appropriate educational experience for all of the students. In order to be a successful teacher, I plan to incorporate four major philosophies into my classroom. They include behaviorism, essentialism, social reconstructionism, and progressivism. I believe a mixture of the four will create an essential environment for the most extensive educational experience that a teacher can offer. First of all, I have chosen behaviorism. Behaviorism was developed mainly by Ivan Pavlov, John B. Watson, and B. F. Skinner. They believed that through conditioning using rewards as well as punishments, educators could establish control over students’ behaviors. Using systems of rules, rewards, and punishments within the classroom is a constructive way to achieve control over the classroom. By producing rewards for the children to encourage appropriate behavior, they would be more likely to strive to be achievers rather than unde... ... updated on the latest methods of teaching so that I can be the successful instructor that I desire to be. Through my children, I have been able to realize that some children are less fortunate than others. Often, children do not have positive role models in their lives. A strong, positive experience in early education is an important building block for encouraging a child who wants to continue the learning experience. My goal with my students is to provide them with a positive role model as well as feed their imaginations. Overall, my philosophy on education is eclectic. I feel that by using many different philosophies as well as methods, I will be a more efficient educator. I will always strive to achieve the ideal classroom for my students to be successful in their education. My students’ success will be an indicator of my success as a qualified educator.

Indigenous People :: essays research papers

Indigenous People Indigenous people are those that are native to an area. Throughout the world, there are many groups or tribes of people that have been taken over by the Europeans in their early conquests throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by immigrating groups of individuals, and by greedy corporate businesses trying to take their land. The people indigenous to Australia, Brazil and South America, and Hawaii are currently fighting for their rights as people: the rights to own land, to be free from prejudice, and to have their lands protected from society. Indigenous People of Brazil and South America The people indigenous to Brazil and South America are an extremely noteworthy group. The Brazilian population originally derives from four ethnic sources. From the beginning, the country has been a mixture of many "races" of people. Of these, are the native Indians, the colonizing Portuguese, the enslaved African blacks, and the various immigrant groups from Europe and Asia. Many of the indigenous tribes are quarreling with Brazil's officials and businesses. Rainforests are depleting at a rapid rate and, as they are a home to many indigenous tribes, is causing great turmoil. Although the Constitution of 1988 claims to recognize the indians' "original land rights to the lands they traditionally occupy" and promise that these lands will be "demarcated" and "protected", the Government Agency Funai is charged with the demarcation of of nearly fifty percent of the lands(PeaceNet). The report claims that, "in reality, most most indian lands whether demarcated or not are coveted for some form of development." This claim is substantiated by the fact that "mineral concessions have been made on fifty-eight percent of all demarcated indian lands, while thirteen percent are affected by hydroelectric projects," (PeaceNet) The link between global environmental change and the rights of indigenous populations results from the close relationship between indigenous people's cultural and economic situations and their environmental settings. Therefore, if the environment of the native Indians of Brazil continues to be changed and removed, the people born on these lands will be exterminated out of existence. Additionally, many societal views of the indigenous people is killing them. The Amnesty International report, as commented upon by PeaceNet cites one occasion in which a thirty-five year old Macuxi Indian by the name of Damiao M endes was found lying face down on a muddy riverbank, shot in the neck. Nearby lay his nineteen year-old nephew, murdered by the same means.

