# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The scene: The African plain comes alive with the gathering of zebras, gazelles, giraffes, elephants, all the animals on a majestic pilgrimage to see their future king, the cuddly newborn lion cub, Simba. After receiving the blessing of Rafiki, the lion pride's shaman monkey, the animals big and small all bow on bended knee in worship to the uplifted cub. In the background plays the song, "The Circle of Life" - "It's the circle of life/ And it moves us all/ through despair and hope/ Through faith and love/ Till we find our place/ On the path unwinding/ In the circle, the circle of life."

Any parent with children older than about 8 knows the scene described above well, and most can still sing the song. Disney movies are like that -full of wonderfully creative characters, compelling story lines and memorable music. Millions of families across America watched the popular movie The Lion King when it came out in 1993, delighting in Simba and the antics of his friends Pumbaa and Timon singing "Hakuna Matata." Pure Disney genius. But what worldview was being absorbed by millions of impressionable preschoolers? Is the concept of the "circle of life" true according to God's Word? Do the ideas in the movie square with the Christian worldview?

Like everything we watch, listen to or read, The Lion King contains a worldview. And unless you know what you're looking for, unless you have a strong understanding of your own worldview, it is often difficult to discern.

So what's the worldview in The Lion King? Despite a handful of good moral lessons, it is not biblical Christianity. The notion of the "circle of life," that history is circular and the present is heavily influenced by the spirits of one's ancestors, is closer to Eastern pantheism or native spiritualism than the linear view of history presented in the Bible. But how is the average parent to know and discern the worldview, and how can parents equip their children to evaluate worldview for themselves?

WHAT IS WORLDVIEW?

Worldview is the latest buzzword in Christian circles. We're all told we need one, and whether we know it or not, we all have one. But what is a worldview? Literally, of course, worldview is how a person views the world. A person's worldview consists of the values, ideas or the fundamental belief system that determines his attitudes, beliefs and ultimately, actions. Typically, this includes his view of issues such as the nature of God, man, the meaning of life, nature, death, and right and wrong.

We begin developing our worldview as young children, first through interactions within our family, then in social settings such as school and church, and from our companions and life experiences. Increasingly, our media culture is playing a key role in shaping worldview. We are a culture saturated with powerful media images in movies, television, commercials and music. And like the entertaining and seemingly benign Lion King, what we watch, listen to and read, impacts the way we think. Consistently consuming entertainment with false ideas will inevitably distort our view of the world.

Although the Bible never uses the word "worldview," in Colossians 2: 6-8, we are commanded to be able to discern and discard false philosophy-which is essentially worldview. "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world, rather than on Christ."

Jeff Baldwin, a fellow at the Texas-based Worldview Academy, says worldview "is like an invisible pair of eyeglasses-glasses you put on to help you see reality clearly. If you choose the right pair of glasses, you can see everything vividly and can behave in sync with the real world. ... But if you choose the wrong pair of glasses, you may find yourself in a worse plight than the blind man - thinking you see clearly when in reality your vision is severely distorted." To choose the "right" glasses, you have to first understand and embrace the true worldview.

WORLDVIEW FOR ADULTS

As an adult, you already have a worldview. The challenge is to formalize it by asking probing questions to help you understand what you believe and why you believe it. During this process, if your thinking is inconsistent with biblical teaching, you can discard the false ideas and replace them with truth. A number of worldview resources are available to help you through this formalizing process. Different resources employ somewhat different approaches, but they all provide foundational answers to the big questions of life.

In my teaching of worldview and Great Books to homeschool students ages 12 to 18, I've used a series of seven questions to help them formalize their own worldview and to help them evaluate competing worldviews. These seven questions are common to many worldview resources and provide an effective tool for adults, as well as teenagers, particularly to evaluate the worldview of books, music and movies:

Is there a god and what is he like?

What is the nature and origin of the universe?

What is the nature and origin of man?

What happens to man after death?

Where does knowledge come from?

What is the basis of ethics and morality?

What is the meaning of human history?

A similar seven-question approach is found in the excellent worldview resource, The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog by James W Sire, and also in Worldviews of the Western World, a three-year worldview and Great Books curriculum for homeschoolers written by David Quine. Chuck Colson's How Now Shall We Live uses a four-question approach. It doesn't matter how many questions you use, just that you begin asking the big questions of life in four key areas-deity, origin, nature and rules- and then answer them based on Scripture.

Finding answers using the Bible provides the foundation of the Christian or biblical worldview. For example, someone who holds the biblical worldview would answer the question, "Is there a god and what is he like?" using what he knows to be true about the character of God according to Scripture. The Bible teaches that God is sovereign, personal, infinite, transcendent, just, omniscient, immanent, and good. These attributes are not exhaustive by any means, but do establish the basic character of God. This checklist provides a starting point for identifying false or competing worldviews. Answers to the other questions can be derived from Scripture as well, and are presented in numerous worldview books or works of Christian apologetics.

Once you can answer those questions clearly for yourself based on Scripture, you then can apply them to everything you watch, read or listen to. For example, last year's Academy Award for Best Picture went to the film, Gladiator. In answer to "Is there a god in the movie and what is he like? "-there was not only a god, but many gods, which was the prevailing religious view in ancient Rome. In addition, early in the movie, the lead character Maximus sets up a shrine in his tent, and prays to these gods daily to watch over his wife and child. Yet these gods could not offer the true hope of salvation or deliverance through Jesus Christ.

What about the basis of ethics and morality in the movie? It does portray virtue in Maximus' loyalty and devotion to the dying emperor of Rome. Yet his morality and code of ethics is driven by his iron will to survive to avenge the murders of his wife and son. We see that, like Maximus, each character has his or her own set of moral guidelines or ethical agenda, depending on their individual situation. The morality of Maximus' trainer is guided by his greed and desire for notoriety based on his gladiators' performance. He has no ethical problem sending innocent men to a gory, violent death to turn a profit or increase his social standing. Likewise, the Emperor Commodius' sister takes Maximus into her confidence in a plot to avenge his family's slaying, only to betray him later to save her own son. The morality and ethics in the movie are not based on the belief in transcendent truth, as in the biblical worldview, but on what is expedient for each character's circumstances-utilitarianism, or moral relativism. Similarly, the other questions can also be applied to the movie, then compared to the biblical worldview. Despite portions of the movie that uphold virtue and self-sacrifice, the worldview of Gladiator as a whole is not consistent with the biblical worldview. The powerful images, attractive packaging of false ideas, and emotional manipulation pervasive throughout the entertainment industry demonstrate the need for Christians to have a clear worldview understanding.
Tracy F. Munsil was with the Center For Arizona Policy when this article was written. She has taught worldview to high school.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What's Your Worldview? - Focus on the Family

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The scene: The African plain comes alive with the gathering of zebras, gazelles, giraffes, elephants, all the animals on a majestic pilgrimage to see their future king, the cuddly newborn lion cub, Simba. After receiving the blessing of Rafiki, the lion pride's shaman monkey, the animals big and small all bow on bended knee in worship to the uplifted cub.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We have all sinned and deserve God's judgment. God, the Father, sent His only Son to satisfy that judgment for those who believe in Him. Jesus, the creator and eternal Son of God, who lived a sinless life, loves us so much that He died for our sins, taking the punishment that we deserve, was buried, and rose from the dead according to the Bible. If you truly believe and trust this in your heart, receiving Jesus alone as your Savior, declaring, " Jesus is Lord," you will be saved from judgment and spend eternity with God in heaven.
What is your response? Yes, I want to follow Jesus

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We have all sinned and deserve God's judgment. God, the Father, sent His only Son to satisfy that judgment for those who believe in Him. Jesus, the creator and eternal Son of God, who lived a sinless life, loves us so much that He died for our sins, taking the punishment that we deserve, was buried, and rose from the dead according to the Bible.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Education Week - Peter DeWitt's Finding Common Ground

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Labels play a big role in conversations at school. We have "struggling students," "students who suffer from trauma," "gifted students," and "special education students." On one end of the spectrum of conversations, labels are provided to get students the assistance they need to be successful, and are based on specific testing the student went through with a school psychologist or school counselor. On the other end of the spectrum, labels seem to put children in neat little boxes, and seem to benefit the adult in the classroom more than the student, because sometimes those labels are about getting the adult extra assistance or providing a paper trail just in time for high stakes testing.

Teachers have so many differently-abled students in their classrooms, and the labels of students in front of them. The labels that those students carry are supposed to work as beacons to help adults understand those students have special needs that may take "out of the box," thinking. Labeling may be necessary for some students, and provide them with the interventions they need from professionals who help them best.

However, we seem to have lost a balance when it comes to providing a label, and knowing when that label needs to go away. Does the process of labeling students create a glass ceiling for those students? Are educators making sure that there is a balance between labeling students and making sure that label doesn't hold those students back? Do they ask whether the label is given to help the student become more successful?

Stop Using the Label "Struggling Learner"
Labeling is a deeply complicated issue with many layers. There are students who have extreme needs and they need specialized assistance. Then there are other students who aren't ready for the content being taught at the same time their peers seem ready, so they get the label that they are a "struggling learner," simply because they are not ready.

There is a lot of pressure on teachers and leaders these days to make sure that curriculum is covered. There are instructional coaches and leaders who are sometimes put in the position of making sure that teachers at the same grade level are pacing at the exact same time. When students are falling behind that pacing, struggling is a word that is often used to describe them.
We need to minimize how often we do that.
In the recent Education Week article interviewing author Jacqueline Woodson, which you can read here, Woodson says,

Any kind of qualifier can be harmful because who we are is not static. Our abilities are constantly changing. What does it mean to be a struggling reader? I know if I was raised in this day and age, I would have been labeled a struggling reader. But what I know now is I was actually reading like a writer. I was reading slowly and deliberately and deconstructing language, not in the sense of looking up words in the dictionary, but understanding from context. I was constantly being compared to my sister who excelled, and it made me feel insecure. What gets translated is 'you are not as good,' and that gets translated into our whole bodies. That's where the danger lies.

Woodsen's feelings about labels are supported by research. For example, in Stigma of a Label: Educational Expectations for High School Students Labeled with Learning Disabilities (2013) Shifrer writes,

Poorer outcomes for youth labeled with learning disabilities (LDs) are often attributed to the student's own deficiencies or cumulative disadvantage; but the more troubling possibility is that special education placement limits rather than expands these students' opportunities. Labeling theory partially attributes the poorer outcomes of labeled persons to stigma related to labels.

Additionally, in Equity or Marginalization? The High School Course-Taking of Students Labeled With a Learning Disability Shifrer, Callahan, and Muller found,

Students labeled with an LD, with appropriate school supports, may have the potential to reach normative course-taking benchmarks. Yet our findings suggest that their course-taking outcomes are considerably poorer than those of students who are not labeled with disability but are otherwise similar. Even among students who performed similarly in early high school coursework and those with similar noncognitive skills, we found that students labeled with an LD lose ground in the completion of college preparatory coursework compared to similar unlabeled students.

And finally, in Resisting and Persisting: Identity Stability Among Adolescent Readers Labeled as Struggling, Glenn, Ginsberg and King-Watkins (2016) write,

Data also indicate that participants were especially vulnerable to school-ascribed reading identities they defined as negative. Given their presumptions of validity of school-ascribed labels, participants reported greater struggle in their attempts to persist in the self-construal of their desired identity conceptions in response to school rather than outside-of-school contexts.

Not Labeling Students?
John Hattie, someone I work with as a Visible Learning trainer, has collected the largest analysis of what works in education, which involves over 300 million students. Hattie's research involves over 1400 meta-analyses. A meta-analysis is a statistical approach that focus on influences on learning, and combines multiple individual studies that focus on that same influence (i.e. feedback, classroom discussion, reciprocal teaching, etc.). These studies that look at influences on learning are accompanied with an effect size. An effect size of .40 equates to a year's worth of growth for a year's input.

In Hattie's research, which involves over 251 influences on learning, Not labeling students has an effect size of .61. That is significantly over the .40 that equates to a year's worth of growth for a year's input. What the research shows is that providing a label to a student in many cases creates a glass ceiling, which means that the student works to their label, and not always above it.
Is it possible that not labeling a student will help the student more than labeling them does?
In the End
Jacqueline Woodson brings up a good point when she says we should stop labeling students as struggling readers. However, that may the tip of the iceberg. Schools are often in difficult positions where they cannot turn back the hands of time and get rid of all labels, but as they move forward is it possible for them to take as much times as possible to discuss the pros and cons of giving labels to students?

As a teacher for 11 years and a principal for 8, one of the statements that always came up is that " If it's good enough for a special education student, it should be good enough for any student." What that means is that students shouldn't need a label to get good teaching and impactful interventions that will help them become better learners. That impactful teaching should just be a part of their educational experience.

In your experience as a teacher, leader, parent or student...have labels helped or hurt you as a learners?
Peter DeWitt, Ed.D. is the author of several books including Collaborative Leadership: 6 Influences That Matter Most (Corwin Press. 2016), School Climate: Leading with Collective Efficacy (Corwin Press. 2017), and Coach It Further: Using Coaching to Improve School Leadership (Corwin Press. 2018). Connect with him on Twitter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Are Labels Preventing Students from Succeeding?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Labels play a big role in conversations at school. We have "struggling students," "students who suffer from trauma," "gifted students," and "special education students." On one end of the spectrum of conversations, labels are provided to get students the assistance they need to be successful, and are based on specific testing the student went through with a school psychologist or school counselor.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Center for Injury Research and Prevention

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Although bullying is sometimes seen as "a part of growing up" or "kids being kids," imagine the kid who is picked on every day, whether physically, socially, or through cyber-bullying. Think about Rebecca Sedwick, the 12-year-old who committed suicide in Florida following a year of bullying at the hands of two young girls. To Rebecca, the bullying was so serious and distressing that she took her own life.

Or consider the 8-year-old boy who writes to Santa Claus about his twin sister bullied over her weight: "Dear Santa ... I wanted a (remote control) car and helicopter, but I don't want that anymore. Kids at school are still picking on my sister and it's not fair ... I prayed that they will stop, and she needs your help."

Bullying is a prevalent form of youth violence, particularly in school settings. As illustrated in the examples above, it is defined by aggressive behavior (i.e., behavior that is intentional and mean) that occurs repeatedly over time and within the context of a power imbalance. Although both are harmful to youth, there is an important distinction between bullying and aggression - if there is an occasional conflict or fighting between two children of equal strength, size, and social status, this is aggression, but not bullying.

Bullying in schools often occurs in unstructured school settings, such as the playground area during recess.

Most school-aged children are exposed to bullying in some form due to the unequal balance of power and influence that is so common in youth relationships and peer groups. Research shows that bullying and harassment in schools increases in late childhood and peaks in early adolescence, specifically during middle school and typically takes place in unstructured settings such as the cafeteria, hallways, and playground during recess.

Students need school to be a positive climate where they feel safe. This reduces their own stress and potential aggression, allowing them to focus on the learning necessary for them to be successful in their lives.

Fortunately, there are actions that students and school staff can take to prevent bullying and harassment in schools and to create a more positive school climate. The culture of school violence cannot be impacted by only working with bullies and victims alone. It takes consistent and united action by everyone - students, school staff, administrators, and parents.
Click here to learn more about the power of a positive school climate.
Types of Bullying

To better understand how positive efforts can be made, it is important to understand the various types of bullying:

Physical: Related to dominance and is the most prevalent form of aggression and bullying among boys (as compared to relational). Behaviors can include hitting, kicking, and threatening violence.

Relational: Involves the manipulation of social standing or reputations and is the most prevalent form of aggression and bullying among girls (as compared to physical). Behaviors can include starting rumors and social exclusion. Click here to learn more about relational aggression.

Cyber: Involves using electronics to harm others. This type of bullying can be especially harmful because the perpetrators are more difficult to identify, it can more quickly and impulsively be spread to larger audiences, and the physical evidence of the bullying cannot be easily erased from cyberspace. Victims of cyber bullying are often also victims of traditional off-line bullying.

Regardless of the type of bullying, there are several key roles that typically participate in the behavior.

The bully has a power advantage as compared to the victim, whether the bully is physically stronger, more popular, and/or more socially influential.

The bystanders, or other peers that witness the bullying event, play a particularly important and perhaps underrated role in bullying.

Certain sub-groups of adolescents may be at a higher risk for bullying. Click here to learn more.

Facts and Statistics About Bullying and Harassment in Schools

Between 21 and 49 percent of youth adolescents report being bullied in the past year

70.6 percent of youth are bystanders to bullying.

In a 2010 study, 20 percent of girls and 25 percent of boys said they were bullied, bullied others, or both in the last month.

In the same study, 90 percent of third to fifth grade students said they felt sorry for students who are bullied, but sympathy often does not translate into action.

A 2009 study estimated that at least 20.8 percent of youth in the US were physically bullied, 53.6 percent were verbally bullied, 51.4 percent were socially bullied, and 13.6 percent were cyber bullied at least once over a two-month period.

Victims of cyber bullying often do not report their victimization and are eight times more likely to carry a weapon to school.

A 2011 study showed that bullying at age 14 predicted violent convictions between ages 15 and 20, self-reported violence at age 15 to 18, low job status at age 18, and drug use at 27 to 32 years of age.

Recommended Reading and Resources
Downloadable Tools from CHOP's Violence Prevention Initiative Preventing Aggression in Schools Everyday (PRAISE) Free2B: Multimedia Bullying Prevention Program Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Student Bullying: Overview of Research, Federal Initiatives, and Legal Issues (Congressional Research Service) Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and the New Realities of Girl World 'Masterminds and Wingmen': Preparing your son for the pitfalls of a boy's world Social Aggression Among Girls Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) StopBullying.gov
Research Articles

Leff, SS., Waasdorp, TE., & Paskewich, BS. The Broader Impact of Friend to Friend (F2F): Effects on Teacher-Student Relationships, Prosocial Behaviors, and Relationally and Physically Aggressive Behaviors. Behavior Modification, 2016 Volume 40, No. 4, pp. 589-610.

Leff, SS., Paskewich, BS., Waasdorp, TE., Waanders, C., Bevans, K. B., & Jawad, AF. Friend to friend: A randomized trial for urban African American relationally aggressive girls. Psychology of Violence, 2015 Volume 5, No. 4, pp. 433-443.

Leff, SS., Waasdorp, TE., & Mehari, KR. An updated review of existing relational aggression programs. In S. M. Coyne & J. M. Ostrov (Eds.), The Development of Relational Aggression 2018, pp. 283-317: Oxford University Press.

Leff SS, Waasdorp TE, Paskewich BS, Gullan RL, Jawad AF, MacEvoy JP, Feinberg BE, Power TJ. The Preventing Relational Aggression in Schools Everyday Program: A Preliminary Evaluation of Acceptability and Impact. School Psychology Review, 2010, Volume 39, No. 4, pp. 569-587.

Leff SS, Costigan T, Power TJ. Using Participatory Research to Develop a Playground-based Prevention Program. Journal of School Psychology. 42 (2004), 3-21.

Leff SS, Gullan RL, Paskewich BS, Abdul-Kabir S, Jawad AF, Grossman M, Munro MA, Power TJ. An Initial Evaluation of a Culturally Adapted Social Problem-solving and Relational Aggression Prevention Program for Urban African-American Relationally Aggressive Girls. Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community, 37:260-274, 2009.

Waasdorp, TE., & Bradshaw, CP. Examining variation in adolescent bystanders' responses to bullying. School Psychology Review, 2018 Volume 47, No. 1, pp.18-33.

Waasdorp, TE., Pas, ET., Zablotsky, B., & Bradshaw, CP. Ten-Year Trends in Bullying and Related Attitudes Among 4th- to 12th Graders. Pediatrics, 2017 Volume 139, No. 6, pp. 1-8.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Although bullying is sometimes seen as "a part of growing up" or "kids being kids," imagine the kid who is picked on every day, whether physically, socially, or through cyber-bullying. Think about Rebecca Sedwick, the 12-year-old who committed suicide in Florida following a year of bullying at the hands of two young girls.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by Kim Lee

One of the most pure and deeply inspirational relationships is that of a devoted teacher and a willing student.

Almost everyone has a favorite teacher, and those we liked less. What causes us to still cherish these relationships and harbor powerful sentiments of respect and affection (and sometimes a shuddering dislike) for those individuals who were responsible for mentoring us? The answer is quite simple. It's how the student teacher relationships were developed, nurtured, and given space to evolve.

The ability to forge a positive, powerful relationship between a student and teacher may seem like a difficult task first but can be easily accomplished by creating a strong learning environment. The learning is not a one way process alone; an effective learning environment is where all individuals involved learn from each other. While students learn a particular subject from a teacher, the teacher learns how to improve her teaching skills and make the lessons more interesting by gaining insights from the students. Thus, both parties learn from each other.

Many qualities define a positive relationship and pave ways on how to create powerful student teacher relationships. These can be seen to include good communication, a safe learning environment and mutual respect, a positive and patient attitude, student equality and timely praise. The teacher who becomes the 'favorite' is one who possesses these in good measure.

Not all students are alike. While some quickly grasp the concepts taught and take an active part in the learning process, others may be shy, uninterested or even downright disruptive. This puts additional responsibility on a teacher to create such an atmosphere which is conducive to an interesting learning process. It's the teachers who are like sculptors and students, the soft clay, ready to be molded into a master piece. As Aristotle once said "those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well."

So what does it take then? How should you bring about such difference in the classroom that creates an everlasting, powerful relationship between a student and a teacher? Below are 4 timeless elements of strong student-teacher relationships.
4 Timeless Elements Of Strong Student-Teacher Relationships 1. Consistent Communication
Consistent communication is the most vital element as it serves to create a connection between the two. A teacher who understands the problems of his or her students and then shapes his or her teaching style in order to interact better with the student can see success, but this takes not simply observation, but communication. Of course, teachers can't understand every problem of every child in their class room but a general idea, grasped from the trouble points and insight into behavior can go a long way in shaping a good two way communication. The more the teacher communicates well, the higher is the chance of fast and effective learning at the student's end.
2. An Emotionally-Safe Learning Space
Creating an open learning environment where different opinions are equally respected and where there is no fear of ridicule from either one's peers or the teacher is crucial for building good student teacher relationships. Students need to feel safe when asking questions, safe in the belief that they won't be taunted or criticized and that their question or comment will be answered with patience and respect.
3. Mutual Respect, Trust, & Feedback
Mutual respect and trust are at the foundation of any lasting relationship. Student-teacher interaction that is based merely on academic progress or behavior management creates inhibitions within a student and stifles true relationship-building. Those teachers that show respect towards their students and a keenness to help them through their difficulties become the object of respect themselves and trigger a drive among students to learn and make their teachers proud.

Telling students that they have the ability to do well and praising them often with smiles, words of approval, patient conversation, and even celebratory applause will all lead to motivating a student further and accomplishing more.
4. True Equity
Disparity in learning is a barrier to academic performance. Whether you're talking about technology access, access to literature, or related socioeconomic trends, equity matters.

This extends to the relationship between those leading learning environments (primarily teachers and administrators) and those being led (primarily students). Creating favorites and focusing on those individuals can create resentment among others who feel marginalized and left out. Focusing equally on all students in class will no doubt lead to a powerful student teacher relationship for everyone.
Kim Lee recently started working as an reporter in college and have been working as a freelance writer; 4 Timeless Elements Of Strong Student-Teacher Relationships; image attribution flickr user online education news ferranpestana

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
4 Timeless Elements Of Strong Student-Teacher Relationships

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Kim Lee One of the most pure and deeply inspirational relationships is that of a devoted teacher and a willing student. Almost everyone has a favorite teacher, and those we liked less. What causes us to still cherish these relationships and harbor powerful sentiments of respect and affection (and sometimes a shuddering dislike) for those individuals who were responsible for mentoring us?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Students spend more than 1,000 hours with their teacher in a typical school year. That's enough time to build a relationship that could ignite a student's lifetime love of learning-and it's enough time for the dynamic to go totally off the rails.

Education watchers have long known that the relationship with a teacher can be critically important to how well students learn. But emerging research is giving a clearer picture than ever of how teachers can build and leverage strong relationships with their students.

"People sometimes mistake a kind of casual familiarity and friendliness for the promotion of really deep relationships that are about a child's potential, their interests, their strengths, and weaknesses," said Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Southern California who studies the effects of emotions and mindsets on learning.

"A lot of teachers ... have really strong abilities to engage socially with the students, but then it's not enough," she said. "You have to go much deeper than that and actually start to engage with students around their curiosity, their interests, their habits of mind through understanding and approaching material to really be an effective teacher."

In a forthcoming longitudinal study with Bank Street College of Education, Immordino-Yang is tracking how the highly effective teachers of low-income students set classroom norms and feelings of trust and safety for students-but also leverage that foundation to promote students' deeper thinking and engagement.

Why are teacher-student relationships important?

"The relational part of teaching may very well be its most underrated aspect. ... When teachers are good at building relationships with students, the skill is seen more as cover for a lack of content knowledge or wherewithal to instruct with rigor," James Ford, the 2015 North Carolina State Teacher of the Year and the program director for the Public School Forum of North Carolina, told Education Week. To the contrary, he added, "Our first job as teachers is to make sure that we learn our students, that we connect with them on a real level, showing respect for their culture and affirming their worthiness to receive the best education possible."

A Review of Educational Research analysis of 46 studies found that strong teacher-student relationships were associated in both the short- and long-term with improvements on practically every measure schools care about: higher student academic engagement, attendance, grades, fewer disruptive behaviors and suspensions, and lower school dropout rates. Those effects were strong even after controlling for differences in students' individual, family, and school backgrounds.

Teachers benefit, too. A study in the European Journal of Psychology of Education found that a teacher's relationship with students was the best predictor of how much the teacher experienced joy versus anxiety in class.

How does a teacher's approach affect that relationship?

In a 2018 study, Arizona State University researcher Victoria Theisen-Homer found different teacher-training programs prioritized different kinds of relationships with students:

An instrumental focus involved a limited, one-way relationship in which teachers cull bits of information about students specifically to motivate them to behave well and focus on teacher-directed tasks. The relationships "were structured as a controlled means to a particular end: student compliance," she found. "Students learned that their value was tied to the degree to which they worked hard and behaved in line with what mostly white authority figures demanded."

A reciprocal focus required teachers to gather complex information and develop a holistic understanding of their students, inviting the students to grapple with content and problems together. "These students not only learned to think for themselves, but also had adults who affirmed and responded to their thoughts and experiences. Such interactions prepared them to engage with authority figures, and to someday hold positions of authority themselves," Theisen-Homer said.

The study also found in an analysis of two of these programs that teachers trained in the instrumental focus were more likely to go on to teach in low-income, high-minority schools, while those trained in reciprocal relationships ended up in schools with more high-income and white students. It was not clear why teachers ended up sorting in this way, but it raised concerns about differences in the kinds of relationships high- and low-income students might experience with teachers.

"Sometimes teachers don't understand the importance that their relationship with each student has on that student's identity and sense of belonging," said Vicki Nishioka, a senior researcher with Education Northwest who studies teacher-student relationships. "What gets in the way of that is a more authoritarian kind of discipline and interaction approach with students, which really doesn't work."

For example, a 2016 study randomly assigned teachers to increase their positive interactions with students. Students of teachers who boosted their ratio to five positive comments and interactions for every negative one had significantly less disruptive behavior and more time on task academically than the students of a control group of teachers.

How can teachers improve their relationships with students?

