Background information on Jo Malone London Essay Example for Free

Background information on Jo Malone London Essay 1.1 JO MALONE LONDON Jo Malone London was originally founded by Joanne Lesley Malone, in her kitchen in 1983. She is a British perfumer and is particularly known for her scented candles. Joanne Lesley Malone had severe dyslexia and left school without any qualifications that, however, did not stop her from creating the company with her mother Eileen. In her early twenties, Joanne Lesley Malone followed in her mother’s footsteps and became a facialist. Unable to afford her own workspace at that time, Joanne Lesley Malone had to work out of her apartment. As her business grew, Joanne Lesley Malone came up with the idea of gifting her clients a small token of appreciation and came up with her very first concoction â€Å"Nutmeg and Ginger’ by mixing batches of bath oil on her stove. Her clients loved it and went back to her to purchase more of her products which made her business grew. Despite having no substantial training, Joanne Lesley Malone began making perfumes as well. Most fragrances would have a complex blend of light, medium and heavy notes, Joanne Lesley Malone’s scents only had one or two notes. After the fledging business took off, Joanne Lesley Malone and her husband found and renovated a London retail space, that became the site of her eponymously named store. Lines of customers formed down when Jo Malone London opened its first outlet at 154 Walton Street, London in 1994. Jo Malone London became popular after Joanne Lesley Malone made an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. In 1999, Joanne Lesley Malone launched her flagship store in London’s Sloane Street. In the same year, although initially reluctant to give up a company no matter what the price, Joanne Lesley Malone eventually sold Jo Malone London to Està ©e Lauder. Joanne Lesley Malone continued to work for the brand as the creative director until 2006, where she sold the company to Està ©e Lauder in its entirety and was barred from creating a new fragrance or skincare line for 5 years due to a non-compete agreement. 1.2 HIERARCHY DESCRIPTION OF LEARNING EXPERIENCE 2.1 JOB RESPONSIBILITIES: DEMONSTRATE THE ABILITY TO PROVIDE INSPIRATIONAL, AUTHENTIC AND PERSONALIZED CUSTOMER SERVICE / IDENTIFYING CUSTOMERS’ NEEDS: Every customer has different needs and wants when they step into the store. As every customer has different preferences, it is essential to personalize the experiences for different customers. To find out what the customers are looking for, we need to ask TED questions. Through the answers the customers give, we will have better insights and understanding about what they are looking for. PROVIDING INFORMATION ON PRODUCTS / EDUCATING CUSTOMERS: Fragrances: As important as sales is, educating the customers is equally crucial. What makes Jo Malone’s colognes so unique is that it is light so it can be layered. They are good on its own but when layered, you will get truly individual effects. Therefore, customers can come up with their own bespoke scents. Candles and diffusers: For every customer that buys the candles and diffusers, our job is to teach them how to use the products. For candles, the customers can only burn for up to four hours and then extinguish it and after burning, the wick of the candle must be trimmed to prevent the candle from tunneling. ASSIST IN DAILY RETAIL OPERATION: Co-ordinate and check merchandise on display: Except for the testers, the products on display are not displayed pieces but actual selling stocks. In Jo Malone London ION Orchard, it often gets busy and customers are always rushing in this fast-paced city so we often do not take the stocks from the cabinets and just sell the products on display instead.During our free time, we will replenish the merchandise on display. By doing so, it would also minimize external theft as we would be able to immediately realize that the product is missing and then report to our superiors and request for them to check the surveillance cameras. By coordinating and checking the merchandise on display, we will also have better insights on approximately how much of each product needs to be reordered. Handle exchanges of merchandise: A lot of the customers that comes to Jo Malone London are customers that are looking for gifts for their family, friends or loved ones. They often do not know what to buy and often purchase the options between our recommendations.To successfully close these deals and not let our potential customers slip out of our hands, we would persuade them to buy by letting them know that we will issue them a sales memo so that the receiver may bring the unused products to exchange for something they like should they not like the gift. DISPLAY PROFESSIONAL IMAGE AND ETIQUETTE: In Jo Malone London, we are required to wear our uniforms, wear formal footwear and put on our aprons and name tags once we are on the sales floor. Grooming is of great importance as it will not only portray our professionalism, our customers will also place their trust in our recommendations when they see how well-dressed we are. What we say to them will seem more professional and convincible to them too. Other than attire-wise, makeup is also required as it would add colors to our face making us look more refreshed and it will also positively affect the perception people has on us. PERFORM DAILY HOUSEKEEPING: As our store is an open layout store with no automatic doors that opens and closes when a customer walks in and out, there is a lot of dust in the store. What adds to this issue is that we have many spotlights in the store which makes the dust a lot more visible. Therefore, it is essential that we wipe the shelves and the tables every morning. On Sunday mornings, we would wipe all products, shelves, and tables. I do not wipe the shelves and tables, it would make our store look dusty, deserted and unsanitary. 2.2 GOOD OR BAD MOMENTS EXPERIENCED GOOD: Seeing the reactions of my customers when I tell them that I am merely an intern. After a few days of the internship, I feel more confident with the amount of knowledge I have which really played a huge part in my ability to persuade customers to purchase. BAD: During our orientation, we were thought to ask TED questions. And then further suggest scents or products to customers based on our insights. But there often are customers that ask what the best sellers are when they step foot in. What makes this situation tricky is the customers because what may be the bestseller may not be what they like. â€Å"May I know what kind of scents you like, miss? Because what may be the bestseller may not be what you would like† would earn me some glares and angry customers that would stomp off. I often encounter such customers and as much as I want to stay unaffected, I really am. 2.3 COLLEAGUES, I HAVE WORKED WITH Stella (Assistant Boutique Manager) Shieh Ling (Senior Stylist, Second In-Charge) Siew Fong (Senior Stylist) Daryl (Senior Stylist) Cheryl (Stylist) Victoria (Intern converted to part-time) Jasmine (Part-timer) Jamie (Part-timer) Sim (Previous stylist) Ivor (Previous part-timer) Ryan (previous part-timer) REFLECTION ON THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE 3.1 THOUGHTS ABOUT THE INTERNSHIP 3.2 POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE THOUGHTS 3.3 WHAT I LEARNT 3.4 SIGNIFICANT LESSONS LEARNT REFERENCES: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Malone_London APPENDIX