Business Simulation Game Essay

The aim of the Competition and Strategy course is to provide students with deep knowledge on strategic decision-making in a business environment and the strategic principles behind it. Within this course my team members Kristijan, Yaniv, George and me (Team KUGY) had the opportunity to apply our academic and theoretical understanding and knowledge in an online business simulation game, wherein we created our own car business and competed on the European car market fictionally. This paper aims to elucidate the advance of our strategic decision-making, observes the reasoning behind it and examines the following implementation of our approach. Founded on the definition of strategy being â€Å"A plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim†, we questioned ourselves in the commencement of the game what our strategy would be (Andrews, 2010). Subsequently, after considering the theories studied in class we decided that we needed to express our own and coherent strate gy in less than 40 words, fitting to the restrictions objective, advantage and scope (Tregoe, Zimmerman, Schuster, 2008). â€Å"Attaining maximised profitability by carefully trying to get to know our customers’ needs, consequently adapting our products to suit their expectations to an extent where we would stop serving and start appreciating, so as to charge a premium price† (Yaniv, George, Kristijan and Ugo). The theoretical model we chose to establish our strategy was Porter’s generic strategy, that led us to a differentiation-focused strategy. Given to Porter, a competitive strategy is about differentiation (Andrews, 2010). Thus we thought that we should differentiate our business best by concentrating on a narrow target, hence, few market segments and decided that differentiation would be our competitive advantage. Furthermore Porter claims that decent strategic decision-making necessitates compromises and is slightly about what not to do rather than what to do (Porter, 1997). Based on this statement and our differentiation-concentrated strategy we decided to serve only 4 out o f 16 offered market segments, medium cars for 25 to 40  year old customers, medium cars for 41 to 55 year old customers, large cars for customers over 55 year old and finally luxurious cars for 41 to 55 year old customers. So as opposed extending our products over the whole market to realise maximised revenue KUGY decided to concentrate on three different segments with customers sharing similar needs, form three strategic business units whose goal it is to get to know the customer’s wants and needs to offer greater customer value and allow us to charge premium prices. Regarding finance, KUGY’s started position was up to  £500 million in the bank. In the first three rounds, KUGY took out two loans in the first 3 rounds so as to have enough capitals to finance our very cost concentrated strategy. Our expenses for research and development, competition market research, product, and marketing were considerable over all five years, which is replicated in significant fixed cost figures over all five years. However the data acquired on market perception and competition allowed us to get more familiar to our customers but also to design our products and put marketing efforts in harmony with thei r needs, by either adding and dropping product features, replacing research investments and distinguishing our products from the competition. Furthermore, KUGY increased the prices of all four models every year, which allowed us to increase revenue progressively over the five years of the game. KUGY has preferred to limit its production to small quantities because a limited target market is one of the most fundamental parameters of a focus strategy (Andrews, 2010). In the segments KUGY served, quantities demanded tend to be small in comparison with segments whose customers demand is based on less price demanding cars. Hence, if revenue is defined as R = Q * P, price was definitely the main factor in creating revenue instead of selling important quantities. KUGY tried to adapt production to such a level where our team would not have any car in stock at the end of each business year and normally succeeded in this concern with minor exceptions. Moreover KUGY tried to decrease its labour cost and invest in automation instead. Our team decided it will suit our company strategy and image and to have three extremely technologized production plants, with small but very skilled labour forces. We achieved further trade-offs concerning our marketing efforts. In regards to the four Ps, including price, product, place and promotion, KUGY took the decision to focus on all four would have opposed our strategy implemented in the  beginning. Hence, we focused our marketing strategy on product and promotion. As previously mentioned, we have invested significant sums in the development of our products, by investing in research and development over the rounds of the game, but also by adding and dropping features into sectors that seemed to be of significance to our customers and hence rose perceived benefits of our products from year to year. In addition to this advertising expenses were similarly high too, because of the fact that KUGY recognized communicating the benefits of both our efforts and our products to generate superior customer value as a first priority. George constantly highlighted that even the greatest product in the car market would not sell if its ascendancy or predominance were not communicated effectively. Given to Porter if a corporation decides upon a generic strategy, the corporation is best informed by thoroughly sticking to this strategy so as to remain differentiated (Andrews, 2010). According fact that we decided to focus on a relatively narrow target market, KUGY decided that trying to study more segments could jeopardize our current business. When presenting a new model KUGY stuck to segments whose customers’ needs are comparable so as to avoid â€Å"being stuck in the middle† as Porter cites it (Andrews, 2010). We all agreed that changing our strategy could lead our team to fail. Regarding the company decisions and overall performance we decided to stick to this strategy. Nevertheless, according to the fact that we defined every model to be one separate market based strategic business unit, the production and marketing activities achieved within