In a word: Empathy. Across several recent studies, researchers have found that teachers who cultivate empathy for and with their students are able to manage students' behavior and academic engagement better.

Nishioka finds that trying to suppress biases or stereotypes about students can sometimes make them worse, but practicing perspective-taking-actively imagining how a student might perceive or be affected by a situation-can reduce bias and deepen teacher-student relationships. She recommended teachers:

Talk to students to understand differences in their perceptions and expectations in class.

Research cultural differences between teachers and students to head off cultural misunderstandings, particularly around norms, styles, and language.

Teach and model perspective-taking for students in class.

How can teachers maintain healthy boundaries with students?

Experts caution that for teachers and students, "relationship" does not equal "friend," particularly on social media. Many districts have rules against teachers following or friending current students on Facebook, Twitter, or other platforms, in part because it might open teachers to liability if they see inappropriate behavior from students online.

Teachers also should be upfront with students who confide in them that they are required by law to report evidence of abuse and can't keep secrets that could put students in danger.

Teacher and education author Starr Sackstein, whose blog is hosted on the edweek.org website, also recommends that while teachers can and should share personal stories if they are "purposeful and appropriate" to the discussion, they should use these to model for students what level of detail is appropriate for sharing in social conversations.

How can relationships with students support teacher quality?

While student feedback is often incorporated into teacher evaluations in higher education, it is rarely a direct part of K-12 teacher evaluations. But that doesn't mean districts can't use student feedback to improve teaching practice, and in particular, such feedback can be used to help teachers build deeper relationships with students.

For example, the High Tech High Media Arts charter school in San Diego trains students using a six-week course to act as observers. The students met regularly with the teacher to give feedback about their communication skills and engagement in the classroom, and to brainstorm better ways to reach out to students. Teachers and administrators found that going through the training gave students better understanding of the teachers' roles. School staff members said that teachers also "developed deeper relationships with students, interacted with students in a more positive way during class, communicated information about projects and assignments to students more clearly, generated better questions to stimulate student dialogue during Socratic seminars, and created more collaborative learning environments for students."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Students spend more than 1,000 hours with their teacher in a typical school year. That's enough time to build a relationship that could ignite a student's lifetime love of learning-and it's enough time for the dynamic to go totally off the rails.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Standardized tests have been a part of American education since the mid-1800s. Their use skyrocketed after 2002's No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) mandated annual testing in all 50 states. US students slipped from being ranked 18th in the world in math in 2000 to 40th in 2015, and from 14th to 25th in science and from 15th to 24th in reading. Failures in the education system have been blamed on rising poverty levels, teacher quality, tenure policies, and, increasingly, on the pervasive use of standardized tests.

Proponents argue that standardized tests offer an objective measurement of education and a good metric to gauge areas for improvement, as well as offer meaningful data to help students in marginalized groups, and that the scores are good indicators of college and job success. They argue standardized tests are useful metrics for teacher evaluations.

Opponents argue that standardized tests only determine which students are good at taking tests, offer no meaningful measure of progress, and have not improved student performance, and that the tests are racist, classist, and sexist, with scores that are not predictors of future success. They argue standardized tests are useful metrics for teacher evaluations.
Read more background...
Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1

Standardized tests offer an objective measurement of education and a good metric to gauge areas for improvement.

Teachers' grading practices are naturally uneven and subjective. An A in one class may be a C in another. Teachers also have conscious and unconscious biases for a favorite student or against a rowdy student, for example. Standardized tests offer students across the country a unified measure of their knowledge.

Aaron Churchill, Ohio Research Director for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, stated, "At their core, standardized exams are designed to be objective measures. They assess students based on a similar set of questions, are given under nearly identical testing conditions, and are graded by a machine or blind reviewer. They are intended to provide an accurate, unfiltered measure of what a student knows."

Frequently states or local jurisdictions employ psychometricians to ensure tests are fair across populations of students. Mark Moulon, PhD, Chief Executive Officer at Pythias Consulting and psychometrician, offered an example: "If you find that your question on skateboarding is one that boys find to be an easy question, but girls find to be a hard question, that'll pop up as a statistic. Differential item functioning will flag that question as problematic."

Moulon continued, explaining, "What's cool about psychometrics is that it will flag stuff that a human would never be able to notice. I remember a science test that had been developed in California and it asked about earthquakes. But the question was later used in a test that was administered in New England. When you try to analyze the New England kids with the California kids, you would get a differential item functioning flag because the California kids were all over the subject of earthquakes, and the kids in Vermont had no idea about earthquakes."

With problematic questions removed, or adapted for different populations of students, standardized tests offer the best objective measure of what students have learned. Taking that information, schools can determine areas for improvement. As Bryan Nixon, former Head of School at private school Whitby, noted, "When we receive standardized test data at Whitby, we use it to evaluate the effectiveness of our education program. We view standardized testing data as not only another set of data points to assess student performance, but also as a means to help us reflect on our curriculum. When we look at Whitby's assessment data, we can compare our students to their peers at other schools to determine what we're doing well within our educational continuum and where we need to invest more time and resources."
Read More

Pro 2

Standardized tests offer meaningful data to help students in marginalized groups.

Keri Rodrigues, Co-founder of the National Parents Union, explained, "If I don't have testing data to make sure my child's on the right track, I'm not able to intervene and say there is a problem and my child needs more. And the community can't say this school is doing well, this teacher needs help to improve, or this system needs new leadership... It's really important to have a statewide test because of the income disparity that exists in our society. Black and Brown excellence is real, but just because a kid lives in Dorchester [Massachusetts] does not make his or her life is less valuable than a child that lives in Wellesley [Massachusetts]. And it is unfair to say that just by luck of birth that a child born in Wellesley is somehow entitled to a higher-quality education... Testing is a tool for us to hold the system accountable to make sure our kids have what they need. "

Sheryl Lazarus, PhD, Director of the National Center on Educational Outcomes at the University of Minnesota, stated, "a real plus of these assessments is that they've really shone a light on the differences across sub-groups. And they have led to improvements in access to instruction for students with disabilities and English learners... Inclusion of students with disabilities and English learners in summative tests used for accountability allows us to measure how well the system is doing for these students, and then it is possible to fill in gaps in instructional opportunity."

Advocates for marginalized groups of students, whether by race, learning disability, or other difference, can use testing data to prove a problem exists and to help solve the problem via more funding, development of programs, or other solutions. Civil rights education lawsuits wherein a group is suing a local or state government for better education almost always use testing data.

Chris Stewart, CEO of brightbeam, summarizes, "We only know that there's a difference between White students and Black students and other students of color because we have the data. We only know about that because we have assessments."

A letter signed by 12 civil rights organizations including the NAACP and the American Association of University Women, explained, "Data obtained through some standardized tests are particularly important to the civil rights community because they are the only available, consistent, and objective source of data about disparities in educational outcomes, even while vigilance is always required to ensure tests are not misused. These data are used to advocate for greater resource equity in schools and more fair treatment for students of color, low-income students, students with disabilities, and English learners... [W]e cannot fix what we cannot measure. And abolishing the tests or sabotaging the validity of their results only makes it harder to identify and fix the deep-seated problems in our schools."
Read More

Pro 3

Standardized tests are useful metrics for teacher evaluations.

While grades and other measures are useful for teacher evaluations, standardized tests provide a consistent measure across classrooms and schools. Individual school administrators, school districts, and the state can compare teachers using test scores to show how each teacher has helped students master core concepts.

Timothy Hilton, a high school social studies teacher in South Central Los Angeles, stated, "No self-respecting teacher would use a single student grade on a single assignment as a final grade for the entirety of a course, so why would we rely on one source of information in the determination of a teacher's overall quality? The more data that can be provided, the more accurate the teacher evaluation decisions will end up being. Teacher evaluations should incorporate as many pieces of data as possible. Administration observation, student surveys, student test scores, professional portfolios, and on and on. The more data that is used, the more accurate the picture it will paint."
Read More

Pro 4

Standardized tests scores are good indicators of college and job success.

Standardized tests can offer evidence of and promote academic rigor, which is invaluable in college as well as in students' careers. Matthew Pietrafetta, PhD, Founder of Academic Approach, argues that the "tests create gravitational pull toward higher achievement."

Elaine Riordan, senior communications professional at Actively Learn, stated, "[C]onsiderable research suggests that interventions that help students improve test scores are linked to better adult outcomes such as college attendance, higher incomes, and the avoidance of risky behaviors... In other words, creating learning environments that lead to higher test scores is also likely to improve students' long-term success in college and beyond... Recent research suggests that the competencies that the SAT, ACT, and other standardized tests are now evaluating are essential not just for students who will attend four-year colleges but also for those who participate in CTE programs or choose to seek employment requiring associate degrees and certificates. The researchers argue that all of these students require the same level of academic mastery to be successful after high school graduation."

Standardized test scores have long been correlated with better college and life outcomes. As Dan Goldhaber, PhD, Director of the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, and Umut Özek, PhD, senior researcher at the American Institutes for Research, summarize, "students who score one standard deviation higher on math tests at the end of high school have been shown to earn 12% more annually, or $3,600 for each year of work life in 2001... Similarly... test scores are significantly correlated not only with educational attainment and labor market outcomes (employment, work experience, choice of occupation), but also with risky behavior (teenage pregnancy, smoking, participation in illegal activities)."
Read More

Con 1

Standardized tests only determine which students are good at taking tests, offer no meaningful measure of progress, and have not improved student performance.

Standardized test scores are easily influenced by outside factors: stress, hunger, tiredness, and prior teacher or parent comments about the difficulty of the test, among other factors. In short, the tests only show which students are best at preparing for and taking the tests, not what knowledge students might exhibit if their stomachs weren't empty. External stereotypes also play a part in scores: "research indicates that being targeted by well-known stereotypes ('blacks are unintelligent,' 'Latinos perform poorly on tests,' 'girls can't do math' and so on) can be threatening to students in profound ways, a predicament they call 'stereotype threat.'"

Students are tested on grade-appropriate material, but they are not re-tested to determine if they have learned information they tested poorly on the year before. Instead, as Steve Martinez, EdD, Superintendent of Twin Rivers Unified in California, and Rick Miller, Executive Director of CORE Districts, note, each "state currently reports yearly change, by comparing the scores of this year's students against the scores of last year's students who were in the same grade. Even though educators, parents and policymakers might think change signals impact, it says much more about the change in who the students are because it is not measuring the growth of the same student from one year to the next."

Further, because each state develops its own tests, standardized tests are not necessarily comparable across state lines, leaving nationwide statistics shaky at best.

Brandon Busteed, Executive Director, Education & Workforce Development at the time of the quote, stated, "Despite an increased focus on standardized testing, U.S. results in international comparisons show we have made no significant improvement over the past 20 years, according to the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The U.S. most recently ranked 23rd, 39th and 25th in reading, math and science, respectively. The last time Americans celebrated being 23rd, 39th and 25th in anything was ... well, never. Our focus on standardized testing hasn't helped us improve our results!"

Busteed asks, "What if our overreliance on standardized testing has actually inhibited our ability to help students succeed and achieve in a multitude of other dimensions? For example, how effective are schools at identifying and educating students with high entrepreneurial talent? Or at training students to apply creative thinking to solve messy and complex issues with no easy answers?"
Read More

Con 2

Standardized tests are racist, classist, and sexist.

The origin of American standardized tests are those created by psychologist Carl Brigham, PhD, for the Army during World War I, which was later adapted to become the SAT. The Army tests were created specifically to segregate soldiers by race, because at the time science inaccurately linked intelligence and race.

Racial bias has not been stripped from standardized tests. W. James Popham, PhD, Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Los Angeles and former test maker, explains how discrimination is purposefully built in to standardized tests, "Traditionally constructed standardized achievements, the kinds that we've used in this country for a long while, are intended chiefly to discriminate among students ... to say that someone was in the 83rd percentile and someone is at 43rd percentile. And the reason you do that is so you can make judgments among these kids. But in order to do so, you have to make sure that the test has in fact a spread of scores. One of the ways to have that test create a spread of scores is to limit items in the test to socioeconomic variables, because socioeconomic status is a nicely spread out distribution, and that distribution does in fact spread kids' scores out on a test."

As Young Whan Choi, Manager of Performance Assessments Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, California, explains, "Too often, test designers rely on questions which assume background knowledge more often held by White, middle-class students. It's not just that the designers have unconscious racial bias; the standardized testing industry depends on these kinds of biased questions in order to create a wide range of scores." Choi offers an example from his own 10th grade class, "a student called me over with a question. With a puzzled look, she pointed to the prompt asking students to write about the qualities of someone who would deserve a "key to the city." Many of my students, nearly all of whom qualified for free and reduced lunch, were not familiar with the idea of a 'key to the city.'"

Wealthy kids, who would be more familiar with a "key to the city," tend to have higher standardized test scores due to differences in brain development caused by factors such as "access to enriching educational resources, and... exposure to spoken language and vocabulary early in life." Plus, as Eloy Ortiz Oakley, MBA, Chancellor of California Community Colleges, points out, "Many well-resourced students have far greater access to test preparation, tutoring and taking the test multiple times, opportunities not afforded the less affluent... [T]hese admissions tests are a better measure of students' family background and economic status than of their ability to succeed"

Journalist and teacher Carly Berwick explains, "All students do not do equally well on multiple choice tests, however. Girls tend to do less well than boys and perform better on questions with open-ended answers, according to a 2018 study by Stanford University's Sean Reardon, which found that test format alone accounts for 25 percent of the gender difference in performance in both reading and math. Researchers hypothesize that one explanation for the gender difference on high-stakes tests is risk aversion, meaning girls tend to guess less."
Read More

Con 3

Standardized tests are unfair metrics for teacher evaluations.

16 states and DC have stopped using standardized tests in teacher evaluations. [79] [80] As W. James Popham, PhD, noted, "standardized achievement tests should not be used to determine the effectiveness of a state, a district, a school, or a teacher. There's almost certain to be a significant mismatch between what's taught and what's tested."

Margaret Pastor, PhD, Principal of Stedwick Elementary School in Maryland, stated: "[A]n assistant superintendent... pointed out that in one of my four kindergarten classes, the student scores were noticeably lower, while in another, the students were outperforming the other three classes. He recommended that I have the teacher whose class had scored much lower work directly with the teacher who seemed to know how to get higher scores from her students. Seems reasonable, right? But here was the problem: The "underperforming" kindergarten teacher and the "high-performing" teacher were one and the same person."
Read More

Con 4

Standardized tests scores are not predictors of future success.

Standardized tests can only, at best, evaluate rote knowledge of math, science, and English. The tests do not evaluate creativity, problem solving, critical thinking, artistic ability, or other knowledge areas that cannot be judged by scoring a sheet of bubbles filled in with a pencil.

Grade point averages (GPA) are a 5 times stronger indicator of college success than standardized tests, according to a study of 55,084 Chicago public school students. One of the authors, Elaine M. Allensworth, PhD, Lewis-Sebring Director of the University of Chicago Consortium, stated, "GPAs measure a very wide variety of skills and behaviors that are needed for success in college, where students will encounter widely varying content and expectations. In contrast, standardized tests measure only a small set of the skills that students need to succeed in college, and students can prepare for these tests in narrow ways that may not translate into better preparation to succeed in college."

Matthew M. Chingos, PhD, Vice President of Education Data and Policy at the Urban Institute, explained, "earning good grades requires consistent behaviors over time-showing up to class and participating, turning in assignments, taking quizzes, etc.-whereas students could in theory do well on a test even if they do not have the motivation and perseverance needed to achieve good grades. It seems likely that the kinds of habits high school grades capture are more relevant for success in college than a score from a single test."
Read More

Did You Know?

1. The earliest known standardized tests were administered to government job applicants in 7th Century Imperial China.

2. The Kansas Silent Reading Test (1914-1915) is the earliest known published multiple-choice test, developed by Frederick J. Kelly, a Kansas school director.

3. In 1934, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) hired a teacher and inventor named Reynold B. Johnson (best known for creating the world's first commercial computer disk drive) to create a production model of his prototype test scoring machine.

4. The current use of No. 2 pencils on standardized tests is a holdover from the 1930s through the 1960s, when scanning machines scored answer sheets by detecting the electrical conductivity of graphite pencil marks.

5. In 2020, states were allowed to cancel standardized testing due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Standardized Testing Pros and Cons - Does It Improve Education?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Proponents say the tests offer objective measurements of education. Opponents say tests only show which students are good at taking tests.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
These days, if a school's standardized test scores are high, people think the school's staff is effective. If a school's standardized test scores are low, they see the school's staff as ineffective. In either case, because educational quality is being measured by the wrong yardstick, those evaluations are apt to be in error.

One of the chief reasons that students' standardized test scores continue to be the most important factor in evaluating a school is deceptively simple. Most educators do not really understand why a standardized test provides a misleading estimate of a school staff's effectiveness. They should.

What's in a Name?

A standardized test is any examination that's administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner. There are two major kinds of standardized tests: aptitude tests and achievement tests.

Standardized aptitude tests predict how well students are likely to perform in some subsequent educational setting. The most common examples are the SAT-I and the ACT both of which attempt to forecast how well high school students will perform in college.

But standardized achievement-test scores are what citizens and school board members rely on when they evaluate a school's effectiveness. Nationally, five such tests are in use: California Achievement Tests, Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, Metropolitan Achievement Tests, and Stanford Achievement Tests.

A Standardized Test's Assessment Mission

The folks who create standardized achievement tests are terrifically talented. What they are trying to do is to create assessment tools that permit someone to make a valid inference about the knowledge and/or skills that a given student possesses in a particular content area. More precisely, that inference is to be norm-referenced so that a student's relative knowledge and/or skills can be compared with those possessed by a national sample of students of the same age or grade level.

Such relative inferences about a student's status with respect to the mastery of knowledge and/or skills in a particular subject area can be quite informative to parents and educators. For example, think about the parents who discover that their 4th grade child is performing really well in language arts (94th percentile) and mathematics (89th percentile), but rather poorly in science (39th percentile) and social studies (26th percentile). Such information, because it illuminates a child's strengths and weaknesses, can be helpful not only in dealing with their child's teacher, but also in determining at-home assistance. Similarly, if teachers know how their students compare with other students nationwide, they can use this information to devise appropriate classroom instruction.

But there's an enormous amount of knowledge and/or skills that children at any grade level are likely to know. The substantial size of the content domain that a standardized achievement test is supposed to represent poses genuine difficulties for the developers of such tests. If a test actually covered all the knowledge and skills in the domain, it would be far too long.

So standardized achievement tests often need to accomplish their measurement mission with a much smaller collection of test items than might otherwise be employed if testing time were not an issue. The way out of this assessment bind is for standardized achievement tests to sample the knowledge and/or skills in the content domain. Frequently, such tests try to do their assessment job with only 40 to 50 items in a subject field-sometimes fewer.

Accurate Differentiation As a Deity

The task for those developing standardized achievement tests is to create an assessment instrument that, with a handful of items, yields valid norm-referenced interpretations of a student's status regarding a substantial chunk of content. Items that do the best job of discriminating among students are those answered correctly by roughly half the students. Devlopers avoid items that are answered correctly by too many or by too few students.

As a consequence of carefully sampling content and concentrating on items that discriminate optimally among students, these test creators have produced assessment tools that do a great job of providing relative comparisons of a student's content mastery with that of students nationwide. Assuming that the national norm group is genuinely representative of the nation at large, then educators and parents can make useful inferences about students.

One of the most useful of those inferences typically deals with students' relative strengths and weaknesses across subject areas, such as when parents find that their daughter sparkles in mathematics but sinks in science. It's also possible to identify students' relative strengths and weaknesses within a given subject area if there are enough test items to do so. For instance, if a 45-item standardized test in mathematics allocates 15 items to basic computation, 15 items to geometry, and 15 items to algebra, it might be possible to get a rough idea of a student's relative strengths and weaknesses in those three realms of mathematics. More often than not, however, these tests contain too few items to allow meaningful within-subject comparisons of students' strengths and weaknesses.

A second kind of useful inference that can be based on standardized achievement tests involves a student's growth over time in different subject areas. For example, let's say that a child is given a standardized achievement test every third year. We see that the child's percentile performances in most subjects are relatively similar at each testing, but that the child's percentiles in mathematics appear to drop dramatically at each subsequent testing. That's useful information.

Unfortunately, both parents and educators often ascribe far too much precision and accuracy to students' scores on standardized achievement tests. Several factors might cause scores to flop about. Merely because these test scores are reported in numbers (sometimes even with decimals!) should not incline anyone to attribute unwarranted precision to them. Standardized achievement test scores should be regarded as rough approximations of a student's status with respect to the content domain represented by the test.

To sum up, standardized achievement tests do a wonderful job of supplying the evidence needed to make norm-referenced interpretations of students' knowledge and/or skills in relationship to those of students nationally. The educational usefulness of those interpretations is considerable. Given the size of the content domains to be represented and the limited number of items that the test developers have at their disposal, standardized achievement tests are really quite remarkable. They do what they are supposed to do.

But standardized achievement tests should not be used to evaluate the quality of education. That's not what they are supposed to do.

Measuring Temperature with a Tablespoon

For several important reasons, standardized achievement tests should not be used to judge the quality of education. The overarching reason that students' scores on these tests do not provide an accurate index of educational effectiveness is that any inference about educational quality made on the basis of students' standardized achievement test performances is apt to be invalid.

Employing standardized achievement tests to ascertain educational quality is like measuring temperature with a tablespoon. Tablespoons have a different measurement mission than indicating how hot or cold something is. Standardized achievement tests have a different measurement mission than indicating how good or bad a school is. Standardized achievement tests should be used to make the comparative interpretations that they were intended to provide. They should not be used to judge educational quality. Let's look at three significant reasons that it is thoroughly invalid to base inferences about the caliber of education on standardized achievement test scores.

Testing-Teaching Mismatches

The companies that create and sell standardized achievement tests are all owned by large corporations. Like all for-profit businesses, these corporations attempt to produce revenue for their shareholders.

Recognizing the substantial pressure to sell standardized achievement tests, those who market such tests encounter a difficult dilemma that arises from the considerable curricular diversity in the United States. Because different states often choose somewhat different educational objectives (or, to be fashionable, different content standards), the need exists to build standardized achievement tests that are properly aligned with educators' meaningfully different curricular preferences. The problem becomes even more exacerbated in states where different counties or school districts can exercise more localized curricular decision making.

At a very general level, the goals that educators pursue in different settings are reasonably similar. For instance, you can be sure that all schools will give attention to language arts, mathematics, and so on. But that's at a general level. At the level where it really makes a difference to instruction-in the classroom-there are significant differences in the educational objectives being sought. And that presents a problem to those who must sell standardized achievement tests.

In view of the nation's substantial curricular diversity, test developers are obliged to create a series of one-size-fits-all assessments. But, as most of us know from attempting to wear one-size-fits-all garments, sometimes one size really can't fit all.

The designers of these tests do the best job they can in selecting test items that are likely to measure all of a content area's knowledge and skills that the nation's educators regard as important. But the test developers can't really pull it off. Thus, standardized achievement tests will always contain many items that are not aligned with what's emphasized instructionally in a particular setting.

To illustrate the seriousness of the mismatch that can occur between what's taught locally and what's tested through standardized achievement tests, educators ought to know about an important study at Michigan State University reported in 1983 by Freeman and his colleagues. These researchers selected five nationally standardized achievement tests in mathematics and studied their content for grades 4-6. Then, operating on the very reasonable assumption that what goes on instructionally in classrooms is often influenced by what's contained in the texbooks that children use, they also studied four widely used textbooks for grades 4-6.

Employing rigorous review procedures, the researchers identified the items in the standardized achievement test that had not received meaningful instructional attention in the textbooks. They concluded that between 50 and 80 percent of what was measured on the tests was not suitably addressed in the textbooks. As the Michigan State researchers put it, "The proportion of topics presented on a standardized test that received more than cursory treatment in each textbook was never higher than 50 percent" (p. 509).

Well, if the content of standardized tests is not satisfactorily addressed in widely used textbooks, isn't it likely that in a particular educational setting, topics will be covered on the test that aren't addressed instructionally in that setting? Unfortunately, because most educators are not genuinely familiar with the ingredients of standardized achievement tests, they often assume that if a standardized achievement test asserts that it is assessing "children's reading comprehension capabilities," then it's likely that the test meshes with the way reading is being taught locally. More often than not, the assumed match between what's tested and what's taught is not warranted.

If you spend much time with the descriptive materials presented in the manuals accompanying standardized achievement tests, you'll find that the descriptors for what's tested are often fairly general. Those descriptors need to be general to make the tests acceptable to a nation of educators whose curricular preferences vary. But such general descriptions of what's tested often permit assumptions of teaching-testing alignments that are way off the mark. And such mismatches, recognized or not, will often lead to spurious conclusions about the effectiveness of education in a given setting if students' scores on standardized achievement tests are used as the indicator of educational effectiveness. And that's the first reason that standardized achievement tests should not be used to determine the effectiveness of a state, a district, a school, or a teacher. There's almost certain to be a significant mismatch between what's taught and what's tested.

A Psychometric Tendency to Eliminate Important Test Items

A second reason that standardized achievement tests should not be used to evaluate educational quality arises directly from the requirement that these tests permit meaningful comparisons among students from only a small collection of items.

A test item that does the best job in spreading out students' total-test scores is a test item that's answered correctly by about half the students. Items that are answered correctly by 40 to 60 percent of the students do a solid job in spreading out the total scores of test-takers.

Items that are answered correctly by very large numbers of students, in contrast, do not make a suitable contribution to spreading out students' test scores. A test item answered correctly by 90 percent of the test-takers is, from the perspective of a test's efficiency in providing comparative interpretations, being answered correctly by too many students.

Test items answered correctly by 80 percent or more of the test takers, therefore, usually don't make it past the final cut when a standardized achievement test is first developed, and such items will most likely be jettisoned when the test is revised. As a result, the vast majority of the items on standardized achievement tests are "middle difficulty" items.

As a consequence of the quest for score variance in a standardized achievement test, items on which students perform well are often excluded. However, items on which students perform well often cover the content that, because of its importance, teachers stress. Thus, the better the job that teachers do in teaching important knowledge and/or skills, the less likely it is that there will be items on a standardized achievement test measuring such knowledge and/or skills. To evaluate teachers' instructional effectiveness by using assessment tools that deliberately avoid important content is fundamentally foolish.

Confounded Causation

The third reason that students' performances on these tests should not be used to evaluate educational quality is the most compelling. Because student performances on standardized achievement tests are heavily influenced by three causative factors, only one of which is linked to instructional quality, asserting that low or high test scores are caused by the quality of instruction is illogical.

To understand this confounded-causation problem clearly, let's look at the kinds of test items that appear on standardized achievement tests. Remember, students' test scores are based on how well students do on the test's items. To get a really solid idea of what's in standardized tests, you need to grub around with the items themselves.

The three illustrative items presented here are mildly massaged versions of actual test items in current standardized achievement tests. I've modified the items' content slightly, without altering the essence of what the items are trying to measure.

The problem of confounded causation involves three factors that contribute to students' scores on standardized achievement tests: (1) what's taught in school, (2) a student's native intellectual ability, and (3) a student's out-of-school learning.

What's taught in school. Some of the items in standardized achievement tests measure the knowledge or skills that students learn in school. In certain subject areas, such as mathematics, children learn in school most of what they know about a subject. Few parents spend much time teaching their children about the intricacies of algebra or how to prove a theorem.