Different viewpoints and opinions on education

Different viewpoints and opinions on education Indoctrinational vs. democratic/participatory teaching methods and techniques John Dewey argued that education should use a critical democratic approach to raise student consciousness about values, attitudes and worker responsibilities. He stated that the primary purpose of education in United States was to foster the growth of democratically minded citizens, and Dewey made no distinction in the education of those who would manage the companies and those who would work on the shop floors. Dewey strongly advocated vocational exploration as a means to acquire practical knowledge, apply academic content and examine occupational and societal values. However, he adamantly opposed the use of vocational education as merely trade education as it would overemphasize technical efficiency. If this occurred, and some would argue it has, education would then become an instrument of perpetuating unchanged the existing industrial order of the society, instead of operating as a means of its transformation (Dewey, 1916). Dewey believed that it was educations role to combat soc ial predestination, not contribute to it. In contrast, Charles Prosser and David Snedden advocated an indoctrinational approach for teaching work value and attitudes; students should learn, without question, the ethical standards of dominant society and the professional ethics of the desired professional area (Prosser, 1939). Supporters of this approach believed the primary purpose of public education was the development of human capital for the success of industrial economy. To accomplish this, they argued that scientific management principles, drawn from the industrial sector, were employed in the public school setting, creating a hierarchically structured and production oriented educational system (Spring, 1990). Prossers sixteen theorems of vocational education support this vision of schooling. According to him, vocational educational should replicate the occupational environment (i.e. processes, machinery, tools), emphasize efficiency (e.g. outputs, costs) and teach functioning facts rather than in the mere acquiring of abstract and socially useless knowledge (Prosser Quigley, Vocational education in a democracy, 1949). In the past thirty five years the argument initiated by Dewey, Prosser and Snedden has resurfaced between educational theorists, outside the realm of vocational education, and business leaders concerned about the decline of industrial productivity in industrialized nations. Expanding upon Deweys perspective, these educational theorists have used a socio-political-economic framework to guide their critique. Specifically reproduction theorists have criticized vocational education for transmitting work values and attitudes necessary for a compliant workforce as well as primarily employing indoctrinational pedagogies for work values and attitudes instruction (Bowles Gintis, 1976). Reproduction and critical theorists have argued that the indoctrinational approach is exploitative because it produces attitudes in students that correspond to the type of work in which students will most likely participate upon completion of their formal education (Anyon, 1980); (Giroux, 1983); (Macleod, 1987 ). Another facet of this debate was represented in the report Americas choice: high skills or low wages! which focused on corporate organizational structure and its relationship to worker behaviors (National Center on Education and the Economys Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, 1990). It stated that about 80% of United States companies utilize a pyramidal mass manufacture model that values reliable and compliant workers who perform their tasks almost robot like. This is in contrast to democratically structured organizations that need workers who are adaptable, resourceful, critical and capable of making decisions. While Dewey and critical theorists are concerned primarily with implementing democracy in the schools and the workplace to create a more just and equitable society, the industrial sociological literature has provided evidence that work organizations that employ democratic processes or participatory management also increase worker productivity (Hall, 1987); (J ain, 1980); (Zuboff, 1983). The Commission suggested that, while there is a trend towards companies implementing more participatory management, vocational education needs to teach democratic skills and utilize primarily democratic strategies so that future workers will be prepared to participate in, and assist in transforming companies into high performance organizations. Ineffective learning The nature of work has changed and our understanding of how people learn has also changed. Both developments call into question the organization, goals and pedagogy of our educational system. What makes these developments so powerful is that our new understanding of both work and learning suggest very similar directions for reform. Strengthening the educational system so that it conforms more to the ways people learn will also directly enhance the ability of that system to prepare students for the type of workplaces that are emerging in factories and offices throughout the industrialized world. The following discussion of effective learning emerges from a powerful knowledge base known as cognitive science. From the perspective of cognitive science this discussion purports to underscore two basic points about learning and teaching. First, school routinely and profoundly violates what we know about how people learn effectively and the conditions under which they apply their knowledge appropriately to new situations. Second, these practices seem to permeate all levels and sectors of education and training in developed countries right from elementary grades to corporate training. Mistaken assumption # 1: The educational enterprise assumes that people predictably transfer learning to new situations As a society, we presume that the ultimate point of schooling is to prepare students for effective and responsible functioning outside of school. Accepting this assumption means that we have to confront what is known as the knowledge transfer problem. Knowledge transfer simply means the appropriate use in a new situation of concepts, skills, knowledge and strategies acquired in another. Historically, lower-skilled workers had a very limited need for transfer. Transfer becomes important when you encounter the unfamiliar and non-routine, and lower skilled workers encountered little that was not familiar and did not have the responsibility for handling the non-routine that they did encounter. Goods and services were limited in number, allowing long production runs of the same thing or service and reducing the number of events that have not been previously encountered. Within this limited product or service range, companies organized the work as specialist work workers had responsibility for a narrow range of activity. Supervisors and managers were expected to handle the non-routine events that did occur within this narrow, repetitive world. That is, responsibility for events that required problem