the business units varied to an extent. The strategy used to every SBU was also a focus strategy. However the methods used to attain differentiation varied. For instance, we decided to reveal our luxurious car model by using newspapers and dealer incentives instead of TV advertising that we used for our medium and large car models. Additionally, we decided upon less radical price rises for our medium and large cars in comparison with our luxurious model. KUGY’s achievement can be measured thanks to its profits. Furthermore, in the second year, our corporation’s profits have been rising yearly, which signifies a good tendency in achievement. When looking at our overall profit calculation, as Pr = (P*Q – Q*VC – FC), with P (Price), Pr (Profit), Q (Quantities demanded), FC (fixed cost) and VC (variable cost), the most significant factor on revenue was the constant annual price rises as contrasting to  quantities demanded that raised regularly. Concerning the cost, overall cost was mostly defined by elevated fixed costs for marketing/advertising, product research and development, and competition and market research. KUGY’s competitive advantage was based on these considerable investments that allowed us to raise prices. According to the fact that we were making profit, our strategy appeared to work quite well, but it was unexpected to what extent price was receptive when comparing to all the efforts we put into our marketing and products. We were amazed how little we could raise the price keeping in mind how much money and effort we put into perceived customer value/benefits and the quality of our products. It would not have been fair to contest the elasticity used for profit calculations by the creators of the game, according to the fact that we lack the mathematical understanding to do so. Though it was quite disappointing when realising how little difference measures such as increased research and development, optimised marketing efforts and improved features made in comparison to changes in price. After comparing this business game with the real life, businesses that obey to the differentiation focus strategy such as Porsche or LVMH are making a lot of profits. Nevertheless, these firms have been into their business for decades and have invested considerable resources and efforts to attain their profit margins and their position within the market. I assume that if we would have played this business game for a longer period of time, applying a differentiation-focused strategy could have possibly resulted to a higher profit margin overall. However, theory and practice are very different. Particularly in very competitive industries such as the car industry and especially in times of considerable economic fluctuations, price seems to be the main factor when it’s about making purchasing decisions. Moreover, in my opinion, trying to attain maximised profitability by a cost leadership method in this business game is perhaps easier and less time consuming in comparison to KUGY’s strategy according to the fact that the players do not have to change the same amount of parameters and pay as much attention to few variables besides quantit ies demanded and price differences. While observing the data from both competition and market reports, trying to draw conclusions and also conducting endless amounts of test was sometimes very exhausting but at the same time very addictive. I have to admit I have very benefited from contributing in this business game  experience. My group work with George Yaniv and Kristijan was on of the rare first good teamwork experience I had in the last three years at Richmond University and even if we ran into some problems over the simulation game, we always took time to talk about it and try to find solutions to those issues. The fact that we were meeting on a regular basis has really facilitated the cohesion into our group. Moreover, everyone has contributed equally to the overall outcome, concerning creative inputs, estimating data, drawing conclusions and essentially trying to put it into decisions. I sincerely appreciated working with my group members and after every round of the game we sometimes had extra discussions on this topic. We all agreed that the key issue with implementing a strategy was that there is no right answer and hence no fundamental truth in this topic area. There are a lot of different methods to attain profitability and uncountable factors within the ever-changing industry environment that can affect a company’s profitably. When implementing a strategy all those factors need to be taken into consideration so as to allow the company to react properly to modifications in its environment. The theoretical part of implementing a strategy remained difficult, while the practical achievement were even harder. When KUGY understood that we could not be able to raise prices to the extent we hunted so as to to attain estimated profit margins, we started to question our approach and wondered if the decisions we took in the beginning were still suitable. We finally decided to stick to our strategy and accomplished a reasonable work with it even if it could have been better, but especially after we ended round three with a important loss, I really felt like we were not applying the good strategy and after brainstorming with our team and while everyone was trying to convince each other what to do we finally decided to stick to our first plan. I believe that managers in real firms who need to communicate and defend their strategic decision to their superiors, board of directors or employees cope with real difficulties. However, contributing in this business simulation game was a fun and very addictive experience and I really think I benefited a lot from it. I also hope that the experience I gained from it will at some point be useful in the future me when I will have to take my first strategic decisions. Bibliography Tregoe, B., Zimmerman, J., Schuster, S., 2008. Top Management Strategy? Harvard Business Review April 2008. Available at: http://www.nickols.us/strategy_definitions.pdf/ [Accessed 13 April 2014] Andrews, K., 2010. The Concept of Corporate Strategy, 3rd Edition. Financial Times Prentice Hall. [Accessed 13 April 2014] Porter, E., 1997. What is Strategy? Harvard Business Review Nov-Dec2008. Available at: http://www.nickols.us/strategy_definitions.pdf [Accessed 13 April 2014]