So, if you look over the items in any standardized achievement test, you'll find a fair number similar to the mathematics item presented in Figure 1, which is a mildly modified version of an item appearing in a standardized achievement test intended for 3rd grade children.

Figure 1. A 3rd Grade Standardized Achievement Test Item in Mathematics

This mathematics item would help teachers arrive at a valid inference about 3rd graders' abilities to choose number sentences that coincide with verbal representations of subtraction problems. Or, along with other similar items dealing with addition, multiplication, and division, this item would contribute to a valid inference about a student's ability to choose appropriate number sentences for a variety of basic computation problems presented in verbal form.

If the items in standardized achievement tests measured only what actually had been taught in school, I wouldn't be so negative about using these tests to determine educational quality. As you'll soon see, however, other kinds of items are hiding in standardized achievement tests.

A student's native intellectual ability. I wish I believed that all children were born with identical intellectual abilities, but I don't. Some kids were luckier at gene-pool time. Some children, from birth, will find it easier to mess around with mathematics than will others. Some kids, from birth, will have an easier time with verbal matters than will others. If children came into the world having inherited identical intellectual abilities, teachers' pedagogical problems would be far more simple.

Recent thinking among many leading educators suggests that there are various forms of intelligence, not just one (Gardner, 1994). A child who is born with less aptitude for dealing with quantitative or verbal tasks, therefore, might possess greater "interpersonal" or "intrapersonal" intelligence, but these latter abilities are not tested by these tests. For the kinds of items that are most commonly found on standardized achievement tests, children differ in their innate abilities to respond correctly. And some items on standardized achievement tests are aimed directly at measuring such intellectual ability.

Consider, for example, the item in Figure 2. This item attempts to measure a child's ability "to figure out" what the right answer is. I don't think that the item measures what's taught in school. The item measures what students come to school with, not what they learn there.

Figure 2. A 6th Grade Standardized Achievement Test Item in Social Studies

1. leave lights on even if they are not needed.

2. wash small loads instead of large loads in a clothes-washing machine.

3. write on both sides of a piece of paper.

4. place used newspapers in the garbage.

In Figure 2's social studies item for 6th graders, look carefully at the four answer options. Read each option and see if it might be correct. A "smart" student, I contend, can figure out that choices A, B, and D really would not "conserve resources" all that well; hence choice C is the winning option. Brighter kids will have a better time with this item than their less bright classmates.

But why, you might be thinking, do developers of standardized tests include such items on their tests? The answer is all too simple. These sorts of items, because they tap innate intellectual skills that are not readily modifiable in school, do a wonderful job in spreading out test-takers' scores. The quest for score variance, coupled with the limitation of having few items to use in assessing students, makes such items appealing to those who construct standardized achievement tests.

But items that primarily measure differences in students' in-born intellectual abilities obviously do not contribute to valid inferences about "how well children have been taught." Would we like all children to do well on such "native-smarts" items? Of course we would. But to use such items to arrive at a judgment about educational effectiveness is simply unsound.

Out-of-school learning. The most troubling items on standardized achievement tests assess what students have learned outside of school. Unfortunately, you'll find more of these items on standardized achievement tests than you'd suspect. If children come from advantaged families and stimulus-rich environments, then they are more apt to succeed on items in standardized achievement test items than will other children whose environments don't mesh as well with what the tests measure. The item in Figure 3 makes clear what's actually being assessed by a number of items on standardized achievement tests.

Figure 3. A 6th Grade Standardized Achievement Test Item in Science

This 6th grade science item first tells students what an attribute of a fruit is (namely, that it contains seeds). Then the student must identify what "is not a fruit" by selecting the option without seeds. As any child who has encountered celery knows, celery is a seed-free plant. The right answer, then, for those who have coped with celery's strings but never its seeds, is clearly choice D.

But what if when you were a youngster, your folks didn't have the money to buy celery at the store? What if your circumstances simply did not give you the chance to have meaningful interactions with celery stalks by the time you hit the 6th grade? How well do you think you'd do in correctly answering the item in Figure 3? And how well would you do if you didn't know that pumpkins were seed-carrying spheres? Clearly, if children know about pumpkins and celery, they'll do better on this item than will those children who know only about apples and oranges. That's how children's socioeconomic status gets mixed up with children's performances on standardized achievement tests. The higher your family's socioeconomic status is, the more likely you are to do well on a number of the test items you'll encounter in a such a test.

Suppose you're a principal of a school in which most students come from genuinely low socioeconomic situations. How are your students likely to perform on standardized achievement tests if a substantial number of the test's items really measure the stimulus-richness of your students' backgrounds? That's right, your students are not likely to earn very high scores. Does that mean your school's teachers are doing a poor instructional job? Of course not.

Conversely, let's imagine you're a principal in an affluent school whose students tend to have upper-class, well-educated parents. Each spring, your students' scores on standardized achievement tests are dazzlingly high. Does this mean your school's teachers are doing a super instructional job? Of course not.

One of the chief reasons that children's socioeconomic status is so highly correlated with standardized test scores is that many items on standardized achievement tests really focus on assessing knowledge and/or skills learned outside of school-knowledge and/or skills more likely to be learned in some socioeconomic settings than in others.

Again, you might ask why on earth would standardized achievement test developers place such items on their tests? As usual, the answer is consistent with the dominant measurement mission of those tests, namely, to spread out students' test scores so that accurate and fine-grained norm-referenced interpretations can be made. Because there is substantial variation in children's socioeconomic situations, items that reflect such variations are efficient in producing among-student variations in test scores.

You've just considered three important factors that can influence students' scores on standardized achievement tests. One of these factors was directly linked to educational quality. But two factors weren't.

What's an Educator to Do?

I've described a situation that, from the perspective of an educator, looks pretty bleak. What, if anything, can be done? I suggest a three-pronged attack on the problem. First, I think that you need to learn more about the viscera of standardized achievement tests. Second, I think that you need to carry out an effective educational campaign so that your educational colleagues, parents of children in school, and educational policymakers understand what the evaluative shortcomings of standardized achievement tests really are. Finally, I think that you need to arrange a more appropriate form of assessment-based evidence.

Learning about standardized achievement tests.

Far too many educators haven't really studied the items on standardized achievement tests since the time that they were, as students, obliged to respond to those items. But the inferences made on the basis of students' test performances rest on nothing more than an aggregated sum of students' item-by-item responses. What educators need to do is to spend some quality time with standardized achievement tests-scrutinizing the test's items one at a time to see what they are really measuring.

Most educators, and almost all parents and school board members, think that schools should be rated on the basis of their students' scores on standardized achievement tests. Those people need to be educated. It is the responsibility of all educators to do that educating.

If you do try to explain to the public, to parents, or to policymakers why standardized test scores will probably provide a misleading picture of educational quality, be sure to indicate that you're not running away from the need to be held accountable. No, you must be willing to identify other, more credible evidence of student achievement.

Coming up with other evidence.

If you're going to argue against standardized achievement tests as a source of educational evidence for determining school quality, and you still are willing to be held educationally accountable, then you'll need to ante up some other form of evidence to show the world that you really are doing a good educational job.

I recommend that you attempt to assess students' mastery of genuinely significant cognitive skills, such as their ability to write effective compositions, their ability to use lessons from history to make cogent analyses of current problems, and their ability to solve high-level mathematical problems.

If the skills selected measure really important cognitive outcomes, are seen by parents and policymakers to be genuinely significant, and can be addressed instructionally by competent teachers, then the assembly of a set of pre-test-to-post-test evidence showing substantial student growth in such skills can be truly persuasive.

What teachers need are assessment instruments that measure worthwhile skills or significant bodies of knowledge. Then teachers need to show the world that they can instruct children so that those children make striking pre-instruction to post-instruction progress.

The fundamental point is this: If educators accept the position that standardized achievement test scores should not be used to measure the quality of schooling, then they must provide other, credible evidence that can be used to ascertain the quality of schooling. Carefully collected, nonpartisan evidence regarding teachers' pre-test-to-post-test promotion of undeniably important skills or knowledge just might do the trick.

Right Task, Wrong Tools

Educators should definitely be held accountable. The teaching of a nation's children is too important to be left unmonitored. But to evaluate educational quality by using the wrong assessment instruments is a subversion of good sense. Although educators need to produce valid evidence regarding their effectiveness, standardized achievement tests are the wrong tools for the task.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why Standardized Tests Don't Measure Educational Quality - ASCD

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
These days, if a school's standardized test scores are high, people think the school's staff is effective. If a school's standardized test scores are low, they see the school's staff as ineffective. In either case, because educational quality is being measured by the wrong yardstick, those evaluatio

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Thomas D Willhite - Today is the first day of the rest of your life

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Werner Erhard - Taking a Stand for the Future 1982

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
TEDx1000Lakes - Jerry Nagel - A Way Forward when Worldviews Collide

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Power of Vulnerability | Brené Brown | TED

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Decision making is a key skill in the workplace, and is particularly important if you want to be an effective leader.

Whether you're deciding which person to hire, which supplier to use, or which strategy to pursue, the ability to make a good decision with available information is vital.

It would be easy if there were one formula you could use in any situation, but there isn't.

Each decision presents its own challenges, and we all have different ways of approaching problems.

So, how do you avoid making bad decisions - or leaving decisions to chance? You need a systematic approach to decision making so that, no matter what type of decision you have to make, you can take it with confidence.

No one can afford to make poor decisions. That's why we've developed a short quiz to help you assess your current decision-making skills. We'll examine how well you structure your decision-making process, and then we'll point you to specific tools and resources you can use to develop and improve this important competency.

How Good Are Your Decision-Making Skills?

Instructions

For each statement, click the button in the column that best describes you. Please answer questions as you actually are (rather than how you think you should be), and don't worry if some questions seem to score in the 'wrong direction'. When you are finished, please click the 'Calculate My Total' button at the bottom of the test.

Your last quiz results are shown.

You last completed this quiz on , at .

18-42

Your decision-making hasn't fully matured. You aren't objective enough, and you rely too much on luck, instinct or timing to make reliable decisions. Start to improve your decision-making skills by focusing more on the process that leads to the decision, rather than on the decision itself. With a solid process, you can face any decision with confidence. We'll show you how. (Read below to start.)

43-66

Your decision-making process is OK. You have a good understanding of the basics, but now you need to improve your process and be more proactive. Concentrate on finding lots of options and discovering as many risks and consequences as you can. The better your analysis, the better your decision will be in the long term. Focus specifically on the areas where you lost points, and develop a system that will work for you across a wide variety of situations. (Read below to start.)

67-90

You have an excellent approach to decision-making! You know how to set up the process and generate lots of potential solutions. From there, you analyze the options carefully, and you make the best decisions possible based on what you know. As you gain more and more experience, use that information to evaluate your decisions, and continue to build on your decision-making success. Think about the areas where you lost points, and decide how you can include those areas in your process. (Read below to start.)

As you answered the questions, did you see some common themes? We based our quiz on six essential steps in the decision-making process:

1. Establishing a positive decision-making environment.

2. Generating potential solutions.

3. Evaluating the solutions.

4. Deciding.

5. Checking the decision.

6. Communicating and implementing.

If you're aware of these six basic elements and improve the way you structure them, this will help you develop a better overall decision-making system. Let's look at the six elements individually.

(Questions 3, 7, 13, 16)

(Questions 4, 8, 11)

(Questions 1, 6, 15)

1. Risk - Most decisions involve some risk. However, you need to uncover and understand the risks to make the best choice possible.

2. Consequences - You can't predict the implications of a decision with 100% accuracy. But you can be careful and systematic in the way that you identify and evaluate possible consequences.

3. Feasibility - Is the choice realistic and implementable? This factor is often ignored. You usually have to consider certain constraints when making a decision. As part of this evaluation stage, ensure that the alternative you've selected is significantly better than the status quo.

(Questions 5, 10, 17)

(Questions 2, 9)

(Questions 12, 14, 18)

Key Points

Decision making is a skill - and skills can usually be improved. As you gain more experience making decisions, and as you become more familiar with the tools and structures needed for effective decision making, you'll improve your confidence. Use this opportunity to think about how you can improve your decision making and take your skills to the next level. Ultimately, improving your decision-making skills will benefit you and your organization.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Decision making is a key skill in the workplace, and is particularly important if you want to be an effective leader. Whether you're deciding which person to hire, which supplier to use, or which strategy to pursue, the ability to make a good decision with available information is vital.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Decision making is the process of making choices by identifying a decision, gathering information, and assessing alternative resolutions.

Using a step-by-step decision-making process can help you make more deliberate, thoughtful decisions by organizing relevant information and defining alternatives. This approach increases the chances that you will choose the most satisfying alternative possible.
Download the PDF
Step 1: Identify the decision

You realize that you need to make a decision. Try to clearly define the nature of the decision you must make. This first step is very important.

Step 2: Gather relevant information

Collect some pertinent information before you make your decision: what information is needed, the best sources of information, and how to get it. This step involves both internal and external "work." Some information is internal: you'll seek it through a process of self-assessment. Other information is external: you'll find it online, in books, from other people, and from other sources.

Step 3: Identify the alternatives

As you collect information, you will probably identify several possible paths of action, or alternatives. You can also use your imagination and additional information to construct new alternatives. In this step, you will list all possible and desirable alternatives.

Step 4: Weigh the evidence

Draw on your information and emotions to imagine what it would be like if you carried out each of the alternatives to the end. Evaluate whether the need identified in Step 1 would be met or resolved through the use of each alternative. As you go through this difficult internal process, you'll begin to favor certain alternatives: those that seem to have a higher potential for reaching your goal. Finally, place the alternatives in a priority order, based upon your own value system.

Step 5: Choose among alternatives

Once you have weighed all the evidence, you are ready to select the alternative that seems to be best one for you. You may even choose a combination of alternatives. Your choice in Step 5 may very likely be the same or similar to the alternative you placed at the top of your list at the end of Step 4.

Step 6: Take action

You're now ready to take some positive action by beginning to implement the alternative you chose in Step 5.

Step 7: Review your decision & its consequences

In this final step, consider the results of your decision and evaluate whether or not it has resolved the need you identified in Step 1. If the decision has not met the identified need, you may want to repeat certain steps of the process to make a new decision. For example, you might want to gather more detailed or somewhat different information or explore additional alternatives.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A step-by-step guide designed to help you make more deliberate, thoughtful decisions by organizing relevant information and defining alternatives.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several alternative possibilities. Every decision-making process produces a final choice, which may or may not prompt action.

Decision-making is the process of identifying and choosing alternatives based on the values, preferences and beliefs of the decision-maker.

Decision-making can be regarded as a problem-solving activity yielding a solution deemed to be optimal, or at least satisfactory. It is therefore a process which can be more or less rational or irrational and can be based on explicit or tacit knowledge and beliefs. Tacit knowledge is often used to fill the gaps in complex decision making processes. Usually both of these types of knowledge, tacit and explicit, are used together in the decision-making process.

Human performance has been the subject of active research from several perspectives:

Psychological: examining individual decisions in the context of a set of needs, preferences and values the individual has or seeks.

Cognitive: the decision-making process regarded as a continuous process integrated in the interaction with the environment.

Normative: the analysis of individual decisions concerned with the logic of decision-making, or communicative rationality, and the invariant choice it leads to.

A major part of decision-making involves the analysis of a finite set of alternatives described in terms of evaluative criteria. Then the task might be to rank these alternatives in terms of how attractive they are to the decision-maker(s) when all the criteria are considered simultaneously. Another task might be to find the best alternative or to determine the relative total priority of each alternative (for instance, if alternatives represent projects competing for funds) when all the criteria are considered simultaneously. Solving such problems is the focus of multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). This area of decision-making, although very old, has attracted the interest of many researchers and practitioners and is still highly debated as there are many MCDA methods which may yield very different results when they are applied on exactly the same data. This leads to the formulation of a decision-making paradox.

Logical decision-making is an important part of all science-based professions, where specialists apply their knowledge in a given area to make informed decisions. For example, medical decision-making often involves a diagnosis and the selection of appropriate treatment. But naturalistic decision-making research shows that in situations with higher time pressure, higher stakes, or increased ambiguities, experts may use intuitive decision-making rather than structured approaches. They may follow a recognition primed decision that fits their experience and arrive at a course of action without weighing alternatives.

The decision-maker's environment can play a part in the decision-making process. For example, environmental complexity is a factor that influences cognitive function. A complex environment is an environment with a large number of different possible states which come and go over time. Studies done at the University of Colorado have shown that more complex environments correlate with higher cognitive function, which means that a decision can be influenced by the location. One experiment measured complexity in a room by the number of small objects and appliances present; a simple room had less of those things. Cognitive function was greatly affected by the higher measure of environmental complexity making it easier to think about the situation and make a better decision.

Research about decision-making is also published under the label problem solving, in particular in European psychological research.

It is important to differentiate between problem analysis and decision-making. Traditionally, it is argued that problem analysis must be done first, so that the information gathered in that process may be used towards decision-making.

Characteristics of problem analysis

Problems are merely deviations from performance standards

Problems must be precisely identified and described

Problems are caused by a change from a distinctive feature

Something can always be used to distinguish between what has and hasn't been affected by a cause

Causes of problems can be deduced from relevant changes found in analyzing the problem

Most likely cause of a problem is the one that exactly explains all the facts, while having the fewest (or weakest) assumptions (Occam's razor).

Characteristics of decision-making

Objectives must first be established

Objectives must be classified and placed in order of importance

Alternative actions must be developed

The alternatives must be evaluated against all the objectives

The alternative that is able to achieve all the objectives is the tentative decision

The tentative decision is evaluated for more possible consequences

The decisive actions are taken, and additional actions are taken to prevent any adverse consequences from becoming problems and starting both systems (problem analysis and decision-making) all over again

There are steps that are generally followed that result in a decision model that can be used to determine an optimal production plan

In a situation featuring conflict, role-playing may be helpful for predicting decisions to be made by involved parties

Analysis paralysis is the state of over-analyzing (or over-thinking) a situation so that a decision or action is never taken, in effect paralyzing the outcome.

Information overload is "a gap between the volume of information and the tools we have to assimilate" it. Information used in decision making is to reduce or eliminate uncertainty. Excessive information affects problem processing and tasking, which affects decision-making. Crystal C. Hall and colleagues described an "illusion of knowledge", which means that as individuals encounter too much knowledge it can interfere with their ability to make rational decisions.

Evaluation and analysis of past decisions is complementary to decision-making. See also Mental accounting and Postmortem documentation.

Decision-making techniques can be separated into two broad categories: group decision-making techniques and individual decision-making techniques. Individual decision-making techniques can also often be applied by a group.

Consensus decision-making tries to avoid "winners" and "losers". Consensus requires that a majority approve a given course of action, but that the minority agree to go along with the course of action. In other words, if the minority opposes the course of action, consensus requires that the course of action be modified to remove objectionable features.

Voting-based methods:

Majority requires support from more than 50% of the members of the group. Thus, the bar for action is lower than with consensus.

Plurality, where the largest block in a group decides, even if it falls short of a majority.

Quadratic voting allows participants to cast their preference and intensity of preference for each decision (as opposed to a simple for or against decision). It addresses issues of voting paradox and majority-rule.

Range voting lets each member score one or more of the available options. The option with the highest average is chosen. This method has experimentally been shown to produce the lowest Bayesian regret among common voting methods, even when voters are strategic.[citation needed ]

Delphi method is a structured communication technique for groups, originally developed for collaborative forecasting but has also been used for policy making.

Dotmocracy is a facilitation method that relies on the use of special forms called Dotmocracy Sheets to allow large groups to collectively brainstorm and recognize agreement on an unlimited number of ideas they have authored.

Participative decision-making occurs when an authority opens up the decision-making process to a group of people for a collaborative effort.

Decision engineering uses a visual map of the decision-making process based on system dynamics and can be automated through a decision modeling tool, integrating big data, machine learning, and expert knowledge as appropriate.

Decisional balance sheet: listing the advantages and disadvantages (benefits and costs, pros and cons) of each option, as suggested by Plato's Protagoras and by Benjamin Franklin.

Expected-value optimization: choosing the alternative with the highest probability-weighted utility, possibly with some consideration for risk aversion. This may involve considering the opportunity cost of different alternatives. See also Decision analysis and Decision theory.

Satisficing: examining alternatives only until the first acceptable one is found. The opposite is maximizing or optimizing, in which many or all alternatives are examined in order to find the best option.

Acquiesce to a person in authority or an "expert"; "just following orders".

Anti-authoritarianism: taking the most opposite action compared to the advice of mistrusted authorities.

Flipism e.g. flipping a coin, cutting a deck of playing cards, and other random or coincidence methods - or prayer, tarot cards, astrology, augurs, revelation, or other forms of divination, superstition or pseudoscience.

Automated decision support: setting up criteria for automated decisions.

Decision support systems: using decision-making software when faced with highly complex decisions or when considering many stakeholders, categories, or other factors that affect decisions.

A variety of researchers have formulated similar prescriptive steps aimed at improving decision-making.

In the 1980s, psychologist Leon Mann and colleagues developed a decision-making process called GOFER, which they taught to adolescents, as summarized in the book Teaching Decision Making To Adolescents. The process was based on extensive earlier research conducted with psychologist Irving Janis. GOFER is an acronym for five decision-making steps:

1. Goals clarification: Survey values and objectives.

2. Options generation: Consider a wide range of alternative actions.

3. Facts-finding: Search for information.

4. Consideration of Effects: Weigh the positive and negative consequences of the options.

5. Review and implementation: Plan how to review the options and implement them.

In 2008, Kristina Guo published the DECIDE model of decision-making, which has six parts:

1. Define the problem

2. Establish or Enumerate all the criteria (constraints)

3. Consider or Collect all the alternatives

4. Identify the best alternative

5. Develop and implement a plan of action

6. Evaluate and monitor the solution and examine feedback when necessary

In 2007, Pam Brown of Singleton Hospital in Swansea, Wales, divided the decision-making process into seven steps:

1. Outline the goal and outcome.

2. Gather data.

3. Develop alternatives (i.e., brainstorming).

4. List pros and cons of each alternative.

5. Make the decision.

6. Immediately take action to implement it.

7. Learn from and reflect on the decision.

In 2009, professor John Pijanowski described how the Arkansas Program, an ethics curriculum at the University of Arkansas, used eight stages of moral decision-making based on the work of James Rest:

1. Establishing community: Create and nurture the relationships, norms, and procedures that will influence how problems are understood and communicated. This stage takes place prior to and during a moral dilemma.

2. Perception: Recognize that a problem exists.

3. Interpretation: Identify competing explanations for the problem, and evaluate the drivers behind those interpretations.

4. Judgment: Sift through various possible actions or responses and determine which is more justifiable.

5. Motivation: Examine the competing commitments which may distract from a more moral course of action and then prioritize and commit to moral values over other personal, institutional or social values.

6. Action: Follow through with action that supports the more justified decision.

7. Reflection in action.

8. Reflection on action.

According to B. Aubrey Fisher, there are four stages or phases that should be involved in all group decision-making:

Orientation. Members meet for the first time and start to get to know each other.

Conflict. Once group members become familiar with each other, disputes, little fights and arguments occur. Group members eventually work it out.

Emergence. The group begins to clear up vague opinions by talking about them.

Reinforcement. Members finally make a decision and provide justification for it.

It is said that establishing critical norms in a group improves the quality of decisions, while the majority of opinions (called consensus norms) do not.

Conflicts in socialization are divided in to functional and dysfunctional types. Functional conflicts are mostly the questioning the managers assumptions in their decision making and dysfunctional conflicts are like personal attacks and every action which decrease team effectiveness. Functional conflicts are the better ones to gain higher quality decision making caused by the increased team knowledge and shared understanding.

In economics, it is thought that if humans are rational and free to make their own decisions, then they would behave according to rational choice theory. Rational choice theory says that a person consistently makes choices that lead to the best situation for himself or herself, taking into account all available considerations including costs and benefits; the rationality of these considerations is from the point of view of the person himself, so a decision is not irrational just because someone else finds it questionable.

In reality, however, there are some factors that affect decision-making abilities and cause people to make irrational decisions - for example, to make contradictory choices when faced with the same problem framed in two different ways (see also Allais paradox).

One of the most prominent theories of decision making is subjective expected utility (SEU) theory, which describes the rational behavior of the decision maker. The decision maker assesses different alternatives by their utilities and the subjective probability of occurrence.

Rational decision-making is often grounded on experience and theories exist that are able to put this approach on solid mathematical grounds so that subjectivity is reduced to a minimum, see e.g. scenario optimization.

Biases usually affect decision-making processes. They appear more when decision task has time pressure, is done under high stress and/or task is highly complex.

Here is a list of commonly debated biases in judgment and decision-making:

Selective search for evidence (also known as confirmation bias): People tend to be willing to gather facts that support certain conclusions but disregard other facts that support different conclusions. Individuals who are highly defensive in this manner show significantly greater left prefrontal cortex activity as measured by EEG than do less defensive individuals.

Premature termination of search for evidence: People tend to accept the first alternative that looks like it might work.

Cognitive inertia is the unwillingness to change existing thought patterns in the face of new circumstances.

Selective perception: People actively screen out information that they do not think is important (see also Prejudice). In one demonstration of this effect, discounting of arguments with which one disagrees (by judging them as untrue or irrelevant) was decreased by selective activation of right prefrontal cortex.

Wishful thinking is a tendency to want to see things in a certain - usually positive - light, which can distort perception and thinking.

Choice-supportive bias occurs when people distort their memories of chosen and rejected options to make the chosen options seem more attractive.

Recency: People tend to place more attention on more recent information and either ignore or forget more distant information (see Semantic priming). The opposite effect in the first set of data or other information is termed primacy effect.[page needed ]

Repetition bias is a willingness to believe what one has been told most often and by the greatest number of different sources.

Anchoring and adjustment: Decisions are unduly influenced by initial information that shapes our view of subsequent information.

Groupthink is peer pressure to conform to the opinions held by the group.

Source credibility bias is a tendency to reject a person's statement on the basis of a bias against the person, organization, or group to which the person belongs. People preferentially accept statement by others that they like (see also Prejudice).

Incremental decision-making and escalating commitment: People look at a decision as a small step in a process, and this tends to perpetuate a series of similar decisions. This can be contrasted with zero-based decision-making (see Slippery slope).

Attribution asymmetry: People tend to attribute their own success to internal factors, including abilities and talents, but explain their failures in terms of external factors such as bad luck. The reverse bias is shown when people explain others' success or failure.

Role fulfillment is a tendency to conform to others' decision-making expectations.

Underestimating uncertainty and the illusion of control: People tend to underestimate future uncertainty because of a tendency to believe they have more control over events than they really do.

Framing bias: This is best avoided by increasing numeracy and presenting data in several formats (for example, using both absolute and relative scales).
Sunk-cost fallacy is a specific type of framing effect that affects decision-making. It involves an individual making a decision about a current situation based on what they have previously invested in the situation. An example of this would be an individual that is refraining from dropping a class that they are most likely to fail, due to the fact that they feel as though they have done so much work in the course thus far.

Prospect theory involves the idea that when faced with a decision-making event, an individual is more likely to take on a risk when evaluating potential losses, and are more likely to avoid risks when evaluating potential gains. This can influence one's decision-making depending if the situation entails a threat, or opportunity.

Optimism bias is a tendency to overestimate the likelihood of positive events occurring in the future and underestimate the likelihood of negative life events. Such biased expectations are generated and maintained in the face of counter-evidence through a tendency to discount undesirable information. An optimism bias can alter risk perception and decision-making in many domains, ranging from finance to health.