solving, judgment, heuristics, analogues, or other mental activities enhanced by the access to knowledge and skills acquired in other situations was detached from lower-skill jobs and vested in middle-skill managerial jobs. However, technological innovations and changed market conditions ushered by globalization and in its wake increased competition means an increased number of non-routine events. Companies in developed countries are gradually shifting from highly specialized and repetitive jobs at lower skill levels toward teams expected to handle a broader range of activities, and they are also increasingly vesting problem-solving, supervisory responsibilities in these teams. Thus, a broader range of workers is being asked to exercise the mental activities enhanced by access to knowledge and skills acquired in other situations. Extensive research, spanning decades, shows that individuals do not predictably transfer knowledge in any of the three situations where transfer should occur. They do not predictably transfer school knowledge to everyday practice (Pea, 1989); (Lave, 1988). They do not predictably transfer sound everyday practice to school endeavors, even when the former seems clearly relevant to the latter. They do not predictably transfer their learning across school subjects. We focus on the first two transfer problems: from school to nonschool and from nonschool to school. Transferring from school to outside of school: This transfer situation is at the heart of schooling. Usually, the major claim for school-type instruction is its generality and power of transfer to situations beyond classroom (Resnick, 1987). The fundamental question is whether knowledge, skills and strategies acquired in formal education in fact get used appropriately in everyday practice. Students in college physics courses designed for physics majors can solve book problems in Newtonian mechanics by rote application of formulae. However, even after instruction, they revert to naÃÆ' ¯ve pre-Newtonian explanations of common physical situations to which their school learning is relevant (diSessa, 1983). Studies of expert radiologists, electronic troubleshooters and lawyers all reveal a syrprising lack of transfer of theoretical principles, processes or skills learned in school to professional practice (Resnick, 1987). For example, Morris and Rouse found that extensive training in electronics and troubleshooting theories provided little knowledge and fewer skills directly applicable to performing electronic troubleshooting (Morris Rouse, 1985) Transferring from outside of school to school: People learn outside of school all the time. The question then is what people do with what they learn outside of school when they move into school. Does sound, everyday practice get transferred to get used in school learning? How does incorrect learning outside school affect correct learning inside school? Dairy workers, although almost errorless in their use of practical arithmetic at work, performed badly in on arithmetic tests with problems like those encountered in their jobs (Scribner Fahrmeir, 1982). Brazilian street vendor children successfully solved 98% of their marketplace transactions, such as calculating total costs and change. When presented with the same transactions in formal arithmetic word problems that provided some descriptive context, the children correctly solved 74% of the problems. Their success rate dropped to 37% when asked to solve the same types of problems when these were presented as mathematical operations without descriptive context (Carraher, Carraher, Schliemann, 1985). Other studies show that training on one version of a logical problem has little, if any, effect on solving an isomorphic version that is represented differently (Hayes Simon, 1977). Teaching children to use general context-independent cognitive strategies has no clear benefits outside the specific domains in which they are taught (Pressley, Snyder, Cariglia-Bull, 1987) Cognitive experts agree that the conditions for transfer are not fully understood. Even though studies cited in previous paragraphs continue to find no evidence of transfer, others identify conditions under which transfer seems to occur (Holyoak, 1985); (Nisbett, Fong, Lehman, Cheng, 1987); (Lehman, Lempert, Nisbett, 1988); (Singley Anderson, 1989). We know that people routinely apply skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic to new situations with some success. These skills are used most effectively in well understood content domains. For example, readers get more out of their reading when they know something about the domain in which they are reading than when they do not. Nonetheless, skills such as reading do let us enter unfamiliar content areas we do use these skills in new situations, and they do help us. At the same time, we also keep finding lack of transfer. We now know that certain practices in school impede learning. More effective learning may not be sufficient for transfer, but poor initial learning will certainly impede it. Mistaken assumption # 2: Learners are best seen as passive vessels into which knowledge is poured In a typical schoolroom or a corporate training session, the teacher or expert faces the learners in the role of knowledge source. The learner is the passive receiver of wisdom a glass into which water is poured. This instructional arrangement comes out of an implicit assumption about the basic purpose of education: the transmission of societys culture from one generation to the next. The concept of transmission implies a one-way flow from the adult members of the society to the societys young, or, from the expert to the novice (Lave, The culture of acquisition and the practice of understanding: Report No. IRL88-0007, 1988). In fact, schooling is often talked about as transmission of canonical knowledge in other words, of an authoritative, structured body of principles, rules and knowledge. Education as canonical transmission thus becomes the conveying of what experts know to be true, rather than a process of inquiry, discovery and wonder. This view of education leads naturally to the student as the receiver of the word, to a lecture mode of teaching, and to the teacher as the controller of the process. This organization of learning, with the teacher as order-giver and the student as order-taker, fits the traditional organization of work for lower-skilled workers in both civilian workplaces and the military. The workers à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ responsibility was à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ to do what he was told [to do by the management] (Callahan, 1962). Ben Hamper, an auto assembly line worker, uses more colorful language: Working the line at G. M. was like being paid to flunk high school for the rest of your life (Marchese, 1991). The assumption that the teacher is the pourer and the student the receptacle has several unfortunate consequences. Passive learning reduces or removes chances for exploration, discovery and invention: Passive learning means that learners do not interact with problems and content and thus do not get the experiential feedback that is key to learning. Students need chances to engage in choice, judgment, control processes and problem formulation; they need chances to commit mistakes. The saying, experience