The Effects of Incarceration

The Effects of Incarceration Dionne Lee Nov. 19, 2012 Social Problems Incarceration can be devastating on everybody’s lives. Not only it affects the person that is actually in jail, but it affects his or her loved ones. First, it puts a strain on the family finances once a family member is incarcerated. Second, it causes problems in relationships, whether it is girlfriend or wife. Third, it causes emotional strain, especially if he or she has a long time to serve.According to Macionis, the incarceration rate in 2008 for the United States was 762 people for every 100,000 in the population and among all the nations of the world, this country has the highest share of its people in prison. Having a loved one incarcerated can be very strenuous on the family’s finances. Learning from personal experience, it can almost put one in bankruptcy. The cost of phone calls is very expensive. It can almost get up into the hundreds of dollars per month. The person that’s incarcer ated never considers the financial stain that it has on the family.The only thing that is considered is being in contact with his or her family, no matter what the cost maybe. The family is also expected to travel great distances in some cases, which can also become a problem. According to Families Left Behind article, the average distance for an incarcerated family member is 100 miles for men and 160 miles for women. With the cost of gas steadily rising, it would be almost impossible to constantly make regular visits. The single parent is also left to pay all the family bills that were once being paid by both parties.Having an incarcerated loved one also causes problems with his or her relationship. Trust issues begin to develop and this puts a strain on both parties involved. If one is married, this could possibly lead to divorce because eventually the stress will be so great that the one involved will no longer want to go through with this particular life and would want to move o n without the stress of having an incarcerated partner. Married men in prison reach the national 50% divorce rate much more quickly than do men in the general population.It is difficult to carry out intimate relationships from prison due to limited contact and communication. Lastly, emotions begin to come into play. If the loved one has been incarcerated for a long period of time, the emotional part of their relationship wears down. The â€Å"prison mask† is a common syndrome that develops; the mask is the emotional flatness men take on when they suppress emotions and withdraw from healthy social interactions. To survive in an often brutal environment, prisoners may develop hyper-masculinity, which glorifies force and domination in relations with others.Finally, many prisoners are plagued by feelings of low self-worth and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (Haney, 2001). All of these psychological changes, which may be necessary for survival in the prison environment, can impede intimate relationships. In conclusion, incarceration can be tough on anyone who’s involved. It puts a strain on finances, relationships, and emotions. It’s a very tough road to go through and some make it through it and others don’t. The one who really takes a hard hit from all this are the children that’s involved.They have to learn to deal with the fact that they have a parent that’s incarcerated. The parent that’s left behind has to deal with all of the emotional ups and downs of the children and the financial burdens of the household. He or she has to play both parenting roles, which causes a lot of emotional wear and tear on their psychological being. Therefore, this causes resentment towards the absent parent and once this happens the family that once was, no longer exists. Reference Page Bibliography (n. d. ). The Effects Of Incarceration on Intimate Relationships. Macionis, J. J. (2010).Social Problems. (October 2003). Fam ilies Left Behind: The Hidden Coat Of Incarceration and Reentry. ——————————————– [ 1 ]. , the incarceration rate in 2008 for the United States was 762 people for every 100,000 in the population and among all the nations of the world, this country has the highest share of its people in prison [ 2 ]. . Married men in prison reach the national 50% divorce rate much more quickly than do men in the general population. It is difficult to carry out intimate relationships from prison due to limited contact and communication. 3 ]. . The â€Å"prison mask† is a common syndrome that develops; the mask is the emotional flatness men take on when they suppress emotions and withdraw from healthy social interactions. To survive in an often brutal environment, prisoners may develop hyper-masculinity, which glorifies force and domination in relations with others. Finally, many prisoners are plagued by feelings of low self-worth and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (Haney, 2001). All of these psychological changes, which may be necessary for survival in the prison environment, can impede intimate relationships.