Reference class forecasting was developed to eliminate or reduce cognitive biases in decision-making.

In groups, people generate decisions through active and complex processes. One method consists of three steps: initial preferences are expressed by members; the members of the group then gather and share information concerning those preferences; finally, the members combine their views and make a single choice about how to face the problem. Although these steps are relatively ordinary, judgements are often distorted by cognitive and motivational biases, include "sins of commission", "sins of omission", and "sins of imprecision".

Herbert A. Simon coined the phrase " bounded rationality" to express the idea that human decision-making is limited by available information, available time and the mind's information-processing ability. Further psychological research has identified individual differences between two cognitive styles: maximizers try to make an optimal decision, whereas satisficers simply try to find a solution that is "good enough". Maximizers tend to take longer making decisions due to the need to maximize performance across all variables and make tradeoffs carefully; they also tend to more often regret their decisions (perhaps because they are more able than satisficers to recognise that a decision turned out to be sub-optimal).

The psychologist Daniel Kahneman, adopting terms originally proposed by the psychologists Keith Stanovich and Richard West, has theorized that a person's decision-making is the result of an interplay between two kinds of cognitive processes: an automatic intuitive system (called "System 1") and an effortful rational system (called "System 2"). System 1 is a bottom-up, fast, and implicit system of decision-making, while system 2 is a top-down, slow, and explicit system of decision-making. System 1 includes simple heuristics in judgment and decision-making such as the affect heuristic, the availability heuristic, the familiarity heuristic, and the representativeness heuristic.

Styles and methods of decision-making were elaborated by Aron Katsenelinboigen, the founder of predispositioning theory. In his analysis on styles and methods, Katsenelinboigen referred to the game of chess, saying that "chess does disclose various methods of operation, notably the creation of predisposition-methods which may be applicable to other, more complex systems."

Katsenelinboigen states that apart from the methods (reactive and selective) and sub-methods (randomization, predispositioning, programming), there are two major styles: positional and combinational. Both styles are utilized in the game of chess. According to Katsenelinboigen, the two styles reflect two basic approaches to uncertainty: deterministic (combinational style) and indeterministic (positional style). Katsenelinboigen's definition of the two styles are the following.

The combinational style is characterized by:

a very narrow, clearly defined, primarily material goal; and

a program that links the initial position with the final outcome.

In defining the combinational style in chess, Katsenelinboigen wrote: "The combinational style features a clearly formulated limited objective, namely the capture of material (the main constituent element of a chess position). The objective is implemented via a well-defined, and in some cases, unique sequence of moves aimed at reaching the set goal. As a rule, this sequence leaves no options for the opponent. Finding a combinational objective allows the player to focus all his energies on efficient execution, that is, the player's analysis may be limited to the pieces directly partaking in the combination. This approach is the crux of the combination and the combinational style of play.

The positional style is distinguished by:

a positional goal; and

a formation of semi-complete linkages between the initial step and final outcome.

"Unlike the combinational player, the positional player is occupied, first and foremost, with the elaboration of the position that will allow him to develop in the unknown future. In playing the positional style, the player must evaluate relational and material parameters as independent variables. ... The positional style gives the player the opportunity to develop a position until it becomes pregnant with a combination. However, the combination is not the final goal of the positional player - it helps him to achieve the desirable, keeping in mind a predisposition for the future development. The pyrrhic victory is the best example of one's inability to think positionally."

The positional style serves to:

create a predisposition to the future development of the position;

induce the environment in a certain way;

absorb an unexpected outcome in one's favor; and

avoid the negative aspects of unexpected outcomes.

According to Isabel Briggs Myers, a person's decision-making process depends to a significant degree on their cognitive style. Myers developed a set of four bi-polar dimensions, called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The terminal points on these dimensions are: thinking and feeling; extroversion and introversion; judgment and perception; and sensing and intuition. She claimed that a person's decision-making style correlates well with how they score on these four dimensions. For example, someone who scored near the thinking, extroversion, sensing, and judgment ends of the dimensions would tend to have a logical, analytical, objective, critical, and empirical decision-making style. However, some psychologists say that the MBTI lacks reliability and validity and is poorly constructed.

Other studies suggest that these national or cross-cultural differences in decision-making exist across entire societies. For example, Maris Martinsons has found that American, Japanese and Chinese business leaders each exhibit a distinctive national style of decision-making.

General decision-making style (GDMS)

In the general decision-making style (GDMS) test developed by Suzanne Scott and Reginald Bruce, there are five decision-making styles: rational, intuitive, dependent, avoidant, and spontaneous. These five different decision-making styles change depending on the context and situation, and one style is not necessarily better than any other. In the examples below, the individual is working for a company and is offered a job from a different company.

The rational style is an in-depth search for, and a strong consideration of, other options and/or information prior to making a decision. In this style, the individual would research the new job being offered, review their current job, and look at the pros and cons of taking the new job versus staying with their current company.

The intuitive style is confidence in one's initial feelings and gut reactions. In this style, if the individual initially prefers the new job because they have a feeling that the work environment is better suited for them, then they would decide to take the new job. The individual might not make this decision as soon as the job is offered.

The dependent style is asking for other people's input and instructions on what decision should be made. In this style, the individual could ask friends, family, coworkers, etc., but the individual might not ask all of these people.

The avoidant style is averting the responsibility of making a decision. In this style, the individual would not make a decision. Therefore, the individual would stick with their current job.

The spontaneous style is a need to make a decision as soon as possible rather than waiting to make a decision. In this style, the individual would either reject or accept the job as soon as it is offered.

Decision-making is a region of intense study in the fields of systems neuroscience, and cognitive neuroscience. Several brain structures, including the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), orbitofrontal cortex and the overlapping ventromedial prefrontal cortex are believed to be involved in decision-making processes. A neuroimaging study found distinctive patterns of neural activation in these regions depending on whether decisions were made on the basis of perceived personal volition or following directions from someone else. Patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex have difficulty making advantageous decisions.

A common laboratory paradigm for studying neural decision-making is the two-alternative forced choice task (2AFC), in which a subject has to choose between two alternatives within a certain time. A study of a two-alternative forced choice task involving rhesus monkeys found that neurons in the parietal cortex not only represent the formation of a decision but also signal the degree of certainty (or "confidence") associated with the decision. Another recent study found that lesions to the ACC in the macaque resulted in impaired decision-making in the long run of reinforcement guided tasks suggesting that the ACC may be involved in evaluating past reinforcement information and guiding future action. A 2012 study found that rats and humans can optimally accumulate incoming sensory evidence, to make statistically optimal decisions.

Emotion appears able to aid the decision-making process. Decision-making often occurs in the face of uncertainty about whether one's choices will lead to benefit or harm (see also Risk). The somatic marker hypothesis is a neurobiological theory of how decisions are made in the face of uncertain outcome. This theory holds that such decisions are aided by emotions, in the form of bodily states, that are elicited during the deliberation of future consequences and that mark different options for behavior as being advantageous or disadvantageous. This process involves an interplay between neural systems that elicit emotional/bodily states and neural systems that map these emotional/bodily states. A recent lesion mapping study of 152 patients with focal brain lesions conducted by Aron K. Barbey and colleagues provided evidence to help discover the neural mechanisms of emotional intelligence.

During their adolescent years, teens are known for their high-risk behaviors and rash decisions. Recent research has shown that there are differences in cognitive processes between adolescents and adults during decision-making. Researchers have concluded that differences in decision-making are not due to a lack of logic or reasoning, but more due to the immaturity of psychosocial capacities that influence decision-making. Examples of their undeveloped capacities which influence decision-making would be impulse control, emotion regulation, delayed gratification and resistance to peer pressure. In the past, researchers have thought that adolescent behavior was simply due to incompetency regarding decision-making. Currently, researchers have concluded that adults and adolescents are both competent decision-makers, not just adults. However, adolescents' competent decision-making skills decrease when psychosocial capacities become present.

Recent research has shown that risk-taking behaviors in adolescents may be the product of interactions between the socioemotional brain network and its cognitive-control network. The socioemotional part of the brain processes social and emotional stimuli and has been shown to be important in reward processing. The cognitive-control network assists in planning and self-regulation. Both of these sections of the brain change over the course of puberty. However, the socioemotional network changes quickly and abruptly, while the cognitive-control network changes more gradually. Because of this difference in change, the cognitive-control network, which usually regulates the socioemotional network, struggles to control the socioemotional network when psychosocial capacities are present.

When adolescents are exposed to social and emotional stimuli, their socioemotional network is activated as well as areas of the brain involved in reward processing. Because teens often gain a sense of reward from risk-taking behaviors, their repetition becomes ever more probable due to the reward experienced. In this, the process mirrors addiction. Teens can become addicted to risky behavior because they are in a high state of arousal and are rewarded for it not only by their own internal functions but also by their peers around them.

Adults are generally better able to control their risk-taking because their cognitive-control system has matured enough to the point where it can control the socioemotional network, even in the context of high arousal or when psychosocial capacities are present. Also, adults are less likely to find themselves in situations that push them to do risky things. For example, teens are more likely to be around peers who peer pressure them into doing things, while adults are not as exposed to this sort of social setting.

A recent study suggests that adolescents have difficulties adequately adjusting beliefs in response to bad news (such as reading that smoking poses a greater risk to health than they thought), but do not differ from adults in their ability to alter beliefs in response to good news. This creates biased beliefs, which may lead to greater risk taking.

1. ^ Triantaphyllou, Evangelos (2000). Multi-criteria decision making methods: a comparative study. Applied optimization. 44. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. p. 320. doi:10.1007/978-1-4757-3157-6. ISBN 978-0792366072.

2. ^ Davidson, Alice Ware; Bar-Yam, Yaneer (2006) [2000]. "Environmental complexity: information for human-environment well-being" (PDF). In Bar-Yam, Yaneer; Minai, Ali (eds.). Unifying themes in complex systems. Berlin; New York: Springer. pp. 157-168. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.33.7118. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-35866-4_16. ISBN 9783540358640.

3. ^ Godfrey-Smith, Peter (2001). "Environmental complexity and the evolution of cognition" (PDF). In Sternberg, Robert J.; Kaufman, James C. (eds.). The evolution of intelligence. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp. 223-250. ISBN 978-0805832679. OCLC 44775038.

4. ^ Kepner, Charles Higgins; Tregoe, Benjamin B. (1997) [1965]. The new rational manager: an updated edition for a new world (Updated ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton Research Press. OCLC 37666447.

5. ^ Monahan, George E. (2000). Management decision making: spreadsheet modeling, analysis, and application. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 33-40. ISBN 978-0521781183. OCLC 42921287.

6. ^ Armstrong, Jon Scott (2001). "Role playing: a method to forecast decisions". In Armstrong, Jon Scott (ed.). Principles of forecasting: a handbook for researchers and practitioners. International series in operations research & management science. 30. Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 15-30. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.464.5677. doi:10.1007/978-0-306-47630-3_2. ISBN 978-0792379300.

7. ^ "analysis paralysis | Definition of analysis paralysis in US English by Oxford Dictionaries". Oxford Dictionaries | English.

8. ^ Paul Saffo quoted in: Foley, John (30 October 1995). "Managing information: infoglut". InformationWeek. Archived from the original on 2001-02-22.

9. ^ Hall, Crystal C.; Ariss, Lynn; Todorov, Alexander (July 2007). "The illusion of knowledge: when more information reduces accuracy and increases confidence" (PDF). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 103 (2): 277-290. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2007.01.003.

10. ^ Franklin, Benjamin (1975) [1772]. "To Joseph Priestley". In Willcox, William Bradford (ed.). The papers of Benjamin Franklin: January 1 through December 31, 1772. 19. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 299-300. ISBN 978-0300018653. OCLC 310601.

11. ^ Mann, Leon; Harmoni, Ros; Power, Colin (1991). "The GOFER course in decision making". In Baron, Jonathan; Brown, Rex V. (eds.). Teaching decision making to adolescents. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp. 61-78. ISBN 978-0805804973. OCLC 22507012. See also: Mann, Leon (July 1989). "Becoming a better decision maker". Australian Psychologist. 24 (2): 141-155. doi:10.1080/00050068908259558.

12. ^ Janis, Irving L.; Mann, Leon (1977). Decision making: a psychological analysis of conflict, choice, and commitment. New York: Free Press. ISBN 978-0029161609. OCLC 2542340.

13. ^ Mann, Leon; Harmoni, Ros; Power, Colin; Beswick, Gery; Ormond, Cheryl (July 1988). "Effectiveness of the GOFER course in decision making for high school students". Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. 1 (3): 159-168. doi:10.1002/bdm.3960010304.

14. ^ Pijanowski, John (February 2009). "The role of learning theory in building effective college ethics curricula". Journal of College and Character. 10 (3): 1-13. doi:10.2202/1940-1639.1088.

15. ^ Griffin, Emory A. (1991). "Interact system model of decision emergence of B. Aubrey Fisher" (PDF). A first look at communication theory (1st ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. pp. 253-262. ISBN 978-0070227781. OCLC 21973427.

16. ^ Postmes, T; Spears, Russell; Cihangir, Sezgin (2001). "Quality of decision making and group norms". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 80 (6): 918-930. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.80.6.918. PMID 11414374.

17. Brockmann, E., Anthony, W., 2002. Tacit knowledge and strategic decision making. Group & Organization Management. Vol. 27 (4), 436-455. ^ doi:10.1177/1059601102238356

18. ^ Schacter, Daniel L.; Gilbert, Daniel Todd; Wegner, Daniel M. (2011) [2009]. Psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Worth Publishers. ISBN 9781429237192. OCLC 755079969.

19. ^ T, Maqsood; A, Finegan; D, Walker (2004). "Biases and heuristics in judgment and decision making: The dark side of tacit knowledge". Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology. 1. ISSN 1547-5840.

20. ^ Blackhart, G. C.; Kline, J. P. (2005). "Individual differences in anterior EEG asymmetry between high and low defensive individuals during a rumination/distraction task". Personality and Individual Differences. 39 (2): 427-437. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2005.01.027.

21. ^ Chua, E. F.; Rand-Giovannetti, E.; Schacter, D. L.; Albert, M.; Sperling, R. A. (2004). "Dissociating confidence and accuracy: Functional magnetic resonance imaging shows origins of the subjective memory experience" (PDF). Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 16 (7): 1131-1142. doi:10.1162/0898929041920568. PMID 15453969.

22. ^ Sparks, Erin (2007). "Satisficing". In Baumeister, Roy F.; Vohs, Kathleen D. (eds.). Encyclopedia of social psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. pp. 776-778. ISBN 9781412916707. OCLC 123119782.

23. ^ Katsenelinboigen, Aron (1997). The concept of indeterminism and its applications: economics, social systems, ethics, artificial intelligence, and aesthetics (PDF). Westport, CT: Praeger. ISBN 978-0275957889. OCLC 36438766. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-23.

24. ^ Ulea, Vera (2002). A concept of dramatic genre and the comedy of a new type: chess, literature, and film. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. pp. 17-18. ISBN 978-0809324521. OCLC 51301095.

25. ^ Myers, Isabel Briggs; Kirby, Linda K.; Myers, Katharine D. (1998) [1976]. Introduction to type: a guide to understanding your results on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Introduction to type series (6th ed.). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press. OCLC 40336039.

26. ^ Pittenger, David J. (2005). "Cautionary comments regarding the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator". Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. 57 (3): 210-221. doi:10.1037/1065-9293.57.3.210.

27. ^ Hogan, Robert (2007). Personality and the fate of organizations. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. p. 28. ISBN 978-0805841428. OCLC 65400436. Most personality psychologists regard the MBTI as little more than an elaborate Chinese fortune cookie...

28. ^ Martinsons, Maris G. (December 2006). "Comparing the decision styles of American, Chinese and Japanese business leaders". Best Paper Proceedings of Academy of Management Meetings, Washington, DC, August 2001. SSRN .

29. ^ Brunton, Bingni W.; Botvinick, Matthew M.; Brody, Carlos D. (April 2013). "Rats and humans can optimally accumulate evidence for decision-making" (PDF). Science. 340 (6128): 95-98. doi:10.1126/science.1233912. PMID 23559254. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-05.

30. ^ Naqvi, Nasir; Shiv, Baba; Bechara, Antoine (October 2006). "The role of emotion in decision making: a cognitive neuroscience perspective". Current Directions in Psychological Science. 15 (5): 260-264. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.137.4677. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2006.00448.x.

31. ^ Yates, Diana. "Researchers map emotional intelligence in the brain". University of Illinois News Bureau. University of Illinois.

32. ^ HealthDay (2013-01-28). "Scientists complete 1st map of 'emotional intelligence' in the brain". US News and World Report.

33. ^ Gardner, Margo; Steinberg, Laurence (July 2005). "Peer influence on risk taking, risk preference, and risky decision making in adolescence and adulthood: an experimental study" (PDF). Developmental Psychology. 41 (4): 625-635. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.556.4973. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.41.4.625. PMID 16060809.

34. ^ Steinberg, Laurence (April 2007). "Risk taking in adolescence: new perspectives from brain and behavioral science". Current Directions in Psychological Science. 16 (2): 55-59. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.519.7099. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2007.00475.x.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several alternative possibilities. Every decision-making process produces a final choice, which may or may not prompt action.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A leader is a person whom others follow -- whether on a team, at work, in school or in any situation where there are goals are to achieve. A leader directs the group and inspires the others to work together for a common purpose. Leaders can broadly be classified into two kinds: formal leaders and informal leaders.

Formal Leadership

Formal leadership is where a person is officially designated as the leader of a group. Examples of this kind of leadership are CEO of a company, a teacher at a school, the captain of a sporting team and the head of a department. It's the formal leader's job to organize the available resources, work out the logistics and motivate the members of the team to carry out their tasks to the best of their abilities.

Informal Leadership

An informal leader is a person who's not officially appointed as the head of a group. However, the other members look to him for motivation and inspiration. Though the CEO is the formal leader of a company, the employees may look up to a colleague who, they believe, shares their goals and visions and has some knowledge or experience that will help them realize their goals. Although these leaders are not in a formal position of leadership, they are recognized as leaders by their peers.

The Differences

Formal leaders have authority and certain rights and privileges that informal leaders lack. Consider the case of a company where the CEO is the formal leader and an employee is the informal leader. The formal leader wields power over the group and has the authority to discipline and punish errant members. Her authority also gives her the ability to give rewards to the group. The informal leader, on the other hand, does can't formally take action against any members of the group, nor is he able to reward his teammates. He has to rely on open communication, a shared vision, guidance and charisma. The informal leader has to lead through example, individual behavior and personality.

Conflict and Cooperation

A group with both formal and informal leaders is likely to see conflicts between the two if they don't share the same vision. The group has different loyalties to the two leaders. Group members are expected to be loyal to the formal leader because he has authority and power, and they're likely to be loyal to the informal leader because he's one of them. The informal leader has a greater commitment to the group, while the formal leader's commitment lies with the organization. In any situation, it's important for the formal and informal leaders to work together to make sure that the group achieves optimum results.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Difference Between Informal & Formal Leadership

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A leader is a person whom others follow -- whether on a team, at work, in school or in any situation where there are goals are to achieve. A leader directs the group and inspires the others to work together for a common purpose.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
People often ask me whats the difference between formal and informal authority and which do I feel is more important.

Whenever someone is promoted to a Leadership position, there usually a formal level of authority which comes with the role. So this authority is usually given by someone senior, so it invariably comes from above.

This authority is associated with the position, e.g. in the Head of Architecture position, the role holder usually has authority over such things as the Architecture decisions, direction, and all of the staff within the Architecture team. They have the power and control of this area.

With informal authority, this is not something which comes from being nominated to a formal position. This authority is usually bestowed by the people within an organization, i.e. it comes from below rather than above. Informal authority can be granted for any number of reasons: level of trust; level of expertise; personality; charisma; or characteristics; etc.

With informal authority, the holder becomes an informal leader within of an organization. They play a critical role in the effectiveness of the organization, as they may, at times, wield more power than the formal authorities.

So which is better, formal or informal authority?

This is a tough question to answer.

Ideally, if we have got our talent management processes working correctly, then we should be promoting people who are already informal leaders. Especially since they are probably trusted, have good expertise, are respected, etc., etc. This would then make their promotion understandable, and more readily accepted by the teams that they will look to lead.

I always remember a line from the movie Braveheart, when William Wallace talks Robert the Bruce about leadership.

Wallace says "Your title gives you claim to the throne of our country, but men don't follow titles, they follow courage. Now our people know you. Noble, and common, they respect you. And if you would just lead them to freedom, they'd follow you. And so would I".

I agree with this statement, people don't follow titles, they might do what they are told to do, but they are just following orders, and this is not the same as really following a leader.

With informal leadership people had a choice and they chose to follow you.

With formal leadership, it's not really the same, and if given the choice, then the teams may choose not to follow you.

I would encourage anyone who wants to be a leader to focus on developing informal leadership skills, if you can do that, then you will show that not only are you are ready to be a leader, but that people are ready to follow you.

This is why, wherever possible, I try to implement leadership training at all levels, so that people can start to learn leadership skills and put them into practice in their current roles, where no formal authority exists.

I am always wary of people who wait to be appointed to a leadership position before they start leading. I tend to see them as people who are more interested in power and authority, than actually leading. In my experience, these types of leaders do not attract many followers.

Both types of authority and important, but if i could only choose one, I would take the informal.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
People often ask me whats the difference between formal and informal authority and which do I feel is more important. Whenever someone is promoted to a Leadership position, there usually a formal level of authority which comes with the role. So this authority is usually given by someone senior, so it invariably comes from above.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Difference Between Formal & Informal Power in Organizations

You receive formal power in accordance with your position in the company and the authority associated with that position. Conversely, your informal power stems from the relationships you build and respect you earn from your coworkers. While corporate structure determines formal power, personal viewpoints drive informal power.

Formal Power and Lines of Authority

Companies typically have an organizational chart that lists the relationship and ranks of positions within the company. The chart details the lines of authority and responsibilities of various positions, and outlines the formal power structure of the company. Formal power may refer to position on the corporate ladder, corporate structure or even job function. The president of the company, for example, has decision-making power in many areas, and, when it comes to revenue generation, the sales team may command formal job function powers.

Even if you have a small business and an official organizational chart does not exist, employees can easily recognize formal power within the company because of job roles, titles, functions and interdepartmental relationships.

Informal Power and Influence

The most powerful person in your department is not necessarily your manager. Instead, the person with the most influence, who can lead others to achieve a goal or accomplish a certain task, may enjoy that position of power. Informal power in an organization refers to the ability to lead, direct or achieve without an official leadership title. It is derived from the relationships that employees build with each other. Individuals with informal power may be the most experienced or knowledgeable in a certain area or the most respected because of perceived notions displayed through personality traits. For example, the lead worker in your unit may be able to get your team to accept, or reject, a procedural change because the team respects or has an allegiance with that person.

Benefits of Power within an Organization

All forms of power within an organization are beneficial when used appropriately. Formal power is necessary to achieve strategic goals and company initiatives. Informal power can be equally useful, particularly when those in official leadership roles recognize and use informal power to further organizational goals.

Employees may be more apt to accept criticism or take direction when they receive guidance from someone at their level that they respect and trust. It is often easier to get employee "buy-in" when suggestions come from within the ranks.

Understanding Your Organization's Power Structures

You must be well aware of the relationships that exist within your organization. Your understanding of your organization's power structures will determine how effectively you can affect change and achieve goals. Employee group dynamics and loyalty to those groups can determine political posturing, and can influence the level of cooperation or how much competition you receive for your initiatives. Use your formal power to drive goals further by enlisting the help of those with informal power.

Recognize that while you may have authority, people with informal power have earned respect of the people you are trying to lead. Avoid challenging informal power that does not have a negative impact on your leadership or the company.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Difference Between Formal & Informal Power in Organizations

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
You receive formal power in accordance with your position in the company and the authority associated with that position. The formal power structure of a company is outlined in its organization, while the informal structure takes into account relationships and influence as well as title.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I told you before about the difference between authority and power. Now that we are holding these working definitions, we can drill down...and deconstruct authority in more detail.

I'm drawing from Group Relations work here, and providing actionable guidance for thinking about authority. I am purposely being minimalist here, providing the essentials only.

Remember, authority is defined here as " the right to do work". Also, keep in mind that authority is always something conferred. It is given, and can be taken away.
Formal Authority
Formal authority is what is conferred when you occupy a formal Role, for example, when you become Treasurer of a non-profit organization. That role comes with a Title, and a collection of Tasks ("work") you are formally authorized to do. Police for example are formally authorized to enforce the law.
Personal Authority
Formal Roles are well-defined in theory and actually have much more that is undefined and ambiguous. How far can I go? What are the limits of my authority around a task? Etc. It is here that your approach comes into play. Personal authority is your personally held, "perceived right" to do the work a certain way.

The policeman that pulls you over can let you go without a warning. That policeman makes a decision about how to handle his role in a given situation. That's personal authority.

We are all familiar with 'overstepping' authority and the related dysfunctions of that. Like a policeman who tries to make you let him into your home when he knows for a fact that he can't make you let him in, unless certain other conditions are true. That cop is attempting to over-step the formal authority boundary of a role.
Understepping and Overstepping
We are far less familiar with 'understepping', that is, not fully "taking up" a given role.

This is a bigger and far less understood problem!

When your sense of personal authorization prevents you from fully occupying your formal Role, serious dysfunction results. Why? Because you leave what I call "scraps of authority" lying around. If you do this on the job, for example as a Manager or Director,others are unusually quick at picking these these scraps up, and using them outside of the Role they are intended for- the one you are occupying!

The distortions created by this cause a range of organizational illnesses- a.k.a. "dysfunctions."
Informal Authority
Informal authority comes without formality: without a formal Role and related title, etc. It is the authority that most of the others confer to you. Most of "the others" may or may not occupy formal, highly authorized Roles. (Usually it is a mixture of people in various Roles.)

The source of informal authority is the willingness of others to have you do some specific work .

We all know of people who get loads of critically important work done, yet they do not occupy a "higher-up", formal Role (with formal authorization) inside the group. Yet these folks seem indispensable to how the team or organization functions.

What gives here?

Informal authority shows up as influence. It's the conferred right to do certain kinds of work. It is conferred from others. It's based on reputation, and a certain kind of willingness on your part. It is offered to you, and can be accepted by you...or not. It can be given, and taken away.
Summary
I just defined the following for you: formal authority, personal authority and informal authority...subcategories of "authority, the right to do work." I hope you find these definitions useful. In the next post, I will deconstruct influence, that available-to-everyone, "always-on" ability to literally cause a shift or "change in state" in our socially constructed universes. I plan to discuss willingness, roles, and being "drafted" into roles... with and without your consent.

social construct:

a perception of an individual, group, or idea that is 'constructed' through cultural or social practice.

Related Links: http://newtechusa.net/agile/authority-and-power/ http://akriceinstitute.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=34 https://twitter.com/DanielMezick

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I told you before about the difference between authority and power. Now that we are holding these working definitions, we can drill down...and deconstruct authority in more detail. I'm drawing from Group Relations work here, and providing actionable guidance for thinking about authority. I am purposely being minimalist here, providing the essentials only.

# data[].attributes.body
Traits of Natural-born leaders

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In order to be successful in today's turbulent world, a team or company must be steered by an effective leader. The leader is the start and end point of any success or failure. The team emulates the leader's characteristics-so the leader must always portray desirable ones.