is the best teacher, is borne out by the research you learn what you do. While not sufficient for effective learning, doing is nonetheless necessary. However, schools usually present what is to be learned as a delineated body of knowledge, with the result that students come to regard the subject being studied mathematics, for example as something received, not discovered and as entity to be ingested, rather than a form of activity, argumentation and social discourse. This organization of learning mirrors the traditional organization of work, especially for lower skilled workers. Under the system of industrial management known as scientific management or the Taylor System, each mans task was worked out by the planning department. Each worker received an instruction card which described in minute detail not only what is to be done, but how it is to be done and the exact time allowed for doing it' (Callahan, 1962). This system was highly prescriptive; it left no room for deviation or innovation. Passive learning places control over learning in the teachers, not the learners, hands: Passive learning creates learners dependent on teachers for guidance and feedback, thus undercutting the development of confidence in their own sense making abilities, their initiative and their cognitive executive skills. The example of Brazilian street vendor children may be recalled at this juncture. The researchers found that when the children tried to work school math problems, they did not check the sensibleness of their answers by relating them back to the initial problem. Although virtually errorless in their street math activities, they came with preposterous results for school math problems (Carraher, Carraher, Schliemann, 1985). In a study of supermarket shoppers use of arithmetic, the researchers assessed the shoppers command of structurally similar school math problems. The shoppers spoke with self-deprecation about not having studied math for a long time. Lave clarifies what is happening here. Individuals experience themselves as both subjects and objects in the world. In the supermarket, for example, they see themselves as controlling their activities, interacting with the setting, generating problems in relation [to] the setting, and controlling problem solving processes. In contrast, school à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ create[s] contexts in which children à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ experience themselves as objects, with no control over problems or choice about problem-solving processes (Lave, Cognition in Practice, 1988) in sum, control in the teachers, not the students hands undercuts students trust in their own sense making abilities. As companies have started shifting decision-making power to the shop floor, managers find that workers conditioned to depending on their supervisors telling them what to do are frightened and lack confidence in their ability to solve problems and make decisions. In addition to its effects on confidence, passive learning also undercuts the development of a particular set of higher order cognitive skills called the cognitive self-management, or executive thinking, skills. These are simply the skills that we use to govern our problem-solving attempts. They include goal setting, strategic planning, checking for accurate plan execution, monitoring our progress and evaluating and revising our plans. We now know that those who function as independent and effective learners are people with these skills. However, as Pea has observed, passive learning is disastrous for developing them. Classroom studies of reading, writing, and math and science instruction show that the executive processes for controlling thinking and learning processes are under the teachers control, not the students. These processes seem to get developed when the learning situation is structured to shift control from the teacher to the student, the teacher gradually removing the support that students need initially as they begin to show the ability to work autonomously (Pea, 1989). Passive learning creates motivational and crowd control problems: Jordan describes a Mexican public health training program designed to improve the practice of Mayan midwives. Her analysis spotlights behaviors that American teachers constantly complain about their students (Jordan, 1987). The teaching is organized in a straight didactic material in a mini-lecture format. When these lectures begin, the midwives shift into what Jordan calls their waiting-it-out behavior: they sit impassively, gaze far away, feet dangling, obviously tuned out. This is behavior that one might also observe in other waiting situations, such as when a bus is late or during sermons in church, (p. 3). We see the same behaviors in American third graders. Hass found that students were deeply engaged in team problem-solving during their drill and practice time, but invested little attention or involvement in the teachers instructional sessions. During three weeks of observation, the children did not adopt any of the specific strategies demonstrated by the teacher during general instruction time (Hass, 1988). As teachers know it so well, motivational problems often end up as crowd control problems, as illustrated by the behaviors of different groups of children at a Metropolitan Museum display of Ice Age art and artifacts. Most of the school groups were moved from one exhibit to the next, pausing before each to hear a guides or teachers lecture. Since the children were bunched in front of an exhibit, they could not all hear the lecture, and even when they could, they lacked understanding of the time frames involved or the archaeological significance of bits of bone. Teachers had not set up the museum visit so that students became involved in what they were going to see. Groups were therefore restless and crowd control became the teachers primary concern. One junior high school class behaved very differently, exhibiting a quiet intensity as they moved through the exhibit gallery. They had packets of worksheets with questions about issues and problems that they were expected to solve at the exhibit. Some questions were factual, but most required inference and thought. The students had to figure out for themselves where and what the evidence would be concerning particular questions (Farnham-Diggory, 1990). Motivational and crowd control problems with students have shown up for decades with lower-skilled workers in the forms of high turnover, absenteeism and, in extreme cases, sabotage. Mistaken assumption # 3: Learning is the strengthening of bonds between stimuli and correct responses Based on his animal experiments, the brilliant psychologist Edward Thorndike developed a new theory of learning. As Cremin observed, the theory presumed that learning was the wedding of a specific response to a specific stimulus through a psychological bond in the neural system. The stimulus [S] then regularly called forth the response [R]. the bond between S and R was stamped in by being continually rewarded; an undesired bond was extinguished through punishment or failure (Cremin, 1961). For the purpose of this research, this psychological theory had three major effects. It led to the breakdown of complex ideas and tasks into components, subtasks and items (stimuli) that could be separately