Qualites of an Effective Helper

QUALITES OF AN EFFECTIVE HELPER I believe that ill be an effective helper because I am caring trustful honest and open minded. I also know What its like self , family problems I also know the feelings of being unwanted and unloved is so Powerful that its hard to over come. I am motivated by desire to help all types of people work thought their problems no matter how big or little they are. The qualities that I have that will make me an effective helper are that I am a good listener, I am open- minded about all most everything even if I don’t really understand.I am honest and I don’t mind telling the truth to someone even if it hurts their feelings sometimes people need to hear the truth it helps them see it through someone’s else’s eyes, but I also know when to be respectful to other people needs, beliefs and values. I have had some personal problems that I think other people may have, I don’t mind sharing them with a client to show them that I have been down that road in life and with sharing I would hope that it will help our relationship.I don’t like to judge people because at some point in life everyone has had some kinds of problems and I have no right to judge we are all human we all live and learn. I have an happy go lucky presonallalliti so smiling and showing that I care comes easy for me, I have no problem putting myself on the spot to break the ice with a client. I am a patience person, I know that time is the key to help out with the relationship,, I know that it is hard to open up to someone that you think will judge you. I believe that helping a client find forgiveness it the key to most problems and that forgiving ourselves is one of the hardest things to do.I believe that everyone should have respect for all and be understanding, I try to understand everyone’s views, values and beliefs but when it comes to someone that has sexual abuse or killed a child would be really hard for me because I see ch ildren as the best gift in life, I don’t understand how any one would want to hurt them in any way. I know that they may have had it done to them . If I had to work with that has done one of those thing I would try really hard to put my feelings aside as best as I could. Nicki Prudhomme

Automobile and Tucker Essay

The movie, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, is the story of a man named Preston Tucker and takes place in the 1940’s. Preston Tucker’s dream was to design and build the greatest automobile ever made. At first, he began by bringing home drawings of his dream car, which was to be called the Tucker Torpedo. He showed the drawings to a man who would eventually become his partner, Abe. Initially, Abe doesn’t like the idea of building a car, but he didn’t know anything about cars. Tucker placed an advertisement in a magazine about his car, and the public became excited. The car would have an engine in the rear, a middle headlight that turned with the car, and a windshield that would pop out when the car was in a wreck. In the meantime, Robert Bennington, who was the CEO of Ford, became worried that the Tucker Torpedo may put Ford out of business, so Bennington made a deal with him to allow him to buy a plant to build the car in. This also gave Ford a reason to be involved in building the car. The deal stated that Tucker must make at least fifty cars in one year in order to keep the plant, and the first car needed to be presented to the public within sixty days. Abe invested $6,000 to help Tucker build the first car. On the day of the presentation, the car was built but had no engine. Therefore, they had some problems getting it on stage, but once it was on stage, the thousands of people who attended the presentation cheered. After that, Bennington announced to Tucker that he wanted to change the car. He didn’t want the engine in the rear of the car, and since the ? Big 3†², the three largest automobile makers in the US, were buying all of the steel, there was not enough for Tucker to buy to build his cars. Tucker protested the ? Big 3†². A man named Howard Hughes, who owned a steel company, told Tucker about a helicopter company who needed to sell steel. So Tucker bought a helicopter engine and converted it to a car engine, and the car worked. After Tucker protested the ? Big 3†², he was spied on by people who worked for the ? Big 3†² companies. They accused him of not running his business properly, but it was not true. Abe got scared because he had already served three years in prison for bank fraud and did not want to get caught up in another mess, so he resigned. Then, there were commercials out that told the public that Tucker’s car was built piece by piece from a junkyard. Eventually, the government started a full investigation on Tucker and charged him with fraud. Tucker lost most of his investors from this, and had already spent too much money trying to build the car. He did make all the cars, but he did not make the fifty car minimum in time and lost his plant. He was found not guilty of fraud, but after all the bad publicity, people no longer wanted the cars, and Tucker had lost a lot of money, so no more cars were ever made. Today, some of Tucker’s Torpedo’s are still around; some are in museums, and some of them even still run. After watching the movie, I researched the Tucker Tornado on the Internet. One source, The History of the Tucker 48, at www. gizmohighway. com, says that the car actually had additional features not mentioned in the movie. In addition to the turning headlight, rear engine and the windshield that would pop out, the Tucker Torpedo also had more room inside the car and padded steering wheels and dashboards. Another source, 1946 Tucker Torpedo, at www.cybersteering. com, also says that Tucker applied for a $30 million loan before he was accused of fraud and that in 1956, Tucker died of lung cancer in Brazil while trying to build another car, the Carioca. I also found in the open letter from Preston Tucker, at www. tuckerclub. org, that this is a letter that Preston Tucker wrote to protest the other automobile companies and the investigations that eventually killed his company. In it he says that he actually had 1,872 Tucker dealers and almost 50,000 investors that put $25 million into his company. The definition of an entrepreneurship is a person who organizes and manages a business, assuming the risk for the sake of a profit. Preston Tucker started a company and wanted to build a car for Americans knowing that it would take a lot of money that he did not have. He organized and managed the business and assumed the risk of losing a lot of money for a lot of people. I think that Tucker was not treated fairly by his competition. New entrepreneurs like Preston Tucker should be given the same fair chance to build a business just like the others had to build theirs.