Here are five innate traits of a natural-born leader:

Loyalty
Leaders take loyalty seriously. They understand the importance of trust among the employees and company. They do everything they can to maintain the bond of loyalty and should anything splinter it, they take precautions to fix the situation.

Self-governance
Leaders make a point to be a part of the solution. If a leader cannot fix a problem by his or herself, they will find someone who can-they will always find a way. Taking initiative and having self-governance to know when something can or can't be done is the ultimate discernment in a leader.

Confidence
The effective leader has belief in their ability to accomplish a task. They also inspire this confidence in their followers by means of constructive instruction, encouragement and patience. There is power in the peace of a leader's confidence.

Mediation
Leaders have the ability to take individuals from diverse backgrounds and enable them to exist in harmony instead of conflict and confusion. Mediation is a coveted trait that not many are capable of, but that everyone needs at one point or another. Leaders can mediate conflicted and diverse followers.

Hunger
A leader's hunger is never satisfied. They consistently and constantly ask questions and seek new information. Their natural drive to learn and gain more is emulated through their followers, creating a well-rounded team of knowledge and good direction.

Focusing on providing a positive environment for employees is critical. Providing effective leadership is paramount. We're developing our industry's future leaders. Please be the effective leader that your employees need and deserve.

Mike Moore is the HVAC Training Director at HVAC Learning Solutions, an HVAC industry expert in sales, technical, and business training. Visit Mike's blog for more insights. Mike can be reached on Twitter @hvaclearning or on Google+ at gplus.to/hvactraining.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Innate Traits of Natural-born Leaders

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In order to be successful in today's turbulent world, a team or company must be steered by an effective leader. The leader is the start and end point of any success or failure. The team emulates the leader's characteristics-so the leader must always portray desirable ones.

# data[].attributes.body
Five differences

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For years we were taught that management has to do with forecasting, budgeting, planning and controlling. Managers were taught to manage, not to lead.

New supervisors and grizzled management veterans were taught how to assign work to subordinates, how to evaluate their teammates' work, how to counsel people on performance problems and how to hire and fire staff members. Everything we were taught about management assumed that the manager would know what to do and was calling the shots.

These days we understand that the old-fashioned view of a manager's duties is wholly insufficient for the new-millennium workplace.

Responsibility for a team of people and its success -- not to mention each team members' well-being and professional development -- is a big assignment to take on. Leadership has very little to do with controlling, budgeting and so on. It has little overlap with assigning work and evaluating it.

Our traditional view of management is task-based and mechanical. In that worldview, we don't think about topics like "How are my teammates holding up? Are they stressed out? Are they feeling good about the future and about the energy on the team?"

For years we pretended that human energy isn't a factor in a team's success, even though anybody who has ever been on any kind of team knows that the team energy, also known as trust level, is the whole ballgame!

We can use the carrot and the stick to get people to perform for a while but eventually, if they don't care about the mission, about their leader and/or about one another, the team will fracture and lose steam. It's inevitable! Today we know that empathetic, trust-based human leadership is not only the most effective way to lead a team but also the most profitable way to run a company.

Here are five enormous differences between managers and leaders. If you hold a leadership role now or aspire to do so in the future, think about steps you can take in each of these areas.
Mission
The traditional view of management assumes that a manager's job is to run an apparatus -- perhaps a corporate Credit Department or a team of programmers. There are clear inputs and outputs and expected results from the engine each manager is responsible for. The manager's job is to keep the machine running smoothly.

In that worldview, the people on the manager's team are essentially machine parts. They are interchangeable. Once they are hired into a role, their job is to perform that role (to run their piece of the machine) according to goals and standards that preceded them and that will outlast their tenure in the job. The presumption is that the machine is more important and more powerful than anyone who helps to run it.

Leadership takes just the opposite view! The energy on your team powers everything you will accomplish.

The machine can change whenever it makes sense to change it, even many times a day. Maybe your machine should change, or maybe it's time to junk the machine and invent something totally new. People are creative. Machines in general are not.

Leaders allow people to design their own jobs as much as possible and to put their own stamp on their jobs.

A leader is not working to achieve machine-like process perfection to be repeated over and over until the end of time.

A leader and his or her team have a mission. They all know what the mission is and they know their piece in it. Maybe at one point your mission is to replace your outdated Credit Department procedures with new procedures that are faster and simpler. Apart from the fact that they have a job and need the paycheck, your teammates know what the Credit Department modernization means for customers, for themselves and for the company.

A mission has a beginning, a middle and an end, no matter what the mission is. When you complete the mission, you'll start a new one.

Maybe your mission is to produce an off-Broadway play or to invent a better mousetrap. Leadership is inextricable from a specific mission that people are excited about. Without a mission, there is no place to lead your team toward! Without a mission, where are you headed?

Who can get excited about doing the same things day after day, year after year, to no visible end except to make a few executives rich? There has to be more to the mission than that, and part of a leader's job is to explore and exalt the connections between his or her team's mission and each team member's personal mission.

This is why I write about plugging into your power source at work, whether that means using a different part of your brain or getting to teach what you know or another element that important to you. We all need that power jolt at work. We all deserve it, too!
Self-Awareness
The old-fashioned, command-and-control view of management did not require that a manager look in the mirror, but leadership requires that activity of a leader every day.

A leader is someone who get outside his or her busy brain to see him- or herself rather than being controlled by his or her emotions, especially fear.

Fear is the emotion that makes managers freak out and bring the hammer down. It makes some of them yell at subordinates or put the fear of termination into them so that people skulk around in terror that they'll make a mistake.

That kind of management is prevalent but it is the opposite of leadership. Leaders have the confidence to lead through trust. They don't have to make threats. They can say, "I hired you and you chose to work with me so obviously we both trust one another, and that's good because we will need that trust! I won't second-guess you. I hope you won't second-guess me. We'll talk about everything we need to talk about. You'll know your job much better than I do. I will learn from you and with luck you might learn something from me."

Leaders know they are not always right. They have enough self-esteem to say, "Did I say that last week? I must have missed my morning coffee because that was not what I meant to say. No, don't do what I said -- you're right, do what you know is best. Thank you for clarifying that point. Always tell me when I say something off-the-wall like that. I appreciate it!"
Risk And Trust
Trusting a person you are not in love with or related to requires you to take a risk. In the accepted view of management, there is no such risk, because the manager by virtue of his or her position has all the authority. In our modern view of leadership, there is risk. You might trust the wrong person. So what? That's how you'll learn. You won't learn anything if you never trust yourself enough to put your trust in people around you.

Leadership requires you to rely on someone else without threatening them or offering them rewards if they do what you want them to do.

You have to trust their instincts and trust yourself to put your faith in someone who isn't you. That is hard for a lot of managers, and it is something we should talk about more than we do at staff meetings and management training sessions.

We should talk about how scary it is at times to stop calling the shots and stop being the boss, and to let the brilliant people on your team carry the ball.
Two-Way Learning
Leadership rests on trust and learning. When your team is powered by mojo and feeling good, the learning will be palpable. People will say, "Oh, dang! I just realized that your idea for the product brochure could be an amazing video, too! Want to collaborate on that?" All it takes for people to come alive at work is trust. When people are wary of sharing their ideas, it's because they don't trust that their good ideas will be handled with care. That isn't a failing on the part of the wary person.

We learn best through our experiences and the old expression "Once bitten, twice shy" is nowhere truer than at work.

If the trust level on your team is too low to support collaboration, it's vital for you as a manager to figure out what energetic logjam is causing that problem and dismantle it.

People have good antennae. When they don't trust you, the company or one another, it means you have trust-building work to do!

When your Team Mojo level is right, you will learn from your teammates, they will learn from you and all of you will learn from one another.

If the manager is always the subject matter expert, too, then something in your environment is out of whack. That's a waste of incredible life experience, insight and perspective that only a group of switched-on collaborators can bring to bear on your organization's challenges.
Find Your Voice And Speak Your Truth
The last difference between managers and leaders is that being a manager in the old-school view doesn't require a manager to find her voice and speak her truth.

I went to countless management training sessions as a young supervisor. We learned about rules and procedures and time management.

Nobody ever told us "At times it will be scary to tell your boss something s/he doesn't want to hear, but you have to do it anyway -- that's how you'll grow muscles and grow your credibility."

We didn't talk about that. We didn't talk about the critical, soft-and-squishy parts of leadership. We had to learn those things for ourselves.

Now we are all coming out of the closet. We are all becoming aware together of the wonderful fact that going to work doesn't mean leaving your personality at the door.

Even though there are messages hitting us from all directions at work telling us to hush up, pipe down and go along with broken systems and broken thinking, we don't have to listen.

You may stay quiet for a while because it's easier to bite your lip than to start a conversation that might tag you as a troublemaker, but before long it will hit you that you have to find your voice.

You have to say what you feel or else you'll feel like you're taking a paycheck for the service of hiding your true personality and playing the part of someone who is only half as smart and half as human as you are.

You'll get tired of that deal one day. You are too mighty to be a doormat, and it won't help your customers or shareholders for you to stay silent when there are topics that desperately need airtime.

Speak up! That's what leaders do. Everyone is a leader, and everyone is CEO of his or her career. You run your life and your career.

What is your vision? What is your first step in reaching it?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Management Vs. Leadership: Five Ways They Are Different

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For years we were taught that management has to do with forecasting, budgeting, planning and controlling. Managers were taught to manage, not to lead. New supervisors and grizzled management veterans were taught how to assign work to subordinates, how to evaluate their teammates' work, how to counsel people on performance problems and how to hire and fire staff members.

# data[].attributes.body
Psychology today

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Chocolate or strawberry? Life or death? We make some choices quickly and automatically, relying on mental shortcuts our brains have developed over the years to guide us in the best course of action. Other decisions are agonizing, and deliberation drags on inefficiently.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Since 1999, FrameWorks has studied how people think and talk about numerous social issues - and how communications can spark change. We live up to our mission by sharing our research freely.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Six Core Characteristics of Ethical Teaching

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Spread the loveEthics are no walk in the park. While many scenarios are black-and-white, easily solved with clear-cut answers, not every circumstance that a teacher comes across is so simply resolved. As a teacher, you may come across decisions that impact an individual's entire life, from family to future.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This site is intended to help educators through the discussion of insights, methods, and ideas offered by a teacher with thirty-seven years of teaching experience. Topics covered are the relationship between education and anatomy, exercise, emotion,multimodality, long and short-term memory, stress, and vision.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Social perception refers to the study of forming impressions, opinions, or inferences about other individuals or groups. The concept of social perception can be better understood with the help of some examples.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Fundamental Explanation of Social Perception With Examples

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Social perception refers to the study of forming impressions, opinions, or inferences about other individuals or groups. The concept of social perception can be better understood with the help of some examples.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Preamble
The National Education Association believes that the education profession consists of one education workforce serving the needs of all students and that the term 'educator' includes education support professionals. The educator, believing in the worth and dignity of each human being, recognizes the supreme importance of the pursuit of truth, devotion to excellence, and the nurture of the democratic principles. Essential to these goals is the protection of freedom to learn and to teach and the guarantee of equal educational opportunity for all. The educator accepts the responsibility to adhere to the highest ethical standards. The educator recognizes the magnitude of the responsibility inherent in the teaching process. The desire for the respect and confidence of one's colleagues, of students, of parents, and of the members of the community provides the incentive to attain and maintain the highest possible degree of ethical conduct. The Code of Ethics of the Education Profession indicates the aspiration of all educators and provides standards by which to judge conduct. The remedies specified by the NEA and/or its affiliates for the violation of any provision of this Code shall be exclusive and no such provision shall be enforceable in any form other than the one specifically designated by the NEA or its affiliates.
PRINCIPLE I

COMMITMENT TO THE STUDENT

The educator strives to help each student realize his or her potential as a worthy and effective member of society. The educator therefore works to stimulate the spirit of inquiry, the acquisition of knowledge and understanding, and the thoughtful formulation of worthy goals.

In fulfillment of the obligation to the student, the educator--

1. Shall not unreasonably restrain the student from independent action in the pursuit of learning.

2. Shall not unreasonably deny the student's access to varying points of view.

3. Shall not deliberately suppress or distort subject matter relevant to the student's progress.

4. Shall make reasonable effort to protect the student from conditions harmful to learning or to health and safety.

5. Shall not intentionally expose the student to embarrassment or disparagement.

6. Shall not on the basis of race, color, creed, sex, national origin, marital status, political or religious beliefs, family, social or cultural background, or sexual orientation, unfairly--

1. Exclude any student from participation in any program

2. Deny benefits to any student

3. Grant any advantage to any student

7. Shall not use professional relationships with students for private advantage.

8. Shall not disclose information about students obtained in the course of professional service unless disclosure serves a compelling professional purpose or is required by law.

PRINCIPLE II

COMMITMENT TO THE PROFESSION

The education profession is vested by the public with a trust and responsibility requiring the highest ideals of professional service.

In the belief that the quality of the services of the education profession directly influences the nation and its citizens, the educator shall exert every effort to raise professional standards, to promote a climate that encourages the exercise of professional judgment, to achieve conditions that attract persons worthy of the trust to careers in education, and to assist in preventing the practice of the profession by unqualified persons.

In fulfillment of the obligation to the profession, the educator--

1. Shall not in an application for a professional position deliberately make a false statement or fail to disclose a material fact related to competency and qualifications.

2. Shall not misrepresent his/her professional qualifications.

3. Shall not assist any entry into the profession of a person known to be unqualified in respect to character, education, or other relevant attribute.

4. Shall not knowingly make a false statement concerning the qualifications of a candidate for a professional position.

5. Shall not assist a noneducator in the unauthorized practice of teaching.

6. Shall not disclose information about colleagues obtained in the course of professional service unless disclosure serves a compelling professional purpose or is required by law.

7. Shall not knowingly make false or malicious statements about a colleague.

8. Shall not accept any gratuity, gift, or favor that might impair or appear to influence professional decisions or action.
Adopted by the NEA 1975 Representative Assembly

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The National Education Association believes the education profession consists of one education workforce serving the needs of all students and provides standards by which to judge conduct.

# data[].attributes.body
10 ways to define

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Gamelearn: Game-based learning courses for soft skills training

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What is leadership? Each of us believe we have a good idea about what it means to be a good leader, but when it comes to defining the concept, the picture is not so clear. For some, leadership is motivation, for others, it equals results and it can also represent inspiration.

Are you a leader?

Check this scorecard to put your leadership to the test.

Anyway, we can define leadership based on common elements that we can all agree on. Here are 10 ways to define the art of leading:

1. Vision of a leader

Leading means having a vision and sharing it with others. Only when you get to inspire others, it is possible to share a common goal towards which to direct the efforts and dedication of the entire team. What is your vision? Your vision must be bold and ambitious. You need to aim high. Creating a vision is quite complicated and will require to take your team and define your company 10 years from now. Will you be able to dominate your sector? Will you be able to create a leading company in your sector? Being a leader a create a vision requires time.

Vision is not a pitch

Vision is not your pitch. Vision is something more philosophical. Is "why we are here", "why we work", "what are our goals".

Vision is a slide in your pitch, but your pitch deck needs more information.

Some examples of "vision" from leading companies:

Honest Tea: To create and promote great-tasting, healthy, organic beverages

Ikea: To create a better everyday life for the many people

You may also like: The 7 Great Challenges for the Leaders of Tomorrow

2. Motivation

A leader knows how to motivate better than anyone else; it is one of their main functions as people managers. Through motivation, a leader channels their coworkers energy and professional potential in order to achieve objectives. This is a very important feature in a leader. You need to talk to your team, ask them questions, let them talk, listen and understand what they need. Leading is not about talking and giving orders, is about listening and creating the perfect environment for each one in your team.

For motivation it is very important to have goals and targets. If everyone can review their goals and targets by themselves you will have a constant motivation for your team. Make your data transparent and accesible to everyone. Transparency is a great tool for motivation.

3. Serving as a leader

The leader is at the service of the team, and not the other way around. Group members must have and feel the support of their leader, the tools needed to do their jobs properly must be available to them, they must have recognition for their efforts and know that there is a person paying attention in order to correct bad habits. That is all part of a leadership which serves the team, and not the opposite.

4. Empathy

One of the basic qualities of any leader seeking success is precisely emotional intelligence, that ability - often innate - that makes leaders put themselves in the place of others, understand their concerns and solve problems. Leaders know the secrets of their businesses and therefore can empathize with customers and members of their teams: that empathy gets to inspire and establish links that will ultimately lead to success.

Read more: Top 11 Leadership Competencies That Will Make You Indestructible in 2016 (Infographic)

5. Creativity

The definition of leadership also has to do with creativity. Good leaders are able to create an environment that will encourage all the members of their team to develop their skills and imagination, so that they can contribute to the common project and vision of the company. If you want to lead successfully, respect the creativity of others and learn from the people around you; their ideas will surely prove to be positive for you.

6. Thoroughness

A good leader sets the bar high for their people, because they want to reach the goals and bring the best ou of their teams. Only a demanding leader will achieve great results. In addition to this thoroughness, the leader must know how to listen, in order to know the needs of the people, and then provide the necessary time and resources for them to do their job properly, and therefore meet what is demanded of them.

7. Managing as a leader

The leader must be at the forefront to lead and guide their team throughout the whole process until the goal is reached. But besides being that "torchbearer", leaders also know when to step back and make their team take the initiative. In this way, the team gets the chance to develop, both personally and professionally. Pure management focuses on the tasks, real leadership focuses on the people.

8. Team building

True leadership is about working in a team to reach a common goal. People management is one of the most difficult tasks faced by leaders. Thanks to the positive attitude, essential in good leaders, and the trust in their workmates, people get better results. Team-aware leaders take responsibility when something is wrong, and reward the group after a job well done.

It may interest you: 10 Leadership Tips To Manage Every Type Of Team

9. Taking risks

The leader is the one responsible for taking the risks that others are not willing to take. They are confident enough to make a decision, and if they make a mistake, the leader must have the courage to rectify, assume their guilt and take the right path, without blaming it on the team. Good leaders know how to get ahead of their time, they see opportunities where others can't and know how to spread the enthusiasm for their vision to try to make it real.

10. Improving

True leadership seeks continuous improvement. Leaders have the ability to turn the people in their teams into stars, people who have improved and developed their skills through the influence of their leader.

In short, the definition of leadership has nothing to do with the hierarchy or anyone's position within the company; it has nothing to do with imposing views but its about listening to those who know. Leadership is the attitude assumed by those looking for something different, who are committed to achieving a goal and whose conviction they manage to transmit to others through enthusiasm and optimism in order to reach a common goal.

A questions from you about leadership

A manager is someone who executes a plan designed by the leader.

A leader can start with a team who directly work with her / him.

If the team grows, the leader can create "teams" and each team will have a leader on its own. Each team leader will be a manager.

If you have questions about leadership, send it. We will be happy to help you. You can use our chat channel for that.

Updated: December 2019.

Test yourself as a leader - online

Do you have a vision for your company?

Do you know how to motivate your team?

You can do this test to evaluate yourself as a leader.

This is a free test you can do on your own to evaluate yourself as a test. In this test you will need to reply freely to some questions about leadership. There are no right or wrong replies. You need to talk about your team, company and how do you manage it. To be a leader you need to evaluate yourself and talk about your day to day.

Please contact us if you have more questions.

Updated: November 2019.

We are reading the amazing book "Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into A Sales Machine With The $100 Million Best Practices Of Salesforce.com" by Aaron Ross, Marylou Tyler and we have a very cool definition about leadership:

6 Responsibilities of a Manager. A no-nonsense management model:

Choose people carefully. Interview, test and listen.

Set expectations and vision - Goals, metrics and constant updates.

Remove obstacles - Find the best tools. Cut out the bureaucracy.

Inspire your people - Training, mentoring, coaching.

Work for your people - They do not work for you. You work for them.

Improve it next time.

We think this is a very good list to have in your "to-do" as a leader. The book is amazing and if you are managing a team or a project, you must read it. There is a chapter all about "training your team".

Did you enjoy this posts? Help us help you.

Are you a new CEO and do you need help?

Do you need training to become a leader?

Are you looking for training for your management team?

Send us an email and we will help you with our courses on leadership. We help 2,000 companies worldwide become leaders with our courses.

What is leadership for you?

Related post: How to Be a Good Leader

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Is Leadership? 10 Ways To Define It : Gamelearn: Game-based learning courses for soft skills training

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What is leadership? Each of us believe we have a good idea about what it means to be a good leader, but when it comes to defining the concept, the picture is not so clear. For some, leadership is motivation, for others, it equals results and it can also represent inspiration.

# data[].attributes.body
Why defining leadership is imperative

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Draws on deep behavioral and organizational expertise to help leadership teams improve alignment and effectiveness. Helps clients with large-scale performance-culture transformations and leadership development.

Managing Director of McKinsey India. Founder of the McKinsey Leadership Institute. Has helped several major Indian companies to shape their global agenda. Longstanding passion for improving healthcare. Co-founder and board member of the Public Health Foundation of India - an innovative public-private partnership to strengthen India's public health system

Coleads the Pharmaceutical & Medical Products and Organization Practices, is the dean of our CEO learning program, the Bower Forum, and leads our partner learning program

Ask any five management experts what makes a good leader, and chances are you will get six answers: Aspiration. Inspiration. Imagination. Creativity. Authenticity. Integrity. It's time for a reality check. While there's no one-word answer to the leadership question, we have identified the stepping stones that enable organizations to develop more effective leadership across the organization.

To pinpoint them, we looked at the major schools of leadership, including traits-based behavioral, situational, functional and psychological perspectives. Each adds richness to defining leadership, yet with the key limitation that each views leadership through a single lens. Since no single model carries the whole field, an integrated definition and approach are required.

Our fresh definition of organizational leadership strives to be comprehensive and pragmatic: Leadership is a set of behaviors that, in a given context, align an organization, foster execution and ensure organizational renewal. They are enabled by relevant skills and mindsets.

Here's how we arrived at that definition and the implications it triggers:

1. Leadership comes alive in the behaviors that are used, felt and observed across an organization. They comprise our unit of analysis and are what we measure objectively and seek to enhance during leadership development interventions.

2. The behaviors are highly contextual depending on each organization. So, it is essential to define leadership traits that prove most effective in helping an organization achieve its performance goals. Take the chief executive of a U.S. energy utility. When the market was deregulated, the company was plunged into the most serious financial crisis of its history. The CEO helped transform the organization into a competitive player in a liberalized global market and is convinced that leadership should be a function of economic reality: "You have to put things in the context of a business model. Who are your real customers? What kind of partner do you need to make it work? What do you really do? And where should that work be done?"

3. Leaders must be able to create organizational alignment, execution and renewal. Without them, performance suffers long term, as our organizational health research shows. Any leadership model must seek to achieve these three factors.

4. A leader's ability to demonstrate effective leadership reflects relevant skills realized through real-life experience. For example, leadership prowess around "championing the desired change" could signify strong storytelling, written and oral communication, influencing skills, and the ability to anticipate and seize pivotal moments. Leadership development intervention must help leaders forge relevant on-the-job skills and behaviors. As management authority Henry Mintzberg maintains, "Leadership, like swimming, cannot be learned by reading about it."

5. Leaders must develop the right mindsets based on introspection and self-awareness. Often, underlying mindsets - including needs, fears and core beliefs - are what drive a leader's behavior in a situation. Only about one-third of the 2,500-plus executives in a McKinsey sample said that their organizations' transformations explicitly assessed the mindsets that required change to reach their goals. But those that did were four times more likely to succeed. Take, for example, a professional services business that wanted senior leaders to initiate more provocative and meaningful discussions with the firm's senior clients. Once the trainers looked below the surface, they discovered that these leaders, though highly successful in their fields, were instinctively uncomfortable and lacking in confidence when conversations moved beyond their functional expertise. Only when the leaders realized this, and went deeper to understand why, were they able to commit themselves to concrete steps that helped push them to change.

Why does a definition of leadership matter? An incomplete definition will produce piecemeal leadership development programs with a misguided focus and poor impact. While organizations get plenty of leadership advice, they lack a way to cut through the clutter. Our definition offers a starting point.

For a more detailed view of the different schools of leadership, or to read about our leadership development approach in practice, read the recently released book, Leadership at Scale.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Draws on deep behavioral and organizational expertise to help leadership teams improve alignment and effectiveness. Helps clients with large-scale performance-culture transformations and leadership development. Managing Director of McKinsey India. Founder of the McKinsey Leadership Institute. Has helped several major Indian companies to shape their global agenda. Longstanding passion for improving healthcare.

# data[].attributes.body
What is leadership? And can you learn to be a good leader?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act toward achieving a common goal. Learn common characteristics and how they compare to managers.

# data[].attributes.body
Defining leadership:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The best way to define leadership is difficult. Look up "Leadership Definition" in a Google search and in .44 sec you get 269,000,000 results. Despite this massive number, I don't actually think that the definition is the issue... it is the action of leadership that is the hardest part. Inherently, defining leadership means understanding yourself from an inward perspective as well as translating your own tendencies, strengths and approaches into the way you interact, communicate and influence others.

So how can you more clearly define the foundations of what it will take you to become a leader? Well, it helps to start with the things that make the biggest difference and define leadership from that perspective.

Here are five ways that you as a leader can bring greater focus and clarity to your leadership approach. When you can define what leadership means to you, then you'll be able to more effectively communicate and influence those people who you lead. Your team and your organization will respect you, look to you for direction and be inspired to work within your vision.

1. Trust: Trust means understanding how your employees think and what actually matters to them. Columbia professor Heidi Grant Halvorson in 99U , states, "When your team trusts you as a leader, it increases commitment to team goals. Communication improves and ideas flow more freely, increasing creativity and productivity." Define yourself by what your intentions are for others. Are you as a leader being trustworthy? Are you acting on your promises? Are you finding ways to build trust in ways that your employees can see and experience?

2. Action: Leadership means actually acting on what you say you're going to do. However, that doesn't mean actually doing it yourself. The biggest impediment to action is often ourselves. This article from Forbes highlights the practice employed by leading Innovation Consultant Innosight-create a "Chief Bottleneck Buster." This concept couldn't be more true, since as a leader, you often have the most on your plate of anyone in your organization. And, because these initiatives are coming from a high-level, they're no doubt priorities. Define leadership by your ability to bust through bottlenecks (it will also help reinforce that you trust your team - see point 1!)

3. Perspective: A defining characteristic of leadership is the ability to ensure that perspective is being realized in different ways. You have your own perspective, which helps you set a vision and develop a plan to get there. However, more challenging is the ability to incorporate other perspectives into the mix. Define leadership by ensuring you know what each person on your team is thinking and what motivates them, ensures that you'll get diverse kinds of thinking that will build influence around different ideas and realize cognitive diversity .

4. Focus: The tendency for a leader is to inspire and engage around everything that is happening. But truly great leaders dig down and get focused. Part of the definition of leadership is actually leading the implementation of ideas and initiatives. My fellow Inc. Magazine writer Peter Economy stated it simply and elegantly -leaders "establish strategies, processes, and routines so that high performance is tangible, easily defined, and monitored."

5. Vision: The last characteristic of great leadership is probably the hardest to actually define. What is vision ? It is a bit like the old adage of "you know it when you see it" and as difficult as that is to internalize and act upon, the important of vision can't be overstated. When you need people to do incredibly hard things, they need to be bought into the vision. How to define leadership is built upon defining what the vision is and how it impacts your workforce, your customers, the market as a whole and your potential audiences.