trained. It encouraged repetitive training (stamping in). And it led to a focus on the right answer (successful response) and to the counting of correct responses to items and subtasks, a perspective that ended up in psychometrically elegant tests that were considered the scientific way to measure achievement. The result was fractionation: having to learn disconnected subroutines, items and subskills without an understanding of the larger context into which they fit and which gives them meaning. As Farnham-Diggory notes, fractionated instruction maximizes forgetting, inattention and passivity (Farnham-Diggory, 1990). Since children and adults seem to acquire knowledge from active participation in complex and meaningful environments, school programs could hardly have been better designed to prevent a childs natural learning system from operating (p. 146). The phrase a childs natural learning system goes to the heart of why the usual school programs do not meet their own learning objectives well. Human beings even the small child are quintessentially sense-making, problem-solving animals. The word Why is a hallmark of young childrens talk. As a species, we wonder, we are curious and we want to understand. Pechman talks about the child as the meaning maker. Fractionated and decontextualized instruction fails to mobilize this powerful property of human beings in the service of learning (Pechman, 1990). Mistaken assumption # 4: What matters is getting the right answer Bothe the transmission and the behaviorist views of learning place a premium on getting the right answer. A transmission view stresses the ability of the learner to reproduce the Word; a behaviorist view, the ability of the learner to generate the correct response. The end result is the same: students and teachers focus on the right answer, jeopardizing the development of real understanding. The focus plays out in several ways. An instructional focus on the right answer discourages instruction in problem solving: A right answer focus encourages an emphasis on facts. Facts are important, but by themselves constitute an impoverished understanding of a domain; a fact-focus does not help students abilities to think about the domain in different ways. Cognitive analyses of a range of jobs show that being able to generate different solutions to problems that are formally the same is a hallmark of expert performance (Scribner, Head and hand: An action approach to thinking, 1988).Employers and college educators both complain that American high school graduates are limited in their thinking and problem-solving abilities, deficiencies that stem partly from an educational emphasis on facts and right answers. Students resort to veneers of accomplishment: Students respond to a focus on right answers by learning to test right within the school system. They figure out what answers the teacher or the test seems to want, but often at the cost of real learning. These surface achievements have been called the veneer of accomplishment (Lave, Smith, Butler, Problem solving as an everyday practice, 1988). Also, Jordans analysis of a Mayan midwives training program illuminates basic truths about the learning and testing of American students (Jordan, 1987). She found that midwives who had been through the training course saw official health care system as powerful, in that it commanded resources and authority. They came to distinguish good from not good things to say. Specifically, they learned new ways of legitimizing themselves, new ways of presenting themselves as being in league with this powerful system, but with little impact on their daily practice. Although they could converse appropriately with supervisory medical personnel, their new knowledge was not incorporated into their behavioral repertoire. It was verbally, but not behaviorally fixed. Jordan notes that the trainers evaluated their program by asking the midwives to reproduce definitions, lists and abstract concepts. She observes that if these tests measure anything at all, they measure changes in linguistic repertoire and changes in discourse skills [not changes in behavior] (pp. 10-12) The same behaviors show up with Hasss American third graders. He noticed that in mathematics lessons the students got much practice in problem-solving methods that they had brought into the classroom with them methods that were not being taught and were not supposed to be used. The children used these methods to produce right answers, which the teacher took as evidence of their having grasped the formal procedures that she was teaching them. In fact, all that had happened was the appearance of learning. Teachers do not get behind the answers: We end up with appearances of learning because, in their search for right answers, teachers often fail to check behind the answers to insure that students really grasp the principles that they want the students to master. In typical American classrooms the time devoted to a lesson on a particular topic makes it hard to bring to the surface, let along change, the ideas and assumptions that individuals bring to the lesson. Traditional curriculum design is usually based on a conceptual analysis of the subject matter that ignores what is already in the learners head, with the result that students make mistakes that arise from undetected ideas that they brought to the lesson. Or they can play back memorized canonical knowledge and conceptions but return to their own ideas when confronted with unfamiliar questions or non-routine problems. As noted earlier,, students in college physics courses designed for physics majors can solve book problems in Newtonian mechanics by rote application of formulas, but even after instruction revert to naÃÆ' ¯ve pre-Newtonian explanations of common physical situations (Raizen, 1989). Teachers do not focus on how to use student mistakes to help them learn: In their search for right answers, teachers tend to regard student errors as failures rather than as opportunities to strengthen students understanding. American teachers placed little emphasis on the constructive use of errors as a teaching technique, a practice that the researchers attribute to the strong influence of behaviorism in American education. Behaviorism requires teaching conditions that help learners make only correct responses that can be reinforced through praise. Mistaken assumption # 5: To insure their transfer to new situations, skills and knowledge should be acquired independently of their contexts of use This idea is often talked about as decontextualized learning, which simply means learning out of context or meaning. The rationale for decontextualised learning goes back to the presumed conditions for the transfer of learning. As Lave observes, extracting knowledge from the particulars of experience was thought to make that knowledge available for general application in all situations (Lave, Cognition in Practice, 1988). Almost seventy five years ago, John and Evelyn Dewey wrote about the learning costs of decontextualized education. A statement, even of facts, does not reveal the value of the fact, or the sense of its truth of the fact that it is a fact. Where children are fed only on the book knowledge, one fact is as good as another; they have no standards of judgment or belief. Take the child studying weights and measures; he reads in his