An Overview Of Quality By Design Engineering Essay

An Overview Of Quality By Design Engineering Essay Since there is immense competition globally and growing impact of Information technology, the pharmaceutical industry should need to improve its performance. The industry should implement newer technologies that can effectively reduce cost of production and at the same time improves product quality and regulatory compliance. Quality by Design is a newer approach that has been offered by the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) which if understood well and implemented properly can save considerable amount of time and cost and at the same time can improve final product quality and regulatory compliance which can increase the speed of product to reach in to the market. This article discusses the background of quality by design concept, Building blocks of Quality by Design, and its approach across the product life span and benefits that it offers. Introduction: In 2002, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a guidance document for pharmaceutical companies o n cGMP for the 21st century. This guidance document expressed a strong desire that companies should build quality, safety and efficacy in to their product. This concept is now known as Quality by Design (QbD). Till now, the meaning, benefits and impact of quality by design is confusing to many people. Some says that it is a newer way to develop drugs, biologics and devices; some says that it can shorten the production cycle; some says that it provides more business flexibility but no one knows what it is exactly. Some people do not even know that where, when and how should it be applied? Initially there are so many companies who tried to adopt Quality by Design concept but confusion gave way to frustration. Background of Quality by Design: Quality by design (QbD) is the concept first developed by the famous quality expert named Joseph M. Juran in his 1992 book called â€Å"The New Steps for Planning Quality in to Goods and Services†. He believed that quality could be planned in the very first stage of the production rather than final testing. The concept was first used in automobile industry. There is one article published in June 2007 titled â€Å"Elucidation: Lessons from the Auto Industry† says that Toyota Automobiles was the first company who implemented many Quality by Design concept to improve their automobiles in 1970s. That is why we can say that Quality by Design concept is new only for FDA regulated industries and not for other industries like technology, aeronautics, telecommunications etc. In other words, we can say that the computer we use, the phone we answer, the airplane we ride, the car we drive and the camera we use are all products of Quality by Design but we cannot say that whatever tablet we ingest and whatever biologics we use are the products of Quality by Design. In 1990s, many of the medical device manufacturing company has implemented Quality by Design aspect which resulted in reduced risk and manufacturing cost and at t he same time increased patient safety and product efficacy. From the success of QbD aspect in medical device manufacturing, the FDA officials felt that this concept has to be applied to drugs and biologics also. So, the internal discussion in FDA started in late 1990s and finally they published a concept paper in 2002 on cGMP in 21st century. With the huge help of some pharmaceutical companies, pilot programs were started to share the Quality by Design application and process understanding with the other companies.