Oh...and the most important thing not on this list...communication. Even the most defined leadership will not work unless you are a strong communicator and an excellent listener.
Define your leadership style and make it your own, but make sure you think about the 5 key aspects of what makes you one.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The best way to define leadership is difficult. Look up "Leadership Definition" in a Google search and in .44 sec you get 269,000,000 results. Despite this massive number, I don't actually think that the definition is the issue... it is the action of leadership that is the hardest part.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Educational issues are a hot topic of debate across America and worldwide. Our school systems are in a constant state of flux and reform, so there is never a shortage of delicate, complex issues worthy of discussion and debate. Providing solid education - from Kindergarten to college - is obviously vital for the future. A well-informed populace is necessary to move humanity forward in terms of social progress, technology, medicine, and more. This is often why education policy issues tend to trigger passionate arguments. We all have an investment in the future, and we all want children and young adults to receive the best educational opportunities possible.

Some problems with education reflect current political issues and social issues, with problems like income inequality, gender divides, and civil rights issues bleeding into our school systems. The ongoing gun debate affects school safety. The rising cost of higher education shows the increasing class divide in America. Even though parents, students, faculty, and political parties can't agree on how to fix these current problems, we can all agree that reforms around safety, testing, and funding are necessary as we race toward a more technologically-advanced and populated economy.

What's wrong with education programs today? Which issues need to be tackled immediately? On-campus safety issues? Bullying? Loan-forgiveness? Below is a list of issues surrounding education in America. Vote up the issues you find the most important and urgent.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Most Important Education Issues Today

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Educational issues are a hot topic of debate across America and worldwide. Our school systems are in a constant state of flux and reform, so there is never a shortage of delicate, complex issues worthy of discussion and debate. Providing solid education - from Kindergarten to college - i...

# data[].attributes.body
Defining innate leadership

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
J. Bryan Bennett, MBA, CPA, LSSGB
Executive Director, Healthcare Center of Excellence, LLC, Chicago, IL
We are facing a leadership crisis which impacts all aspects of our lives. It affects us in healthcare, government, business, education and in the church. Lack of leadership is shown when a person in a leadership position puts their own needs or personal agenda ahead of those they are charged to lead. Just because someone is in a leadership position does not make them a leader. You can be in a leadership position (supervisor, manager, director, executive, etc.) and not have any leadership abilities. This is called positional leadership and occurs when someone has some position of authority but is not practicing any form of leadership. These people are not usually very effective at what they do and only accomplish what they do because of their authority. They were probably promoted to their position because they did their job well at a lower level, but little evaluation was given to their potential for leadership. The better word to describe them is manager, not leader. We have all known people who fall into this category and, unfortunately, many of us may have worked for them.

We define leadership as: "A process by which an individual or organization directs and inspires a team or organization to reach a goal or follow a vision in a particular environment."

Further examination of this definition reveals:

A process: leadership is not a skill. It is a process that must be worked at daily for a person to become a better leader.

Individual or organization: there are many individuals who are leaders, but an organization can also be a leader. For instance, Apple has been a leader in several technology areas for years, as well as Amazon in online retailing. Their competitors follow them, copy them and try to pass them in the marketplace.

Directs and inspires: there are leaders who are good at directing people but not very inspirational, as well as leaders who are very inspirational but couldn't properly direct a team to cross the street with a green light. A favorite analogy is that of a baseball centerfielder running into the wall to make the catch for his team. He realizes that he might hurt himself (and many have), but he believes that helping his team win the game is more important than his personal safety. A leader must inspire people to willingly want to "go to the wall" for the team because they may have to someday. Good leadership will help them feel good about making that choice.

Team or organization: these are the followers in the equation. The team is the immediate staff or project team and the organization is the entire company.

Reach a goal or follow a vision: the leader must have a specific goal for the team to achieve whether it be a sales or income goal, technology implementation or cultural change. Whatever it is, in addition to being specific, it should be measurable and have a defined time period.

Environment: this represents the area that is largely out of the leader's control. It could be the industry, government regulations or other changes impacting the organization.

As previously mentioned, true leadership is a process that must be practiced every day to be effective. It's like a maintenance drug for high blood pressure that must be taken daily or potentially suffer dire consequences. It's like that athlete, amateur or professional, who continually works hard to improve their already exceptional abilities in order to become better and more competitive. It is the same way any other professional works to become better, including:

physicians

musicians and singers

artists

professors

This process leads to what is called professional leadership, which is an individualized, continuously-improving leadership development process based on innate qualities, personality and abilities that is practiced every day incorporating regular reflection and coaching.

The Great Leadership Debate

The great debate about leadership is whether leaders are born or made. The correct answer is yes. Some people have certain innate qualities that give them a high potential for leadership (born). They can still become better leaders through additional training. On the other hand, others without all of the innate qualities can become better leaders through training (made). Keep in mind that not everyone will be a good leader; which is logical because society couldn't exist if everyone was a leader.

Based on research, interviews and self-reflection, the innate leadership qualities are identified as:

humility: putting the needs of others ahead of their own

empathy: knowing how to get things done through people

vision: the ability to see things others don't see or before others see them

risk-taking: comfort with being out front and charting new territory

Humility is the recognition of one's own importance or standing. It is the self-awareness that you are no better than the person next to you or across from you. Sometimes known as modesty, humble people make everyone feel special. Humility is the quality that is most natural. It can be learned to a certain degree, but authentic humility is hard to duplicate.

Leaders exhibit humility by making themselves available to the people they work with. Their time is valuable, but it is not so valuable that they can't take the time to listen or discuss something that is important with others. It is very easy for people to identify leaders with authentic humility. They are the ones who return phone calls, respond to e-mails and engage with others not as a leader-to-subordinate, but as a person-to-person.

Dr. Toby Cosgrove, CEO and President at Cleveland Clinic, is a firm believer in the need for humility in healthcare leaders. He considers humility, "the ultimate wisdom." Leaders don't know it all and should be aware of their own limitations. It "is not the absence of self-worth, but the validation of self-worth."

Empathy is the ability to mentally identify with the feelings, thoughts or attitudes of others. It is not the same as sympathy which implies feeling sorry for someone. It involves knowing people and knowing about the people you work with, especially your direct reports. On a business level, this includes understanding their motivations, career goals, education, etc. On a personal level, it includes knowing their entertainment interests, marital status, children's ages, etc. This information can be used to help establish a sincere relationship with the person which makes that go to the wall moment easier to accept.

Empathy is not just for direct reports but should also be included with relationships with indirect reports and peers. Some executives like to "walk the floors" and listen to people to get to know them especially when they start a new position. This quality can be learned somewhat especially by adding notes to a contacts file, but that only provides a "robotic" approach to empathy. Sincere empathy comes from the heart and is easily distinguishable from insincerity.

Leaders exhibit empathy by getting to know and understand the people they work with. They have to generally like people and like working with people to be the most effective. It is also a considered one of the requirements for effective leadership by Dr. Cosgrove.

Vision is being able to see things others don't see or before others can see it. People with vision can sometimes see the endgame before it even begins. The challenge for such visionaries is getting others to see the vision to gain their buy-in. This process can be very frustrating for people with this natural quality because the people they work with, especially in healthcare, are so used to doing things a certain way and can be reluctant to make any changes. This is a quality that can be learned to a degree using decision making processes and tools, but those with natural vision can reach the same or better direction more efficiently with a better understanding of the most important variable-the human factor.

Leaders with vision can effectively chart the course for where they need to go and communicate that vision in a manner that everyone can understand. This is where the direction and inspiration comes in. Good leaders chart the course by providing direction. Great leaders make their followers feel good about where they are going.

Risk-Taking is built in to becoming a leader. By accepting the position, the leader has fundamentally accepted a certain amount of risk. The leader needs to be prepared to accept the good as well the bad outcomes that may occur. There are several types of risks the leader must be prepared for including: reputation risk, career risk, interpersonal risk and financial risk. Being at the front of the team or organization opens the leader to the arrows potentially pointed at their back. If the leader can't accept criticism or negative feedback, maybe they should consider another position.

Leaders who take risk aren't just taking risks for risk's sake. The risk is calculated and weighed against the potential for success or failure. They have to be ready to try new things when necessary and adapt their leadership style to the situation. Calculating risk is a skill that can be learned, but the nature of leadership requires the leader to accept a certain level of risk with the position.

The Mixology

The next questions most people want to ask is how many traits do they need to have and how much of each trait has to be innate versus learned. At this time, there is no mathematical formula to unequivocally answer these questions, but, just like leadership, you sometimes just have to have a feel for it.

Based on interviews, observations and research, the best leaders are the ones that possess, and are good at all four traits. Some possess three traits while others only two. Even though they may not be gifted with all four traits, they may have other compensatory abilities that make up for what they are missing.

Although the best leaders have most of these traits innately, there is a room for some learning, but it in most cases, it has to be less than 40 percent. (See Figure 1). A person can learn some of the qualities, but there is only so far they can go with humility or empathy that is not authentic.

Why Most Leadership Training Fails

There is a plethora of leadership development programs being offered. Most are designed to keep the participants coming back again and again. Ironically, when leadership is taught at the university graduate school level, it is completely different. It is taught as a process that is personalized to the individual with appropriate feedback and mentoring. Consequently, the primary reasons most leadership training fails are because:

Training is skills-based versus process-based. Possessing the skills without the process only addresses a portion of what is needed to become a better leader. It's like the chef and the ordinary cook setting out to make the same dish. They may both have the same ingredients, but the dish created by the chef will usually be much better because they know the process intimately from extensive practice in making the dish.

They use a one size fits all instead of an individualized approach. Not everyone has the skills taught in the classes or can be good at them once they've learned them.

There is no follow up or feedback loop to see if what was learned was properly implemented. This approach is contrary to that used in most academic programs and is supported by the Kolb Experiential Learning Cycle. Kolb views learning as a multi-stage integrated process with each stage supportive of and feeding into the next. Effective learning only occurs when a learner is able to execute all four stages of the model. (See Figure 2).

Professional Leadership is an individualized approach that is designed to be learned once and adaptable to almost any situation the leader or potential leader may encounter. This concept is further discussed in my book, Prescribing Leadership in Healthcare. For more information visit The Healthcare Center of Excellence at www.healthcarecoe.org.

J. Bryan Bennett is the founder and Executive Director of the Healthcare Center of Excellence (HCOE). He is the primary researcher and blogger for HCOE and blogs for the HIMSS Future Care website on the subjects of big data, healthcare technology transformation and leadership.

He is a highly requested international speaker on the subjects of healthcare transformation, healthcare analytics, leadership and customer management. As a healthcare technology and advanced analytics consult, he has helped healthcare organizations meet the Meaningful Use Stage 1 requirements as an Allscripts certified partner. In addition, he is a course developer and adjunct professor for Northwestern University, West Virginia University and Judson University where he develops and teaches domestic and international courses in analytics, leadership and marketing. His presentations are engaging and witty as he challenges his audiences to think in different ways to reach better solutions.

He is the author of the book Competing on Healthcare Analytics and has written the "Data Stewardship" chapter for the book ADAPTIVE Health Management Information Management. Gartner, Inc. has recognized his work and his academic study was published in Capco's Journal of Financial Transformation.

His book, Prescribing Leadership in Healthcare: Curing the Challenges Facing Today's Healthcare Leaders, released in April 2017. He has a Master's of Business Administration from the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management and a Bachelor's degree from Butler University. He is a Certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Certified Data Scientist, Certified Public Accountant and Certified Adjunct Faculty Educator. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Innate Qualities of Professional Leadership

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
J. Bryan Bennett, MBA, CPA, LSSGB Executive Director, Healthcare Center of Excellence, LLC, Chicago, IL We are facing a leadership crisis which impacts all aspects of our lives. It affects us in healthcare, government, business, education and in the church.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Role of Values in Teacher Education - George V. Guy, Willard B. Spalding, Howard E. Westcott, 1961

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If you have access to a journal via a society or association membership, please browse to your society journal, select an article to view, and follow the instructions in this box.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Social perception (or person perception) is the study of how people form impressions of and make inferences about other people as sovereign personalities. People learn about others' feelings and emotions by picking up information they gather from physical appearance, verbal, and nonverbal communication. Facial expressions, tone of voice, hand gestures, and body position or movement are a few examples of ways people communicate without words. A real-world example of social perception is understanding that others disagree with what one said when one sees them roll their eyes. There are four main components of social perception: observation, attribution, integration, and confirmation.

Observations serve as the raw data of social perception-an interplay of three sources: persons, situations, and behavior. These sources are used as evidence in supporting a person's impression or inference about others. Another important factor to understand when talking about social perception is attribution. Attribution is expressing an individual's personality as the source or cause of their behavior during an event or situation. To fully understand the impact of personal or situational attributions, social perceivers must integrate all available information into a unified impression. To finally confirm these impressions, people try to understand, find, and create information in the form of various biases. Most importantly, social perception is shaped by an individual's current motivations, emotions, and cognitive load capacity. Cognitive load is the complete amount of mental effort utilized in the working memory. All of this combined determines how people attribute certain traits and how those traits are interpreted.

The fascination and research for social perception date back to the late 1800s when social psychology was first being discovered. As more and more research on social perception is done, the realization of its significance in understanding and predicting our social world continues to grow. This overview article aims to inform readers about the processes of social perception along with brief descriptions to relevant and related theories.

The processes of social perception begin with observing persons, situations, and behaviors to gather evidence that supports an initial impression.

Persons - physical influence

Although society tries to train people not to judge others based on their physical traits, as social perceivers, we cannot help but be influenced by others' hair, skin color, height, weight, style of clothes, pitch in voice, etc., when making a first impression. People have the tendency to judge others by associating certain facial features with specific personality types. For example, studies indicate that people are perceived as stronger, more assertive, and competent if they have small eyes, low eyebrows, an angular chin, wrinkled skin, and a small forehead. People tend to associate baby-faced people with impotence and harmlessness.

Situations - context from prior experiences

People are able to easily predict the sequences or results of an event based on the extent and depth of their past experiences with a similar event. The ability to anticipate the outcomes of a situation is also greatly influenced by an individual's cultural background because this inevitably shapes the types of experiences. Situational observations either lead humans to have preset notions about certain events or to explain the causes of human behaviors.

Behaviors - nonverbal communication

Nonverbal communication helps people express their emotions, attitudes, and personalities. The most dominant form of nonverbal communication is the use of facial expressions to channel different emotions. Greatly influenced by Charles Darwin's research on facial expressions and book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), it is believed that all humans, regardless of culture or race, encode and decode the six "primary" emotions, (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust), universally in the same way. To encode means to communicate nonverbal behavior, while to decode means to interpret the meaning or intention of the nonverbal behavior. Decoding sometimes is inaccurate due to affect blend, (a facial expression with two differently registered emotions), and/or display rules, (culturally dictated rules about which nonverbal behaviors are acceptable to display). Other nonverbal cues such as: body language, eye contact, and vocal intonations can affect social perception by allowing for thin-slicing. Thin-slicing describes the ability to make quick judgements from finding consistencies in events based only on narrow frames of experience.

With the observations drawn from persons, situations, and behavior, the next step is to make inferences that identify an individual's inner dispositions.

A large component of social perception is attribution. Attribution is the use of information gathered through observation to help individuals understand and rationalize the causes of one's own and others' behaviors. Psychological research on attribution began with the work of Fritz Heider in 1958, and was subsequently developed by others such as Harold Kelley and Bernard Weiner. People make attributions to understand the world around them in order to seek reasons for an individual's particular behavior. When people make attributions they are able to make judgments as to what was the cause or causes of a certain behavior. Attribution theory is the study of what systems and models people implement to make attributions about the behavior of others. It attempts to explain how we use information about the social environment to understand others' behavior.

One common bias people exhibit in attribution is called the fundamental attribution error. The fundamental attribution error is the tendency for people to attribute others' actions or behaviors to internal traits as opposed to external circumstances. An example of how this may manifest in the real world as pointed out in research by Furnham and Gunter is how one's view of the justness of poverty may be affected by one's financial status: one who has not experienced poverty may see it as being more or less deserved than might someone who has been impoverished at some point. In this way, fundamental attribution error can be a barrier to empathizing with others, as one does not consider all the circumstances involved in the actions of others.

Two-step process of making attributions

Unlike conventional attribution theories, the two-step process of attribution suggests that people analyze others' behaviors first by automatically making an internal attribution and only then considering possible external attributions that may affect the initial inference. Heider's most valuable contribution to the topic of attribution is the dichotomy: When attempting to decide why individuals behave a certain way, we can make either an internal or external attribution. Internal attribution, (also called dispositional attribution or personal attribution), is the assumption that an individual is acting a certain way due to something about that individual, such as personality, character, or attitude. External attribution, also called situational attribution, is the inference that an individual is acting a certain way due to the situation he or she is in; the assumption is that most individuals would respond in the same way in that similar situation. Essentially, people first assume that a person's behavior is due to his or her personality, and then attempt to modify this attribution by also factoring in the person's situation.

Jones's correspondent inference theory

According to Edward Jones and Keith Davis's correspondent inference theory, people learn about other individuals from behavior that is chosen freely, that is not anticipated, and that results in a small number of favorable outcomes. There are three factors that people use as a basis for their inferences:

1. An individual's degree of choice

2. The expectedness of the behavior

3. The intentions or motives behind the effects or consequences of the behavior

Kelley's covariation theory

According to American social psychologist Harold Kelley, individuals make attributions by utilizing the covariation principle. The covariation principle claims that people attribute behavior to the factors that are present when a certain behavior occurs and the factors that are absent when it does not occur. There are three types of covariation information that are particularly helpful: consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency.

If a single individual and a large majority of individuals behave similarly in reaction to a specific stimulus, then the individual's behavior is attributed to the stimulus and is high in consensus. The individual's behavior due to this specific stimulus should be compared to the individual's behavior in reaction other stimuli within the same broader category. This helps judge whether the level of distinctiveness information is high, and thus attributed to the stimulus. Lastly, consistency information is used to see what happens to the behavior at another time when the individual and the stimulus both remain unchanged.

Unless a snap judgement is made from observing persons, situations, or behavior, people integrate the dispositions to form impressions.

Norman H. Anderson, an American social psychologist, developed the information integration theory in 1981. The theory states that impressions are made from the perceiver's personal dispositions and a weighted average of the target individual's characteristics. The differences among perceivers are due to people using themselves as a standard, or frame of reference, when judging or evaluating others. People also tend to view their own skills and traits as favorable for others to also have. These impressions formed about others can also be influenced by the current, temporary mood of the perceiver. A concept called, priming also affects a perceiver's impressions of others. Priming is the tendency for recently perceived or implemented concepts or words to come to mind easily and influence the understanding of the new information. Trait information also impacts people's impressions of others, and psychologist Solomon Asch was the first to discover that the existence of one trait tends to indicate the existence of other traits. Asch claimed that central traits exist that exert a strong effect on the perceiver's overall impressions. Lastly, the sequence in which a trait is realized can also influence the trait's impact. Research shows that there is a tendency for information presented at the beginning of a sequence to have a greater effect on impressions than information presented later on, a concept called primacy effect.

Implicit personality theory is a type of model people use to group various kinds of personality qualities together. Put in another way, implicit personality theories describe the way an observer uses the traits displayed by another person to form impressions about that other person. People pay attention to a variety of cues, including: visual, auditory, and verbal cues to predict and understand the personalities of others, in order to fill in the gap of the unknown information about a person, which assists with social interactions.

Certain traits are seen as especially influential in the formation of an overall impression of an individual; these are called central traits. Other traits are less influential in impression formation, and are called peripheral traits. Which traits are central or peripheral is not fixed, but can vary based on context. For instance, saying that a person is warm versus cold may have a central impact on an individual's impression formation when paired with traits such as "industrious" and "determined", but have a more peripheral impact when paired with traits such as "shallow" or "vain".

Kim and Rosenberg demonstrate that when forming impressions of others, individuals assess others on an evaluative dimension. Which is to say that, when asked to describe personality traits of others, individuals rate others on a "good-bad" dimension. People's implicit personality theories also include a number of other dimensions, such as a "strong-weak" dimension, an "active-passive" dimension, an "attractive-unattractive" dimension, etc. However, the evaluative "good-bad" dimension was the only one that universally appeared in people's descriptions of others, while the other dimensions appeared in many, but not all, people's assessments. Thus, the dimensions included in implicit personality theories on which others are rated vary from person to person, but the "good-bad" dimension appears to be part of all people's implicit personality theories.

After making and integrating attributions, individuals form impressions that are subject to confirmation biases and the threat of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It is true that people fall for the biases identified by social psychologists and for some biases that may have not yet been identified. Despite these misjudgments, there are four reasons that soundly demonstrate people's competence as social perceivers:

1. People can more accurately perceive social behaviors and interactions when they have a greater history of experiences with the other people.

2. People can make more circumscribed predictions of how other individuals will act when in their presence.

3. Social perception skills can be improved through learning the rules of probability and logic.

4. People can make more precise inferences about others when motivated by concerns for open-mindedness and accuracy.

The accuracy of social perception relates to the connection between judgments people make of others' psychological attributes, and the reality of those attributes with regards to the people being judged. There are three slightly varying approaches to interpreting accuracy the: pragmatic, constructivist, and realistic approaches. Empirical research suggests that social perception is mostly accurate, but the degree of accuracy is based on four major moderator variables. These moderators are attributes of the: judge, target, trait that is judged, and information on which the judgment is based. The Realistic Accuracy Model (RAM) explains that these moderators are a result of the process for accurate judgment. The process of accurate personality judgment starts with the target revealing relevant information, which then must be available to a judge, who then identifies and uses it to form a final judgment.

Difficulties in accuracy research

While accurate social perception is important, it has also been rather neglected. It is difficult to provide a set list of criteria that can be checked-off as accuracy can be subjective in nature. In the past, there was an assumption that people's judgements were also considered erroneous and often mistaken. As such, many researchers have chosen to pursue other facets of research instead. It was not until these assumptions were proved incorrect through research and research methods became more sophisticated that genuine effort was put into analyzing accurate social perceptions.

TASIT (The Awareness of Social Inference Test) is an audiovisual test that In the past for the clinical assessment of social perception. The test is based upon several critical components of social perception that are crucial for social competence using complex, dynamic, visual, and auditory cues to assess these critical components. The test assesses the ability to identify emotions, a skill that is impaired in many clinical conditions. It also assesses the ability to judge what a speaker may be thinking or what their intentions are for the other person in the conversation, also referred to as theory of mind. Lastly, the test was developed to assess the ability to differentiate between literal and non-literal conversational remarks. The test is divided into three parts to measure; emotion, social inference - minimal, and social inference enriched. The test is composed of scenes, or vignettes, and those being assessed are asked to identify the emotions, a, feelings, beliefs, intentions, and meanings of the interactions. They are also assessed on more complex interactions to assess ability to interpret sarcasm. The results of this testing assess the level of social perception of an individual.

TASIT has adequate psychometric properties as a clinical test of social perception. It is not overly prone to practice effects and is reliable for repeat administrations. Performance on TASIT is affected by information processing speed, working memory, new learning and executive functioning, but the uniquely social material that comprises the stimuli for TASIT provides useful insights into the particular difficulties people with clinical conditions experience when interpreting complex social phenomena.

Inaccuracy/distortions

People are prone to numerous types of confirmation biases-tendencies to construe, find, and formulate information in ways that prove existing opinions. Preconceived prejudices, stereotypes, and discrimination otherwise known as social biases can contribute towards these tendencies. People are also subject to exhibiting belief perseverance, the tendency to hold false convictions even after they have been disproved.

Defensive attribution hypothesis - Tendency of people to attribute more blame to the perpetrator of an accident as the consequences become more severe. However, if people perceive that they are more similar to the perpetrator characteristically or circumstantially, they rate the perpetrator as less culpable for the accident as the severity of consequences increase. If people perceive themselves as less similar, they rate the perpetrator as more culpable.

Correspondence bias - Tendency to draw inferences about a person's characteristics from behaviors that could be explained by the situation alone.

Interaction

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Social perception (or person perception) is the study of how people form impressions of and make inferences about other people as sovereign personalities. People learn about others' feelings and emotions by picking up information they gather from physical appearance, verbal, and nonverbal communication.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Code of Ethics - California Teachers Association

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Universities as change agents for sustainability - framing the role of knowledge transfer and generation in regional development processes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This paper explores opportunities for universities to contribute to local and regional development processes, apart from classical knowledge transfer ...

# data[].attributes.body
Traits that set them apart

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by Lisa McKale

Let's set the record straight.

Everyone who is a great leader isn't necessarily a great manager. And great managers aren't necessarily great leaders.

So when it comes to the Leaders vs. Managers debate, where do you land?

Here's a list of 17 traits that separate leadership and management. Go down the list and check off which ones match you. Most of us have some qualities of each. For example, do you have 10 Leader traits and 7 Manager traits? Or the reverse? Are you happy with the answer?

For more on leadership, see our Leadership Guide. Plus, check out all of our great infographics.

Make sure to tell us in the comments section below!

Free Leadership Guide You Can Download
Leadership can come from anywhere. Most often it comes from the ground up, but it can come from any direction. Not just the top down. Need some inspiration, download our free 60-page guide.

Click here to get it.

Share This Infographic On Your Site

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Leaders vs Managers: Which are you? 17 Traits That Set Them Apart

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Lisa McKale Let's set the record straight. Everyone who is a great leader isn't necessarily a great manager. And great managers aren't necessarily great leaders. So when it comes to the Leaders vs. Managers debate, where do you land? Here's a list of 17 traits that separate leadership and management.

# data[].attributes.body
Developing life skills

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Effective Decision Making | SkillsYouNeed

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn about decision-making, and some ideas about how to do it. In particular, learn why it can be difficult and how to overcome these problems.

# data[].attributes.body
U.S. Education System

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
18 Reasons the U.S. Education System is Failing

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Spread the loveOnce upon a time, enthusiasts designed a formal education system to meet the economic demands of the industrial revolution. Fast forward to today and, with the current global economic climate, it seems apparent that the now established education system is unable to meet the needs of our hyper-connected society - a society that is in a constant state of evolution.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Few would argue that the state of our education system has plenty of room for improvement. However, developing a plan to take schools in the right direction is easier said than done. The first challenge lies in identifying underlying problems keeping students from learning today. This challenge, in part, is due to the fact that the problems may change considerably depending on who is labeling them, whether it is students, parents, educators or lawmakers. Consider this list of 10 major challenges currently facing public schools, based on the perspective of many involved in the world of education today.
Classroom Size
Many areas of the country are facing classrooms that are literally busting out at the seams. A report at two years ago discussed how schools in Georgia, in the midst of major funding cuts for schools, had no choice but to lift all class size limits to accommodate students with the faculty the school system could still afford to keep. More recently, Fairfax County in Virginia has been looking into a proposal to increase classroom sizes in the face of significant budget cuts. The Board of Education in South Carolina is also weighing their options in this area.
Poverty
Technorati reported last fall that 22 percent of the children in the U.S. live at or below poverty level. American Graduate defines poverty as a family of four with an annual income level of $23,050 or lower. American Graduate also cites a report from the Southern Education Foundation, which shows in 17 states across the U.S., low-income students now comprise the majority of public school students in those states. Some estimates put poverty levels for public school students at 25% in the not-so-distant future.