textbook that eight quarts make a peck, but when he does examples he is apt, as every schoolteacher knows, to substitute four for eight. Evidently the statement as he read it in the book did not stand for anything that goes on outside the book, so it is a matter of accident what figure lodges in his brain, or whether any does. But the grocers boy who has measured out pecks with a quart measure knows. He has made pecks; he would laugh at anybody who suggested that four quarts made a peck. What is the difference in these two cases? The schoolboy has a result without the activity of which it is the result. To the grocers boy the statement has value and truth, for it is the obv ious result of an experience it is a fact. Thus we see that it is a mistake to suppose that practical activities have only or even mainly a utilitarian value in the schoolroom. They are necessary if the pupil is to understand the facts which the teacher wishes him to learn; if his knowledge is to be real, not verbal; if his education is to furnish standards of judgment and comparison. (Dewey Dewey, Schools of tomorrow, 1915) Get over the traditional distinctions between head and hand The indictment of traditionally organized learning was coming out of a powerful research base, cognitive science. At the heart of this research was the presumption that intelligence and expertise are built out of interaction with the environment, not in isolation from it. It thus challenged the traditionally held distinctions between: Head and hand Academic and vocational education Knowing and doing Abstract and applied Education and training School-based and work-based learning Recent EU policy indicates a reassessment both of the relationship between work and education and the role of work experience in academic and vocational programs, on the basis that globalization is generating the need for new learning relationships between education and work which will support lifelong learning (European Commission, 1995). Thus, in the case of work experience in both general and vocational education, it is now envisaged that it could fulfill an important new role, providing an opportunity for those young people in full-time education and training to develop their understanding about changes in the world of work, to enhance their key skills and to make closer links between their formal programs of study and the world of work (Green, Leney, Wolf, 1999). However, although there has been

A Man For All Seasons - Friend or Foe :: A Man For All Seasons by Robert Bolt

Friend or Foe In the book, A Man For All Seasons by Robert Bolt there are a few people that can’t be trusted by Sir Thomas More, the main character in the book. Richard Rich is definitely one of those men who can’t be trusted and along with Thomas Cromwell the two destroy More’s life slowly but surely and to the point of death. In the end of the book More is executed for high treason and his family goes from being very well off to having to start over. So this book shows that through deceitfulness of two, one can fall. There are two main reasons that Rich would be considered a â€Å"Foe† and those are his weak moral character and his devalue of More’s friendship. These are reasons to make someone a â€Å"Foe† because if a person doesn’t hold true to their morals then they are easily persuaded and if a person had the friendship of More then they would be idiots not to keep that friendship and respect. In the following paragraphs I will give examples from the book of these reasons. One reason why Rich is a â€Å"Foe† is because his moral character isn’t very strong and throughout the book there are many times where it is shown that Rich doesn’t have a strong moral character, for example: Rich: But every man has his price? More: No-no-no- Rich: But yes! In money too. More: No no no Rich: Or pleasure. Titles, woman, bricks-and-mortar, there’s always something. More: Childish. In this quote (pg.4) it shows that Rich can be bought and he is trying to tell More that this is normal because everyone â€Å"has his price†. However, More, being the kind and charitable man he is, tries to explain that being able to be bought is not normal and it is a moral weakness in someone’s character and tries to help him get a job as a teacher where there is no temptation of bribery. Another example of how Rich’s moral character is weak is when he is talking to Cromwell and Cromwell tells him that he is to become Secretary to the Council, which he asks Rich not tell anyone about it. However when Cromwell repeats the question over and over, Rich, finally, says he would but it would depend on the bribe.

Cruel and Unusual? Exploring JLWOP Sentencing Essay -- Criminal Justic

The JLWOP sentence (or juvenile life without parole) has been the topic of controversy lately. Many have battered the issue back and forth, based on the morality level of American society. Should juveniles be sentenced to life without parole? In some cases people are viewing children in our society as less than competent, despite the majority of countries around the world that view adulthood as beginning shortly after puberty. It is impossible to deny the emotional and physiological differences between adolescents and adults. However, I think that despite these natural changes we go through as humans, occasionally there are deformities that can be the cause of some to deviate from this natural pattern of progression. I believe in some cases, once a juvenile has crossed the line of murder and victimization, there is very little anyone can do to prevent it from happening again. Because of this, I support JLWOP sentencing when the psychological stability of the juvenile is compromised. The JLWOP sentence is a sentencing guideline that is being debated by the Supreme Court following the ruling against children receiving the death sentence in 2003. The Supreme Court ruled that death sentences for minors were deemed â€Å"cruel and unusual punishment† and violated the Eighth Amendment of the constitution. The Supreme Court is now looking to the JLWOP with a moral parameter based on that 2003 ruling, attempting to decide whether or not JLWOP is considered unconstitutional by means of being cruel and unusual. In order to determine cruel and unusual punishment, the Supreme Court would have to find that JLWOP was excessive and disproportional to the crime of a juvenile. In rare cases, it is the only option for some young people today, despite... ...ders committed by juveniles that do not warrant this sentencing. Rather, the juvenile court system should view each case individually, despite the charge and make the best decision for the offender, the victims and the community. If the JLWOP continues to be mandated, society in general should demand stringent guidelines to ensure we are not punishing the adults of tomorrow, but rather to keep society safe from those individuals that pose a lifelong threat. Works Cited Lockup: Hollman. Dir. Hillary Heath for MSNBC. Perf. Kenny Loggins. 2006. M.D., Dr. Glen Gabbard. Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders Third Edition. Washington DC: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2001. Sukhoi, Yevgney. Killing for Kicks, Youth Confess to 21 Murders. Moscow: Russia Today, 2008. Totenberg, Nina. "Supreme Court Ends Death Penalty for Juviniles." National Public Radio. 2005.