Students living at or below poverty level tend to have the highest dropout rates. Studies show that students who do not get enough food or sleep are less likely to perform at their full academic potential. Schools know these truths first-hand, and despite efforts to provide students with basic essentials, teachers, administrators and lawmakers know there is simply not enough to go around.
Family Factors Technology
Kids Health Guide reports that students are more technologically advanced than many teachers today, putting instructors at a decided disadvantage in the classroom. However, a student's love of technology also tends to distract him from his schoolwork, according to NEA Today. When teachers don't have the techno-savvy to compete with those devices, by bringing education and technology together , it can be difficult to keep students' interest and attention to properly teach new concepts.

Technology needs to come into the classroom to keep up with the learning demands of the 21 st century. Schools that are already cash-strapped may find an unsurmountable challenge in coming up with the funding to bring computers and other forms of technology into their classes. Scholastic offers some tips for school districts that want to fit the bill for technology, including everything from asking individuals in the district for "big gifts" to going to Uncle Sam for the funding. The website also suggests negotiating prices on technology when possible and allowing student to bring their own from home.

Photo By Intel Free Press CC-BY-SA-2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Bullying
is not a new problem, but it is one that has a profound impact on the learning aptitude of many students today. Technology has given bullies even more avenues to torment their victims - through social networking, texting and other virtual interactions. Cyberbullying has become a major issue for schools, as evidenced by the number of suicides that can be directly traced to bullying events . The fact that laws are still fuzzy regarding cyberbullying adds to the challenge - since parents, teachers and administrators are unsure of how to legally handle such issues.
Student Attitudes and Behaviors No Child Left Behind
NEA Today quotes Kansas special educator Shelly Dunham as saying, "Testing, testing, testing, what is the point of testing? Do we use the data to remediate those who do not measure up? No!" Many teachers believe they are forced to teach to the annual standardized tests, and activities like recess and lunch have been cut way down to make more time for academics in light of the new testing procedures.
Parent Involvement Student Health
has reached epidemic proportions in the U.S., and the same poor eating habits that led to the obesity problem may also be contributing to lower student achievement. Obesity also increases a student's risk for other conditions, like diabetes and high blood pressure, which could result in higher absenteeism and more academic issues.

Photo By English: Lance Cpl. Ryan M. Joyner [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Funding
Budget cuts have created huge problems for most public schools in recent years. Less funding means smaller staffs, fewer resources and a lower number of services for students. While some argue that throwing more money at the education problems won't make them go away, others assert that lack of funding caused many of the problems in the first place.

There are many problems in public schools today, but identifying those issues is half the battle. With a laundry list of challenges to face, now is the time for educators, parents and lawmakers to come together and begin to find solutions - for the benefit of all students in public schools today.

Questions? Contact us on Twitter. @publicschoolreview

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
10 Major Challenges Facing Public Schools - PublicSchoolReview.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Are our public schools in a state of crisis? Learn about the 10 biggest problems with public schools today, both from the perspective of the administrators and the teachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
5 Core Values Teacher Should Demonstrate | Educationtopia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If you are thinking, teachers are meant to teach to students then you are missing something. Teachers aren't just to teach but they are in continuous process of learning too. Should they stop learning themselves, their teaching turns dull.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Read articles on current educational issues, including school policy, school reform, the Common Core standards, tech trends, and more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Social perception refers to the ability to make accurate interpretations and inferences about other people from their general physical appearance, verbal, and nonverbal patterns of communication. Things like facial expressions, tone of voice, hand gestures, and body position or movement are all ques people with higher levels of social perception pick up on to work out what other people are thinking, feeling or are likely to do next. (Aronson et al, 2010)

Having at least one person with higher levels of social perception on a team has been found to increase the likelihood of better performance of the team and of the team developing collective intelligence. (Chikersal, Prerna, et al., 2017)

Back to The Oxford Review Encyclopaedia of Terms

The article you may like to see: Collective Intelligence
References
Aronson, Elliot; Wilson, Timothy D.; Akert, Robin M. (2010). Social Psychology Seventh Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. pp. 83-115. ISBN 0-13-814478-8.

Chikersal, Prerna, et al. (2017) "Deep Structures of Collaboration: Physiological Correlates of Collective Intelligence and Group Satisfaction." Proceedings of the 20th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2017). 2017.

Gwen M. Wittenbaum, Garold Stasser, and Carol J. Merry. (1996). Tacit coordination in anticipation of small group task completion. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 32, 2: 129-152.

Anita Williams Woolley and Ishani Aggarwal. Collective intelligence and group learning. In Handbook of Group and Organizational Learning, Linda Argote and J. M Levine (eds.). Oxford University Press, London, UK.

How people decide what kind of leaders we want

Like what you see? Help us spread the word

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Social perception: definition and explanation of social perception

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Social perception refers to the ability to make accurate interpretations and inferences about other people from their general physical appearance, verbal, and nonverbal patterns of communication. Things like facial expressions, tone of voice, hand gestures, and body position or movement are all ques people with higher levels of social perception pick up on to work out what other people are thinking, feeling or are likely to do next.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by Jeff C. Marshall

Should you just roll the dice, or is there a better way to determine the instructional strategies and assessments used to guide today's lesson? You are rolling the dice if you choose an instructional strategy based on what is easiest, what you haven't used in a while, or what your default strategy is. This lack of intentionality in your approach assumes that there is not a best-or at least not a better-way to instruct. It is a crapshoot because some days it works, but perhaps not for every student that day or for the whole class when your students are tested on the material.

Just as all our students come with unique experiences and backgrounds, we as teachers all have different experiences and training that prepare us to excel or flounder in the classroom. In this chapter, you will examine the experiences, beliefs, values, and actions that frame your daily teaching practice. An honest self-assessment will provide a starting point from which you can develop clear targeted objectives. Each objective comes with examples of what it looks like and what you need to do to move toward more effective instructional practice.

The difference in student achievement in a classroom led by an exemplary teacher is about 12 months greater than that of the student achievement led by a poorly performing teacher. Specifically, the students in the classroom of exemplary teachers on average progress the equivalent of 18 months in a single academic year versus 6 months of growth for students in the classroom of poorly performing teachers (Rice, 2003). The greatest academic growth is not dependent upon students' gender, race, or socioeconomic status. Rather, the teacher's effectiveness is the single greatest determinant of student success (Darling-Hammond, 2000).

Our students deserve at least 12 months of growth each year from each teacher, and inquiry-based instruction can help you achieve that feat. Furthermore, research shows that students of teachers who have been part of our professional development and have been encouraged to use more and better inquiry-based instruction tend to outperform a similarly matched control group of students by two to seven months of academic growth (Marshall, 2012).

The common theme of various components of this chapter, whether flying at 30,000 feet or zooming in at ground level, is the importance of being an intentional practitioner. We are all intentional at some level, but how well we target our planning, instruction, interactions, and vision toward truly improving the achievement of all students is the subject of this book. Specifically, we will focus on succeeding with students in inquiry-based learning environments. Figure 1.1 gives an overview of values, practices, and actions that we explore in this chapter.

What Do You Value?

Your teaching philosophy provides the broad 30,000-foot (global) perspective of what you value as a teacher. Let's explore your philosophy.

If you are like most readers, you might now begin to peek ahead to see what the "right" answer is. After all, our educational upbringing has taught us to look for the single right answer instead of seeking thoughtful, unique solutions-a challenge that I address in this book.

It may seem counterproductive at this point to state your teaching philosophy, but I assure you that you will be continually referring to it as you read this book. As you form your philosophy, consider some of the following issues: What is your belief about student success in your class? What fosters student success in your class? What is your role in such success? What do students experience in your classroom that maximizes learning? In our quick-paced, sound-bite, hurry-on-to-the-next-fad world, you may be inclined to skip this exercise, but the explicit reflection on and acknowledgment of your beliefs, values, and actions is critical for moving your practice forward.

What Is Truly Important?

The next level of actions and values to consider, perhaps the 10,000-foot view, describes what core ideas (major concepts) students should know and be able to do when they complete your class. Core ideas are defined in a myriad of ways, but here they refer to the essential ideas or the 8 to 10 things that you want your students to know or be able to do by the end of the year. These core ideas are guided by district, state, or national standards and essentially compose the foundation of your curriculum, instruction, assessment, and classroom discourse, but they can be useful in other ways. You can provide core ideas to parents, students, and administrators as they seek to better understand the major instructional goals of your class, which when concisely stated in layman's terms allows all stakeholders to better support you and your program.

Interestingly, award-winning teachers view standards differently from most experienced mathematics and science teachers (Hudson, McMahon, & Overstreet, 2002; Marshall, 2008). Specifically, award-winning teachers tend to view national standards (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 2000; National Research Council, 1996) as a framework to guide their classroom instruction, whereas other math and science teachers with 10 years of experience or more tend to view the standards as an obstacle that needs to be overcome or a collection of items that need to be "covered." With the 2013 Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the 2010 Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (CCSSM), this tendency will continue-exemplary teachers will see standards as a guide for instruction whereas other will see standards as obstacles-unless something changes.

In science, a core idea for a chemistry class might include "Students will understand the trends and interactions found on the Periodic Table of Elements." This core idea requires that students demonstrate understanding of things such as periodic trends, reactivity of elements and relative strengths, and the way chemical formulas are written based on characteristics of various elements. In mathematics, core ideas may include "Algebra I students will develop an understanding of statistical variability for 6th-grade students" and "Students will represent and solve equations and inequalities graphically."

When Have Your Students Been Successful?

For many teachers, teaching is about planning a lesson, implementing that lesson, and then checking to see how well students understand the material. On the surface, this approach sounds fine, but it typically leads to surface-level, fact-based learning that emphasizes memorization over thinking and recall over active engagement. So, at this 1,000-foot view, let's look a little deeper into the cycle that we commonly use (plan, implement, and assess).

First, the typical teacher realizes that there are standards that must be taught, so she seeks a lesson or activity from the resource guide or Internet that covers the topic mentioned in the standard. Then, if lucky, the teacher finds a quiz or assessment that goes along with the activity to measure student knowledge. The grade, for this one of the five (you fill in the number) required quizzes for the quarter, implies how well each student knows and understands that particular standard.

Let's contrast this approach with another one. First, the teacher clearly identifies and acknowledges what core idea frames the learning. Within that core idea, she articulates the major concepts that students will master by the end of the unit. Next, she determines how she will know when students have been successful and to what degree. Notice that determining how student mastery will be assessed precedes and guides the instruction to be developed-not the other way around. Then the teacher develops an instructional sequence that helps lead students toward mastery.

In the first approach, the teacher assumes that the assessment found with the lesson or activity is purposeful and appropriate for measuring student achievement relative to a given standard. That may be the case, but this approach still leaves the assessment in someone else's hands to determine what is valued and whether the learning measured will be lower-level, higher-level, or somewhere in between. The second approach uses the core idea to frame the learning, and the assessment is crafted to measure the degree of mastery of the concepts surrounding that big idea. Keep in mind that assessments created by other sources are not always inappropriate. Rather, it simply means that when we use assessments from other sources, we need to be intentional about what we use and why we are using all or part of it. We can quantify anything in order to create a grade to post, but the grade needs to be more than a number or letter. It needs to reflect student knowledge and/or degree of mastery relative to the concepts being studied or at least as close as possible.

To further illustrate the point, let's consider student performance in two different science classrooms. Teacher A gives a 10-question multiple-choice quiz that contains only recall or vocabulary-related items, and Teacher B gives a 10-question quiz that contains 4 recall-type questions, 4 application questions, and 2 higher-order questions. After they grade the quizzes, Teacher A and Teacher B both have the same class average-84 percent. When the grades go home, students in both classes seem to be performing equally well as a whole, when in fact the knowledge assessed in Teacher B's class is much deeper. Teacher A measured student success in defining vocabulary, whereas Teacher B measured student success in understanding, applying, and possibly doing science. The point is the same whether in science or in mathematics: we need to make sure that we are rigorously measuring and guiding student success relative to scientific and mathematical thinking. Measuring the success of instruction and learning will be central to Chapter 6.

How Are Students Involved?

We have progressed from what you value (educational philosophy statement) to the major concepts that students must know and be able to do (the core ideas), to how we know when students have been successful. Now we zoom in to consider the actions or strategies that you use to guide learning. Notice this sequence may seem backward-curriculum and instruction work often begins with a topic (the next section in your textbook) or activity (something that looks fun and engaging to students) and then progresses to finding the standard that it addresses.

Instead, this book will help you become intentional about the strategies you use to maximize learning. Although no two days will be exactly alike in terms of instruction, think about what your students typically experience. Begin by drawing two pie charts. The first chart should be titled General Classroom Organization and requires you to determine the percentage of time students typically spend doing (1) individual work, (2) small-group work, and (3) whole-group work. Divide and label the pie chart into appropriate portions. The second pie chart is for determining the Learning Environment. Divide it into appropriate portions of time typically spent on (1) teacher presentation; (2) class discussion; (3) group projects, labs, and explorations; and (4) individual work. To aid in making distinctions between the first two portions, teacher presentation becomes a classroom discussion when more than 50 percent of the interactions are from the students; anything less can be categorized as teacher presentation.

These two charts provide an overview of your classroom learning environment. Specifically, are students typically hearing and seeing content and skills, are students actively interacting with both the teacher and other students, are students involved in doing the science or mathematics, and are they individually making sense out of concepts? Most classes involve all these components to some degree, but the degree to which each is emphasized does vary by classroom. And it's this degree of emphasis that is central to the discussions in this book.

With an understanding of what you value and how your classroom environment is configured, let's turn to the strategies (actions) that influence learning. What instructional strategies do you typically use to teach your major concepts?

1. I teach using lecture. _____

2. My students solve open-ended problems that may have multiple correct solutions. _____

3. I teach using direct instruction. _____

4. I teach using inquiry or problem-solving strategies. _____

5. I teach concepts/skills using demonstrations or modeling. _____

6. I teach using guided practice. _____

7. My students must attempt (individually or in groups) to solve mathematical problems/scientific questions before I provide possible solution(s). _____

8. I give students the notes and information before they explore the concept. _____

9. When I teach, students are often placed in situations that require them to think critically or solve problems before the central concept is explicitly taught. _____

The statements in the TIP (above) provide a vast spectrum of teaching approaches. Some statements lean toward the teacher telling or showing information, with students memorizing or confirming information through exercises and activities (1, 3, 8). Other statements lean toward an active student role where the teacher's role becomes more of a facilitator (2, 4, 9). The remaining statements (5, 6, 7) can fall to either end of the spectrum depending on where in the lesson they occur and what precedes the activity. We may jump to conclusions or quickly try to defend one approach over the other, but the "right" answer depends on the purpose, goals, and standards that you are targeting.

For most of us, our primary experience as a K-16 student involved the teacher giving us information (often delivered by lecture and/or notes) followed by us confirming what was modeled. In mathematics, a problem set of like problems typically followed what the teacher had demonstrated on the board; and in science, an activity or confirmatory lab was provided where all the questions were asked for the student, thus minimizing critical or creative thought.

How Do You Start to Maximize Learning?

At ground level, you need to know your learners well. The degree to which you know and understand each of your students directly affects the quality of learning that will transpire in your classroom. Sure, we all want to know our learners, but how well do you really get to know each one? The interactions and relationships that you have with your students can be on many different levels. Do you know them as individuals (e.g., hobbies, interests, extracurricular involvement)? Do you know their strengths and weaknesses as a student (e.g., strong conceptually but weak in computation; strong visual learners)? Every interaction is important, but for different reasons. Knowing the student as an individual is vital for getting the student engaged in the classroom. Your interest in and knowledge of each student lets each student know you care about him or her as a person. Knowing each student's strengths and weaknesses is vital for maximizing that student's academic progress. Once you know your students' skills and aptitudes, you can better target the instruction and learning that follows.

Now that you have reflected on your teaching practice-from what you value, to what you view as critical knowledge and understandings, to the relationships that you build in your classroom-it is time to explore how your teaching aligns with inquiry-based instructional practice. You may need to make only subtle improvements to an already largely successful teaching practice, or perhaps you need to question what is truly important and then learn how to transition to a more effective inquiry-based teaching and learning environment. Regardless of your starting point, it is important to understand what inquiry is (and is not), and why it is such a critical component of effective instruction.

KEYWORDS

Click on keywords to see similar products:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Are Your Values, Practices, and Actions as a Teacher?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Jeff C. Marshall Should you just roll the dice, or is there a better way to determine the instructional strategies and assessments used to guide today's lesson? You are rolling the dice if you choose an instructional strategy based on what is easiest, what you haven't used in a while, or what your default strategy is.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The professional educator strives to create a learning environment that nurtures to fulfillment the potential of all students.

The professional educator acts with conscientious effort to exemplify the highest ethical standards.

The professional educator responsibly accepts that every child has a right to an uninterrupted education free from strikes or any other work stoppage tactics.

PRINCIPLE I: Ethical Conduct toward Students

The professional educator accepts personal responsibility for teaching students character qualities that will help them evaluate the consequences of and accept the responsibility for their actions and choices. We strongly affirm parents as the primary moral educators of their children. Nevertheless, we believe all educators are obligated to help foster civic virtues such as integrity, diligence, responsibility, cooperation, loyalty, fidelity, and respect-for the law, for human life, for others, and for self.

The professional educator, in accepting his or her position of public trust, measures success not only by the progress of each student toward realization of his or her personal potential, but also as a citizen of the greater community of the republic.

1. The professional educator deals considerately and justly with each student, and seeks to resolve problems, including discipline, according to law and school policy.

2. The professional educator does not intentionally expose the student to disparagement.

3. The professional educator does not reveal confidential information concerning students, unless required by law.

4. The professional educator makes a constructive effort to protect the student from conditions detrimental to learning, health, or safety.

5. The professional educator endeavors to present facts without distortion, bias, or personal prejudice.
PRINCIPLE II: Ethical Conduct toward Practices and Performance
The professional educator assumes responsibility and accountability for his or her performance and continually strives to demonstrate competence.

The professional educator endeavors to maintain the dignity of the profession by respecting and obeying the law, and by demonstrating personal integrity.

1. The professional educator applies for, accepts, or assigns a position or a responsibility on the basis of professional qualifications, and adheres to the terms of a contract or appointment.

2. The professional educator maintains sound mental health, physical stamina, and social prudence necessary to perform the duties of any professional assignment.

3. The professional educator continues professional growth.

4. The professional educator complies with written local school policies and applicable laws and regulations that are not in conflict with this code of ethics.

5. The professional educator does not intentionally misrepresent official policies of the school or educational organizations, and clearly distinguishes those views from his or her own personal opinions.

6. The professional educator honestly accounts for all funds committed to his or her charge.

7. The professional educator does not use institutional or professional privileges for personal or partisan advantage.
PRINCIPLE III: Ethical Conduct toward Professional Colleagues
The professional educator, in exemplifying ethical relations with colleagues, accords just and equitable treatment to all members of the profession.

1. The professional educator does not reveal confidential information concerning colleagues unless required by law.

2. The professional educator does not willfully make false statements about a colleague or the school system.

3. The professional educator does not interfere with a colleague's freedom of choice, and works to eliminate coercion that forces educators to support actions and ideologies that violate individual professional integrity.
PRINCIPLE IV: Ethical Conduct toward Parents and Community
The professional educator pledges to protect public sovereignty over public education and private control of private education.

The professional educator recognizes that quality education is the common goal of the public, boards of education, and educators, and that a cooperative effort is essential among these groups to attain that goal.

1. The professional educator makes concerted efforts to communicate to parents all information that should be revealed in the interest of the student.

2. The professional educator endeavors to understand and respect the values and traditions of the diverse cultures represented in the community and in his or her classroom.

3. The professional educator manifests a positive and active role in school/community relations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Association of American Educators (AAE) is the largest national nonunion professional teachers association, advancing the profession through teacher advocacy and professional development, as well as promoting excellence in education, so that our members receive the respect, recognition and reward they deserve.

# data[].attributes.body
Difference between

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Leaders lead people. Manager manage tasks. There is a difference.

# data[].attributes.body
Qualities

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sometimes it feels like people are just born good at math. Or good at learning languages. And no matter how many times we try to roll our tongues to make that Spanish "r" sound or practice our quadratic equations, we just never get there.

We don't know how much actual science is behind this theory, but it does seem like some colleagues or family members are innately talented in certain areas, while others learn the skills needed to succeed. This idea made us think about the leaders in our lives. Are leaders born or made? Are the characteristics of a good leader learned or instinctive?

We broke this theory down and looked at some leadership qualities from both sides:
Innate Characteristics Of A Leader
Empathy: This powerful quality allows leaders to connect with their employees on a deeper level and understand how they're feeling. It's about putting yourself in other people's shoes and spending more time listening, rather than talking. When you have this level of understanding, you can make better decisions for everyone.

Passion: We've all known a leader who is so in love with what he or she does and who believes so deeply in an idea or cause. It's contagious! And passion sure can't be faked. Passion is what motivates employees to go the extra mile, and most of the time, you're either passionate about something or you're not. There's not a lot of middle ground.

Humbleness: A humble leader is one who gives credit to others when deserved, who calls on colleagues for help, and who realizes that the success of the company depends on all employees, not just the big boss. Ego is not something that develops overnight; the level of your ego is usually a part of your innate personality.
Characteristics Of A Leader That Can Be Learned
Communication skills: An effective communicator clearly explains tasks, deadlines, and expectations, while inspiring and motivating a workforce. Sure, some people are naturally more articulate or communicative than others, but being a skilled communicator takes time and practice.

Transparency: It may be easier to have tough conversations behind closed doors, but employees want to know what is going on. The best leaders share where the company is headed, what is going right or wrong, and what needs to be improved.

Trustworthiness: If this were an innate quality, we would surely have more trust in the world. Unfortunately, building trust is one of the hardest things to do and it takes a lot of time to foster personal relationships, act on promises, and show that you are someone of your word.

So are leaders born or made? There isn't really a clear-cut answer, and it seems to be a mixture of both. A healthy balance of natural capabilities coupled with the desire to learn seems to produce the best leaders.

So does this mean if you're not humble nor a skilled communicator you will never be destined for leadership? Of course not. Even the innate qualities we listed can be developed and worked on. And even the infamous Spanish "r" sound or the quadratic can be achieved.
RELATED POST:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Are Leadership Qualities Learned Or Innate?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sometimes it feels like people are just born good at math. Or good at learning languages. And no matter how many times we try to roll our tongues to make that Spanish "r" sound or practice our quadratic equations, we just never get there.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Building Public Understanding for Student-Centered Learning: A Toolkit for Change Agents

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Building Public Understanding for Student-Centered Learning: A Toolkit for Change Agents

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In America, all kinds of issues in education are big topics of discussion, both in the news media and among the general public. The current education system is beset by a wide range of challenges, from cuts in government funding to changes in disciplinary policies-and much more. Everyone agrees that providing high-quality education for our citizens is a worthy ideal. However, there are many diverse viewpoints about how that should be accomplished. And that leads to highly charged debates, with passionate advocates on both sides.

Understanding education issues is important for students, parents, and taxpayers. By being well-informed, you can contribute valuable input to the discussion. You can also make better decisions about what causes you will support or what plans you will make for your future.

This article provides detailed information on many of today's most relevant issues in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education. It also outlines four emerging trends that have the potential to shake up the education sector. You'll learn about:

13 Major Issues in Education at the K-12 Level

America's elementary and secondary schools are facing a myriad of challenges. Several of the present issues of education are:

1. Government funding for education

On any list of current issues in education, school funding ranks near the top. As you may be aware, the American public education system is composed of primary and secondary schools that are supported by taxes. Over 90 percent of the funding for public K-12 schools comes from state and local governments. In the wake of the Great Recession, most states made cuts to funding for schools. That was understandable, since the bulk of state funding comes from revenues generated by sales and income taxes, both of which drop in times of recession.

However, many states are still giving schools less cash now than they did before the Great Recession. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that, as of the 2017-2018 academic year, 29 states were still spending less per K-12 student than they did a decade earlier. ¹ That's why the formulas that states use to fund schools have come under fire in recent years and have even been the subjects of lawsuits. For example, in 2017, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the legislature's formula for financing schools was unconstitutional because it didn't adequately fund education in the state.

Less funding means that smaller staffs, fewer programs, and diminished resources for students are common problems in school. In some cases, schools are unable to pay for essential maintenance. A 2017 report noted that close to a quarter of all U.S. public schools are in fair or poor condition and that 53 percent of schools need renovations and repairs. ² Plus, one survey discovered that teachers spent an average of $530 of their own money on classroom supplies. ³

The issue reached a tipping point in 2018, with teachers in Arizona, Colorado, and other states walking off the job to demand additional educational funding. Some of the protests resulted in modest funding increases, but many educators believe that more must be done.

2. School safety

Over the past several years, a string of high-profile mass shootings in U.S. schools have resulted in dozens of deaths and led to debates about the best ways to keep students safe. In a poll conducted shortly after 17 people were killed in the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, 57 percent of teenagers said they were worried about the possibility of gun violence at their schools. ⁴

Figuring out how to prevent such attacks and save the lives of students and school personnel are problems faced by teachers all across America.

President Trump and other lawmakers have suggested that allowing specially trained teachers and other school staff to carry concealed weapons would make schools safer. The idea is that adult volunteers who are already proficient with a firearm could undergo specialized training in how to deal with an active shooter situation until law enforcement can arrive. Proponents argue that armed staff could intervene to end the threat and save lives; in addition, potential attackers would be less likely to target a school if they knew that the school's personnel were carrying weapons. ⁵

Critics argue that more guns in schools will lead to more accidents, injuries, and fear. They contend that there is scant evidence supporting the idea that armed school officials would be effective in countering attacks. Some data suggests that the opposite may be true: An FBI analysis of active shooter situations between 2000 and 2013 noted that law enforcement personnel who engaged the shooter suffered casualties in 21 out of 45 incidents. ⁶ And those were highly trained professionals whose primary purpose was to maintain law and order. So it's highly unlikely that teachers, whose focus should be on educating children, would do any better in such situations.

According to the National Education Association (NEA), giving teachers guns is not the answer. In a March 2018 survey, 74 percent of NEA members opposed arming school personnel, and two-thirds said they would feel less safe at work if school staff were carrying guns. To counter gun violence in schools, the NEA supports measures like requiring universal background checks, preventing mentally ill people from purchasing guns, and banning assault weapons. ⁷

3. Disciplinary policies

Data from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights suggests that black students face disproportionately high rates of suspension and expulsion from school. For instance, in K-12 schools, black male students make up only eight percent of enrollees but account for 25 percent of suspensions. ⁸ So, many people believe that some teachers are applying the rules of discipline in a discriminatory way and are thus contributing to what has been termed the "school-to-prison pipeline." That's because research has demonstrated that students who are suspended or expelled are significantly more likely to become involved with the juvenile justice system. ⁹

In 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Education issued guidelines for all public schools on how to develop disciplinary practices that reduce disparities and comply with federal civil rights laws. The guidelines urged schools to limit the use of exclusionary disciplinary tactics such as suspension and expulsion and adopt more positive interventions such as counseling and restorative justice strategies. The guidelines also specified that schools could face a loss of federal funds if they carried out policies that had a disparate impact on some racial groups.

Opponents argue that banning suspensions and expulsions takes away valuable tools that teachers can use to combat student misbehavior. They maintain that as long as disciplinary policies are applied the same way to every student regardless of race, such policies are not discriminatory. In fact, one major study found that the racial disparities in school suspension rates could be explained by the prior behavior of the students rather than by discriminatory tactics on the part of educators. ¹⁰

In 2018, the Federal Commission on School Safety (which was established in the wake of the school shootings in Parkland, Florida) was tasked with reviewing and possibly rescinding the 2014 guidelines. According to a survey taken shortly after the announced review, only 27 percent of Americans support federal policies that limit racial disparities in school discipline. ¹¹

4. Technology in education

Technology in education is a powerful movement that is sweeping through schools nationwide. After all, today's students have grown up with digital technology and expect it to be part of their learning experience. But how much of a role should it play in education?