Cultural and Technical Metaphors Essay -- Language Linguistics

Cultural and Technical Metaphors Intro Everyday conversation is riddled with metaphoric analogies. Most often, they go unrealized by the speaker as well as the listener. Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines a metaphor as â€Å"a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in drowning in money)† (Metaphor 1). Metaphors are a quick and simple way of relating a message without divulging unnecessary details that would otherwise cloud the ultimate point. This is especially useful in technically related fields and subjects such as Information System Management (IS). IS is responsible for the management of computers, networking, and data that supports different levels of decisions at different levels of the organizational hierarchy (What is IS? 1). Even as the technical functions of computer systems develop new and detailed complexities, everyday users, not familiar with the ins and ou ts of their particular system, are able to effectively communicate problems or concerns to trained professionals. Similarly, experts in the Information Technology (IT) field are able to explain to users how to manage their systems using heuristically tested metaphors such as â€Å"desktop† and â€Å"recycle bin† which have become standard jargon/usage. Just as different fields of study adopt their own list of commonly accepted metaphors, the use of metaphors crosses lines of culture and ethnicity as well. Body Common Metaphors Sitting about 400 miles south of the US mainland is the tiny island of Jamaica. Known for its beautiful beaches and clear waters, Jamaica has become a great vacationing spot. It is also the birthplace... ... â€Å"Metaphor†. Merriam- Webster's Online Dictionary. 2006-2007. Merriam-Webster.com. 4 June 2007. â€Å"Rasta/Patios Jamaican Phrases and Proverbs†. 15 June 1997. Croal Islands Associates. 4 June 2007. â€Å"Renà © Descartes†. Wekepedia.com. 4 June 2007. Wekemedia Foundation Inc. 5 June 2007. â€Å"Songs of Freedom: The Music of Bob Marley as Transformative Education†. 2005. ReligiousEducation.net. 4 June 2007. â€Å"What is IS?†. Webopedia.com. 24 April 2007. Internet.com. 9 June 2007.

The Age of Social Influence

We know that the once linear and transaction-centric purchase funnel is now multi-directional, random and heavily influenced by opinion and information gathered by consumers. And we know that because of social media and technology, consumers can now enter the purchase cycle at various points, and spontaneously influence others as they travel along the path the purchase. But do we really understand how marketers can unlock the real value of all this? Do we know how social media works with other more established media?And do we know how to harness the power of social media for real commercial gain? In order to find aanswers to some of these crucial questions, Initiative set out to explore the individual and combined strength of TV, social and mobile, and how consumer interaction with each has altered the path to purchase. Specifically, we wanted to investigate: †¢ Howdoweproducegreatersynergybetweenoursiloed media,socialandmobilebudgetsandtacticsthatresultina greaterreturnoninvest ment? †¢ Whataretheimpactofsocial,TVandmobileonshopper decision-making? †¢ Whatroledoesconsumerinfluenceplayalongthepathto purchase?However, our study found that while the integration of social, TV and mobile has indeed altered the way consumers make decisions about brands, it is not because of their ability to simply multiply brand messages. Increasingly, consumers are becoming the driving force powering what, when and where brand interactions occur. Based upon our findings, Initiative believes that by leveraging the consumer’s natural inclination to engage with media across multiple screens and social media, we can create a consumer-powered media synergy effect that is both non-linear and emotional – driving deeper engagement and trust.

Deception Point Page 85

Rachel's body went rigid. She wanted to step back from the railing, but she could not move. She was transfixed by the petrifying vista. â€Å"Incredible, aren't they?† Tolland said. His hand was on her shoulder again, comforting. â€Å"They'll tread water in the warm spots for weeks. These guys have the best noses in the sea-enhanced telencephalon olfactory lobes. They can smell blood up to a mile away.† Corky looked skeptical. â€Å"Enhanced telencephalon olfactory lobes?† â€Å"Don't believe me?† Tolland began rooting around in an aluminum cabinet adjacent to where they were standing. After a moment, he pulled out a small, dead fish. â€Å"Perfect.† He took a knife from the cooler and cut the limp fish in several places. It started to drip blood. â€Å"Mike, for God's sake,† Corky said. â€Å"That's disgusting.† Tolland tossed the bloody fish overboard and it fell thirty feet. The instant it hit the water, six or seven sharks darted in a tumbling ferocious brawl, their rows of silvery teeth gnashing wildly at the bloody fish. In an instant, the fish was gone. Aghast, Rachel turned and stared at Tolland, who was already holding another fish. Same kind. Same size. â€Å"This time, no blood,† Tolland said. Without cutting the fish, he threw it in the water. The fish splashed down, but nothing happened. The hammerheads seemed not to notice. The bait carried away on the current, having drawn no interest whatsoever. â€Å"They attack only on sense of smell,† Tolland said, leading them away from the railing. â€Å"In fact, you could swim out here in total safety-provided you didn't have any open wounds.† Corky pointed to the stitches on his cheek. Tolland frowned. â€Å"Right. No swimming for you.† 102 Gabrielle Ashe's taxi was not moving. Sitting at a roadblock near the FDR Memorial, Gabrielle looked out at the emergency vehicles in the distance and felt as if a surrealistic fog bank had settled over the city. Radio reports were coming in now that the exploded car might have contained a high-level government official. Pulling out her cellphone, she dialed the senator. He was no doubt starting to wonder what was taking Gabrielle so long. The line was busy. Gabrielle looked at the taxi's clicking meter and frowned. Some of the other cars stuck here were pulling up onto the curbs and turning around to find alternative routes. The driver looked over his shoulder. â€Å"You wanna wait? Your dime.† Gabrielle saw more official vehicles arriving now. â€Å"No. Let's go around.† The driver grunted in the affirmative and began maneuvering the awkward multipoint turn. As they bounced over the curbs, Gabrielle tried Sexton again. Still busy. Several minutes later, having made a wide loop, the taxi was traveling up C Street. Gabrielle saw the Philip A. Hart Office Building looming. She had intended to go straight to the senator's apartment, but with her office this close†¦ â€Å"Pull over,† she blurted to the driver. â€Å"Right there. Thanks.† She pointed. The cab stopped. Gabrielle paid the amount on the meter and added ten dollars. â€Å"Can you wait ten minutes?† The cabbie looked at the money and then at his watch. â€Å"Not a minute longer.† Gabrielle hurried off. I'll be out in five. The deserted marble corridors of the Senate office building felt almost sepulchral at this hour. Gabrielle's muscles were tense as she hurried through the gauntlet of austere statues lining the third-floor entryway. Their stony eyes seemed to follow her like silent sentinels. Arriving at the main door of Senator Sexton's five-room office suite, Gabrielle used her key card to enter. The secretarial lobby was dimly lit. Crossing through the foyer, she went down a hallway to her office. She entered, flicked on the fluorescent lights, and strode directly to her file cabinets. She had an entire file on the budgeting of NASA's Earth Observing System, including plenty of information on PODS. Sexton would certainly want all the data he could possibly get on PODS as soon as she told him about Harper. NASA lied about PODS. As Gabrielle fingered her way through her files, her cellphone rang. â€Å"Senator?† she answered. â€Å"No, Gabs. It's Yolanda.† Her friend's voice had an unusual edge to it. â€Å"You still at NASA?† â€Å"No. At the office.† â€Å"Find anything at NASA?† You have no idea. Gabrielle knew she couldn't tell Yolanda anything until she'd talked to Sexton; the senator would have very specific ideas about how best to handle the information. â€Å"I'll tell you all about it after I talk to Sexton. Heading over to his place now.† Yolanda paused. â€Å"Gabs, you know this thing you were saying about Sexton's campaign finance and the SFF?† â€Å"I told you I was wrong and-â€Å" â€Å"I just found out two of our reporters who cover the aerospace industry have been working on a similar story.† Gabrielle was surprised. â€Å"Meaning?† â€Å"I don't know. But these guys are good, and they seem pretty convinced that Sexton is taking kickbacks from the Space Frontier Foundation. I just figured I should call you. I know I told you earlier that the idea was insane. Marjorie Tench as a source seemed spotty, but these guys of ours†¦ I don't know, you might want to talk to them before you see the senator.† â€Å"If they're so convinced, why haven't they gone to press?† Gabrielle sounded more defensive than she wanted to. â€Å"They have no solid evidence. The senator apparently is good at covering his tracks.† Most politicians are. â€Å"There's nothing there, Yolanda. I told you the senator admitted taking SFF donations, but the gifts are all under the cap.† â€Å"I know that's what he told you, Gabs, and I'm not claiming to know what's true or false here. I just felt obliged to call because I told you not to trust Marjorie Tench, and now I find out people other than Tench think the senator may be on the dole. That's all.† â€Å"Who were these reporters?† Gabrielle felt an unexpected anger simmering now. â€Å"No names. I can set up a meeting. They're smart. They understand campaign finance law†¦ † Yolanda hesitated. â€Å"You know, these guy actually believe Sexton is hurting for cash-bankrupt even.† In the silence of her office, Gabrielle could hear Tench's raspy accusations echoing. After Katherine died, the senator squandered the vast majority of her legacy on bad investments, personal comforts, and buying himself what appears to be certain victory in the primaries. As of six months ago, your candidate was broke. â€Å"Our men would love to talk to you,† Yolanda said. I bet they would, Gabrielle thought. â€Å"I'll call you back.† â€Å"You sound pissed.† â€Å"Never at you, Yolanda. Never at you. Thanks.† Gabrielle hung up. Dozing on a chair in the hallway outside Senator Sexton's Westbrooke apartment, a security guard awoke with a start at the sound of his cellular phone. Bolting up in his chair, he rubbed his eyes and pulled his phone from his blazer pocket. â€Å"Yeah?† â€Å"Owen, this is Gabrielle.† Sexton's guard recognized her voice. â€Å"Oh, hi.† â€Å"I need to talk to the senator. Would you knock on his door for me? His line is busy.† â€Å"It's kind of late.† â€Å"He's awake. I'm sure of it.† Gabrielle sounded anxious. â€Å"It's an emergency.† â€Å"Another one?† â€Å"Same one. Just get him on the phone, Owen. There's something I really need to ask him.† The guard sighed, standing up. â€Å"Okay, okay. I'll knock.† He stretched and made his way toward Sexton's door. â€Å"But I'm only doing it because he was glad I let you in earlier.† Reluctantly, he raised his fist to knock.