Proponents point out that educational technology offers the potential to engage students in more active learning, as evidenced in flipped classrooms. It can facilitate group collaboration and provide instant access to up-to-date resources. Teachers and instructors can integrate online surveys, interactive case studies, and relevant videos in order to offer content tailored to different learning styles. Indeed, students with special needs frequently rely on assistive technology to help them communicate and meaningfully access course materials.

But there are downsides as well. For instance, technology can definitely be a distraction. Some students tune out of lessons and spend time checking social media, playing games, or shopping online. One research study revealed that students who multitasked on a laptop during class scored 11 percent lower on an exam that tested their knowledge of the lecture. Students who sat behind those multitaskers scored 17 percent lower. ¹² In the fall of 2017, University of Michigan professor Susan Dynarski cited such research as one of the main reasons why she bans electronics in her classes. ¹³

More disturbingly, technology can pose a real threat to student privacy and security. The collection of sensitive student data by education technology companies can lead to serious problems. In 2017, a group called Dark Overlord hacked into school district servers in several states and obtained access to students' personal information, including counselor reports and medical records. The group used the data to threaten students and their families with physical violence. ¹⁴

5. Charter schools and voucher programs

School choice is definitely among the hot topics in education these days. U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is a vocal supporter of various forms of parental choice, including charter schools and school vouchers.

Charter schools are funded through a combination of public and private money and operate independently of the public system. They have charters (i.e., contracts) with school districts, states, or private organizations. These charters outline the academic outcomes that the schools agree to achieve. Like mainstream public schools, charter schools cannot teach religion or charge tuition, and their students must complete standardized testing. However, charter schools are not limited to taking students in a certain geographic area, and they have more autonomy to choose their teaching methods. They are also subject to less oversight and fewer regulations.

School vouchers are like coupons that allow parents to use public funds to send their child to the school of their choice, which can be private and may be either secular or religious. In many cases, vouchers are reserved for low-income students or students with disabilities.

Advocates argue that charter schools and school vouchers offer parents a greater range of educational options. Opponents say that they privatize education and siphon funding away from regular public schools that are already financially strapped. A poll conducted in May 2018 found that 44 percent of the general public supports the expansion of charter schools, while 35 percent oppose such a move. The same poll found that 54 percent of people support vouchers. ¹¹

6. Common Core

The Common Core State Standards is a set of academic standards for math and language arts that specify what public school students are expected to learn by the end of each year from kindergarten through 12th grade. Developed in 2009, the standards were designed to promote equity among public K-12 students, since all students would take standardized end-of-year tests and be held to the same internationally benchmarked standards. The idea was to institute a system that brought all schools up to the same level and allowed for comparison of student performance in different regions. Such standards would help all students with college and career readiness.

Some opponents see the standards as unwelcome federal intrusion into state control of education. Others are critical of the way the standards were developed with little input from experienced educators. Many teachers argue that the standards result in inflexible lesson plans that allow for less creativity and fun in the learning process.

Some critics also take issue with the lack of accommodation for non-traditional learners. The Common Core prescribes standards for each grade level, but students with disabilities or language barriers often need more time to fully learn the material.

The vast majority of states adopted the Common Core State Standards when they were first introduced. Since then, more than a dozen states have either repealed the standards or revised them to align better with local needs. In many cases, the standards themselves have remained virtually the same but given a different name. ¹⁵

And a name can be significant. In a 2018 survey, a group of American adults was asked whether they supported common standards across states. About 61 percent replied that they did. But when another group was polled about Common Core specifically, only 45 percent said they supported it. ¹¹

7. Standardized testing

In the minds of many, educational reform means making changes to the system in order to ensure that students from all over the country measure up to the same set of standards. The theory behind standardized tests is that they provide an objective measure of student performance and can help ensure that all students become proficient in course material. Standardized testing was meant to hold public schools accountable if they failed to provide effective instruction to all students. Without such measures, it was argued, low-income and minority students would fall through the cracks and not receive the same quality education as their more affluent white counterparts.

During the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) years, schools-and teachers-were judged by how well students scored on such tests. Schools whose results weren't up to par faced intense scrutiny, and in some cases state takeover or closure. Teachers' effectiveness was rated by how much improvement their students showed on standardized exams. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which took effect in 2016, removed the most punitive aspects of NCLB while maintaining the requirement to test students every year in Grades 3 to 8, and once in high school.

But many critics say that rampant standardized testing is one of the biggest problems in education. They argue that the pressure to produce high test scores has resulted in a teach-to-the-test approach to instruction in which other non-tested subjects (such as art, music, and physical education) have been given short shrift in order to devote more time to test preparation. And they contend that policymakers overemphasize the meaning of standardized test results, which don't present a clear or complete picture of overall student learning.

8. Teacher salaries

In most states, teacher pay has steadily eroded over the last several years. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics reveals that across the U.S., average salaries for public elementary and secondary school teachers actually dropped by close to five percent between the 2009-2010 school year and the 2016-2017 one. The decreases were especially pronounced in states like Oklahoma (17 percent) and Colorado (16 percent), both of which saw massive teacher walkouts in the spring of 2018. ¹⁶

Of course, there were significant differences between states. In nine states, average salaries actually went up over that same time frame. For example, Vermont saw an increase of nine percent, and North Dakota saw salaries jump by seven percent. ¹⁶ It's also important to note that public school teachers generally enjoy pensions and other benefits that make up a large share of their compensation.

But the growth in benefits has not been enough to balance out the overall low wages. An Economic Policy Institute report found that even after factoring in benefits, public-sector teachers face a compensation penalty of 11.1 percent relative to other college graduates. ¹⁷

The 2018 teacher strikes did result in some modest gains. West Virginia teachers received a five-percent raise, and Arizona educators got a 20-percent bump spread over three years.

A survey conducted in May 2018 found that Americans' support for boosting teacher salaries was at its highest level since 2008. Among respondents who were first told what teachers in their state earned, 49 percent said that salaries should rise. That represented a 13-percentage-point increase over the previous year. ¹¹

9. The teaching of evolution

In the U.S., public school started as a means to spread religious ideals, but it has since become a strictly secular institution. And the debate over how to teach public school students about the origins of life has gone on for almost a century.

Today, Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection is accepted by virtually the entire scientific community, but it is still controversial among many Americans who maintain that living things were guided into existence. A pair of surveys from 2014 revealed that 98 percent of scientists aligned with the American Association for the Advancement of Science believed that humans evolved over time. But it also revealed that, overall, only 62 percent of American adults agreed. ¹⁸

Over the years, some states have outright banned teachers from discussing evolution in the classroom. Others have mandated that students be allowed to question the scientific soundness of evolution, or that equal time be given to consideration of the Judeo-Christian notion of divine creation (i.e., creationism).

Some people argue that the theory of intelligent design-which posits that the complexities of living things cannot be explained by natural selection and can best be explained as resulting from an intelligent cause-is a legitimate scientific theory that should be allowed in public school curricula. They say it differs from creationism because it doesn't necessarily ascribe the design of life to a supernatural deity or supreme being.

Opponents contend that intelligent design is really just creationism in disguise and should not be taught in public schools because it is religiously motivated and has no credible scientific basis. And the courts have consistently held that the teaching of creationism and intelligent design promotes religious beliefs and therefore violates the Constitution's prohibition against the government establishment of religion. Still, the debate continues.

10. Teacher tenure

Having tenure means that a teacher cannot be let go unless his or her school district demonstrates just cause. Many states grant tenure to public school teachers who have received satisfactory evaluations for a specified period of time (which ranges from one to five years, depending on the state). A few states do not grant tenure at all. And the issue has long been mired in controversy.

Proponents argue that tenure protects teachers from being dismissed for personal or political reasons, such as disagreeing with administrators or teaching contentious subjects such as evolution. Tenured educators can advocate for students without fear of reprisal. Supporters also say that tenure gives teachers the freedom to try innovative methods of instruction in order to deliver more engaging educational experiences. Tenure also protects more experienced (and more expensive) teachers from being arbitrarily replaced with new graduates who earn lower salaries.

Critics contend that tenure makes it difficult to dismiss ineffectual teachers because going through the legal process of doing so is extremely costly and time-consuming. They say that tenure can encourage complacency, since teachers' jobs are secure whether they exceed expectations or just do the bare minimum. Plus, while the granting of tenure often hinges on teacher evaluations, research has found that, in practice, more than 99 percent of teachers receive ratings of satisfactory or better. Some administrators admit to being reluctant to give low ratings because of the time and effort required to document teachers' performance and provide support for improvement. ¹⁹

In recent years, lawsuits challenging teacher tenure laws have been brought in several states. Suits were dismissed in California, New Jersey, and Minnesota. As of 2018, a legal challenge is still ongoing in New York.

11. Bullying

Bullying continues to be a major issue in schools all across the U.S. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 21 percent of students in Grades 6 through 12 reported having been bullied at school, or on their way to or from school, in 2015. That figure is down from 32 percent in 2007, but it is still far too high. ²⁰

The good news is that the same study revealed that the percentage of students who said they had been bullied almost every day dropped from seven percent in 2007 to four percent in 2015. In addition, the percentage of students who reported the bullying to an adult increased from 36 percent to 43 percent over that same time period. ²⁰

But that still means that almost 60 percent of students are not reporting bullying. And that means children are suffering.

Bullied students experience a range of emotional, physical, and behavioral problems. They often feel angry, anxious, lonely, and helpless. They are frequently scared to go to school, leading them to suffer academically and develop a low sense of self-worth. They are also at greater risk of engaging in violent acts or suicidal behaviors.

Every state has anti-bullying legislation in place, and schools are expected to develop policies to address the problem. However, there are differences in how each state defines bullying and what procedures it mandates when bullying is reported. And only about a third of states call for school districts to include provisions for support services such as counseling for students who are victims of bullying (or are bullies themselves). ²¹

12. Poverty

Student poverty is a growing problem. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that as of the 2014-2015 school year, low-income students comprised a majority (52 percent) of public school students in the U.S. That represented a significant increase from 2000-2001, when only 38 percent of students were considered low-income (meaning they qualified for free or discounted school lunches). ¹⁶

The numbers are truly alarming: In 40 states, at least 40 percent of public school enrollees were eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunches, and 18 of those states had student poverty rates of 50 percent or more. ¹⁶

Low-income students tend to perform worse in school than their more affluent peers. Studies have shown that family income strongly correlates to student achievement on standardized tests. ²² That may be partly because parents with fewer financial resources generally can't afford tutoring and other enrichment experiences that can boost student achievement. In addition, low-income children are much more likely to experience food instability, family turmoil, and other stressors that can negatively affect their academic success. ²³

All of this means that teachers are faced with instructional challenges that go beyond students' desires to learn.

13. Class size

As of the 2011-2012 school year, the average class size in U.S. public schools was 21.2 students at the elementary level and 26.8 students at the secondary level. ¹⁶ But anecdotal reports suggest that, today, classrooms commonly have more than 30 students- sometimes as many as 40.

Conventional wisdom holds that smaller classes are beneficial to student learning. Teachers often argue that the size of a class greatly influences the quality of the instruction they are able to provide. Indeed, research has shown that smaller classes do lead to improved student outcomes, particularly for low-income and minority students in the early elementary grades. ²⁴

Many (but not all) states have regulations in place that impose limits on class sizes. However, those limits become increasingly difficult to maintain in an era of budget constraints. Reducing class sizes requires hiring more teachers and constructing new classrooms. And, arguably, allowing class sizes to expand can enable districts to absorb funding cuts without having to make reductions to other programs such as art and physical education.

Critics argue that smaller class sizes do not confer as much of an advantage as proponents claim and that the staggering cost of limiting class sizes makes such policies unworkable. For instance, Florida amended its constitution in 2002 to cap the size of classes at both the elementary and secondary level. A 2010 study of its effectiveness found that while the policy costs the state around $4 billion a year, it has resulted in no significant impact on test scores for students in Grades 4 through 8. ²⁵

7 Big Issues in Higher Education

In the American education system, problems are not limited to elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. Here are details on a few of the current education issues at the college level:

1. Student loan forgiveness

Here's how the American public education system works: Students attend primary and secondary school (which is free), then they have the option of going on to post-secondary training (which, for most students, is not free). So with costs continuing to rise at both public and private institutions of higher learning, student loan debt is one of the most prominent issues in education today. Statistics show that students who graduated from college in 2017 came out with an average debt load of $39,400, which was six percent higher than the previous year. As a whole, Americans owe close to $1.5 trillion in student loans. ²⁶

Currently, students who have received certain federal student loans and are on income-driven repayment plans can qualify to have their remaining balance forgiven if they haven't repaid the loan in full after 20 to 25 years, depending on the plan. Additionally, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program allows qualified borrowers who go into public service careers (such as teaching, government service, social work, or law enforcement) to have their student debt cancelled after 10 years.

However, potential changes are in the works. The Trump administration wants to eliminate the PSLF program and consolidate all current income-repayment plans into one that offers student loan forgiveness after 15 years rather than 20 or 25. Meanwhile, a growing number of Democrats are advocating for free college as an alternative to student loans.

2. Completion rates

The large number of students who begin post-secondary studies but do not graduate continues to be an issue. According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, the overall six-year college completion rate for the cohort entering college in 2011 was only 56.9 percent. Around 45 percent of students completed a credential at the same institution where they started their studies, and about another 12 percent finished at a different institution. ²⁷

The good news is that the report marks two straight years of increases, and the overall rate has now surpassed the pre-recession high of 56.1 percent. ²⁷

While the trend is headed the right way, there is still concern over the significant percentage of college students who do not graduate. After all, 43 percent of students who began college in 2011 had still not completed a degree or certificate six years later. Close to a third of them had dropped out entirely.

Significant costs are associated with starting college but not completing it. Many students end up weighed down by debt, and evidence suggests that those who do not complete their higher education are less able to repay loans. ²⁸ Plus, students miss out on formal credentials that could lead to higher earnings. Research shows that students who begin college but do not complete a degree have median weekly earnings of $774. By contrast, associate degree holders have median weekly wages of $836, and bachelor's degree recipients have median weekly earnings of $1,173. ²⁹

Students leave college for many reasons, but chief among them is money. To mitigate that, some institutions have implemented small retention or completion grants. Such grants are aimed at students who are close to graduating, have financial need, have used up all other sources of aid, owe a modest amount, and are at risk of dropping out due to lack of funds. One study found that around a third of the institutions who implemented such grants noted higher graduation rates among grant recipients. ³⁰

Mental health challenges among students are a growing concern. A survey from the spring of 2018 found that almost two-thirds of college students said they had experienced "overwhelming anxiety" within the previous 12 months, and almost 57 percent reported higher-than-average stress levels. ³¹ The Center for Collegiate Mental Health noted that over a five-year span leading up to 2015, the number of college students who sought help from campus counseling centers increased by an average of 30 to 40 percent, even though enrollment grew by only five percent over that same time frame. ³²

Among students seeking treatment, anxiety and depression were by far the most common complaints. Even more disturbingly, the report noted that the number of students who sought treatment as a result of engaging in self-harm or having suicidal thoughts had increased steadily between 2010 and 2017. ³²

And some schools are struggling to keep up. A national survey of college and university counseling center directors found that the average student-to-clinician ratio on U.S. campuses was 1,737 to 1. ³³ Yet, the International Association of Counseling Services (IACS) recommends that universities and colleges should ideally have one counselor for every 1,000 to 1,500 students. So, in some cases, suffering students face long waits for treatment.

Sexual assault is a serious problem on American campuses. According to a study by the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of reported on-campus forcible sex offenses grew from 2,200 in 2001 to 6,700 in 2014. ³⁴ A separate report from 2015 found that close to 12 percent of all college students experienced unwanted sexual penetration or touching through force (i.e., being physically overcome or threatened with a weapon) or incapacitation (i.e., being unable to consent due to being drunk, high, or asleep). ³⁵

It's estimated that almost two-thirds of sexual assaults are not reported to law enforcement, so the actual number of incidents could be much higher. ³⁶

And the way that colleges and universities deal with sexual assault is undergoing changes. In 2011, the Obama administration set out guidelines that schools were to follow in order to comply with Title IX rules that prohibit sexual discrimination in education. The guidelines broadly defined sexual harassment as "unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature" and required administrators to investigate all cases of student-on-student sexual misconduct that occurred either on or off campus, regardless of whether any party lodged a formal complaint.

Administrators were also required to adjudicate such cases based on a preponderance of evidence, meaning that they had to believe that it was more likely than not that an accused was guilty in order to proceed with disciplinary action. The "clear and convincing" evidentiary standard, which required that administrators be reasonably certain that sexual violence or harassment occurred, was deemed unacceptable.

Critics argued that the guidelines failed to respect the due process rights of those accused of sexual misconduct. Research has found that the frequency of false sexual assault allegations is between two and 10 percent. ³⁷

In 2017, the Trump administration rescinded the Obama-era guidelines and signaled its intent to institute new regulations on how schools should handle sexual assault allegations. The proposed rules, which have not yet been formally published or finalized, would define sexual harassment more narrowly and would only require schools to investigate formal complaints about on-campus incidents that are officially filed with designated authorities, such as Title IX coordinators. The proposed rules would also allow schools the option of using the clear and convincing standard for conviction.

Victims' rights advocates say that such an approach would deter victims from coming forward and provide less protection. It remains to be seen what the final rules will be.

The use of trigger warnings in academia is a highly contentious issue. Trigger warnings are designed to notify students that upcoming course material contains concepts or images that may invoke psychological or physiological reactions in people who have experienced trauma. Some college instructors provide such warnings before introducing films, texts, or other content involving things like violence or sexual abuse. The idea is to give students advance notice so that they can psychologically prepare themselves.

Some believe that trigger warnings are essential because they allow vulnerable people to prepare for and navigate difficult content. Having warnings in place also allows students who are dealing with post-traumatic stress to decide whether they will engage with such material or seek out an alternative way to acquire the necessary information.

Critics argue that trigger warnings constrain free speech and academic freedom by discouraging the discussion of topics that might trigger distressing reactions in some students. They point out that college faculty already provide detailed course syllabi and that it's impossible to anticipate and acknowledge every potential trigger.

In 2015, NPR Ed surveyed more than 800 faculty members at higher education institutions across the U.S. and found that around half had given trigger warnings before bringing up potentially disturbing course material. Most did so on their own initiative, not in response to administrative policy or student requests. ³⁸ In fact, few schools either mandate or prohibit trigger warnings. One notable exception is the University of Chicago, which in 2016 informed all incoming first-year students that it did not support such warnings.

6. College accreditation

In order to participate in federal student financial aid programs, institutions of higher education must be accredited by an agency that is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. By law, accreditors must consider factors such as an institution's facilities, equipment, curricula, admission practices, faculty, and support services. The idea is to enforce an acceptable standard of quality.

But while federal regulations require accreditors to assess each institution's "success with respect to student achievement," they don't specify how to measure such achievement. Accreditors are free to define that for themselves. Unfortunately, some colleges that have questionable practices, low graduation rates, and high student loan default rates continue to be accredited. Critics argue that accreditors are not doing enough to ensure that students receive good value for their money.

7. College rankings

Every year, prospective college students and their families turn to rankings like the ones produced by U.S. News & World Report to compare different institutions of higher education. Many people accept such rankings as authoritative without truly understanding how they are calculated or what they actually measure.

It's common for ranking organizations to refine their methodologies from year to year and change how they weigh various factors-which means it's possible for colleges to rise or fall in the rankings despite making no substantive changes to their programs or institutional policies. That makes it difficult to compare rankings from one year to the next, since things are often measured differently.

For colleges, a higher ranking can lead to more visibility, more qualified applicants, and more alumni donations (in short: more money). And the unfortunate reality is that, in their quest to outrank their competitors, some schools outright lie about test scores, graduation rates, or financial information.

Others take advantage of creative ways to game the system. For example, U.S. News looks at the test scores of incoming students at each institution, but it only looks at students who begin in the fall semester. So one school instituted a program whereby students with lower test scores could spend their first semester in a foreign country and return to the school in the spring, thus leaving them out of the calculations of U.S. News. ³⁹

Rankings do make useful information about U.S. colleges and universities available to all students and their families. But consumers should be cautious about blindly accepting such rankings as true measures of educational quality.

5 Emerging Trends in Education

What are the forces that will shape education in the years to come? Some of the new trends in education are:

1. Maker learning

The maker movement is rapidly gaining traction in K-12 schools across America. Maker learning is based on the idea that you will engage students in learning by encouraging interest-driven problem solving and hands-on activities (i.e., learning by doing). In collaborative spaces called makerspaces, students identify problems, dream up inventions, make prototypes, and keep tinkering until they come up with something that makes sense. It's a do-it-yourself educational approach that focuses on iterative trial and error and views failure as an opportunity to refine and improve.

Maker education focuses on learning rather than teaching. Students follow their own interests and test their own solutions. For example, that might mean creating a video game, building a rocket, designing historical costumes, or 3D-printing an irrigation system for a garden. It can involve high-tech equipment, but it doesn't have to. Repurposing whatever materials are on hand is an important ideal of the maker philosophy.

There is little hard data available on the maker trend. However, armed with a grant from the National Science Foundation, researchers at Rutgers University are currently studying the cognitive basis for maker education and investigating its connection to meaningful learning. ⁴⁰

2. Moving away from letter grades

Many education advocates believe that the traditional models of student assessment place too much emphasis on standardization and testing. They feel that traditional grading models do not sufficiently measure many of the skills that are most prized in the 21st-century workforce, such as problem solving, self-advocacy, and creativity. As a result, a growing number of schools around the U.S. are replacing A-F letter grades with new assessment systems.

Formed in 2017, the Mastery Transcript Consortium is a group of more than 150 private high schools that have pledged to get rid of grade-based transcripts in favor of digital ones that provide qualitative descriptions of student learning as well as samples of student work. Some of the most famous private institutions in America have signed on, including Dalton and Phillips Exeter.

The no-more-grades movement is taking hold in public schools as well. Many states have enacted policies aimed at encouraging public schools to use something other than grades to assess students' abilities. It's part of a larger shift toward what's commonly known as mastery-based or competency-based learning, which strives to ensure that students become proficient in defined areas of skill.

Instead of letter grades, report cards may feature phrases like "partially meets the standard" or "exceeds the standard." Some schools also include portfolios, capstone projects, or other demonstrations of student learning.

But what happens when it's time to apply to college? It seems that even colleges and universities are getting on board. At least 75 higher education institutions across New England (including Dartmouth and Harvard) have formally indicated that students who present competency-based transcripts will not be disadvantaged in any way during the admission process.

3. The rise of micro-credentials

Micro-credentials, also known as digital badges or nanodegrees, are mini-qualifications that demonstrate a student's knowledge or skills in a given area. Unlike traditional college degrees that require studying a range of different subjects over a multi-year span, micro-credentials are earned through short, targeted educational offerings that focus on specific skills in particular fields. They tend to be inexpensive (sometimes even free) and are typically taken online.

Some post-secondary schools are developing micro-credentialing partnerships with third-party learning providers, while other schools are offering such solutions on their own. According to one survey, around 20 percent of higher education institutions offer some type of alternative credentialing. ⁴¹

Micro-credentials can serve as evidence that students have mastered particular skills, but the rigor and market worth of such credentials can vary significantly. ⁴² Still, they are an increasingly popular way of unbundling content and providing it on demand.

4. Flipped classrooms

A growing number of schools are embracing the notion of flipped learning. It's an instructional approach that reverses the traditional model of the teacher giving a lecture in front of the class, then sending students home to work through assignments that enhance their understanding of the concepts. In flipped learning, students watch lecture videos or read relevant course content on their own before class, and class time is devoted to expanding on the material through group discussions and collaborative learning projects (i.e., doing what was traditionally meant as homework). The instructor is there to guide students when questions or problems arise.

Provided that all students have access to the appropriate technology and are motivated to prepare for each class session, flipped learning can bring a wide range of benefits. For example, it allows students to control their own learning by watching lecture videos at their own pace; they can pause, jot down questions, or re-watch parts they find confusing. The model also encourages students to learn from each other and explore subjects more deeply.

Flipped learning is becoming widespread in all levels of education, but it is especially prevalent at the college level. A 2017 survey found that 61 percent of college faculty were using the flipped model in some or all of their classes. That marked a six-percent increase over 2016. Another 24 percent of college instructors were either exploring the idea of flipped classes or actively planning to implement it. ⁴³

5. Social-emotional learning

There is a growing consensus that schools have a responsibility to foster students' social and emotional development along with their cognitive skills. Social-emotional learning (SEL) focuses on helping students develop the abilities to identify their strengths, manage their emotions, set goals, show empathy, make responsible decisions, and build and maintain healthy relationships. Research has shown that such skills play a key role in reducing anti-social behavior, boosting academic achievement, and improving long-term health. ⁴⁴

Every state has developed SEL competencies at the preschool level, and the number of states with such competencies for higher grades is growing. And according to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), at least 16 states should have SEL competencies articulated for K-12 by the end of 2019 (up from just one state in 2011). ⁴⁵

Explore Your Educational Options

Now that you've learned about current issues in education, you may want to start thinking about how to develop the skills you need for the future you want. If you're looking for post-secondary training, it's definitely worth your while to consider the focused programs offered by vocational colleges and technical schools. Discover options in your area by putting your zip code into the search tool below!

¹ Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, " A Punishing Decade for School Funding," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

² American Society of Civil Engineers, 2017 Infrastructure Report Card, website last visited on November 13, 2018.

³ Scholastic, " Teacher & Principal School Report: Educators' Funding Priorities & Personal Spending," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

⁴ Pew Research Center, " A majority of U.S. teens fear a shooting could happen at their school, and most parents share their concern," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

⁵ Personal Defense World, " The Case For Arming Teachers and the Reality of How It Works," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

⁷ NEAToday.org, " NEA Survey: Educators Say No to Arming Teachers, Favor Real Solutions to Gun Violence," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

⁸ U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, " 2015-2016 Civil Rights Data Collection: School Climate and Safety," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

¹¹ Education Next, " Public Support Climbs for Teacher Pay, School Expenditures, Charter Schools, and Universal Vouchers," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

¹⁶ U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, website last visited on November 13, 2018.

¹⁷ Economic Policy Institute, " The teacher pay penalty has hit a new high," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

¹⁸ Pew Research Center, " For Darwin Day, 6 facts about the evolution debate," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

²⁰ U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, " Changes in Bullying Victimization and Hate-Related Words at School Since 2007," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

²¹ American Psychological Association, " Do U.S. laws go far enough to prevent bullying at school?," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

²² The Conversation, " Students' test scores tell us more about the community they live in than what they know," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

²⁶ Student Loan Hero, " A Look at the Shocking Student Loan Debt Statistics for 2018," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

²⁹ Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections, " Unemployment rates and earnings by educational attainment, 2017," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

³⁸ NPR Ed, " Half of Professors in NPR Ed Survey Have Used 'Trigger Warnings'," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

³⁹ Capstone College Partners, " The Gaming of College Rankings," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

⁴⁰ National Science Foundation, " Eager: Maker: The origins of making: A Data Science Approach to Investigating Cognitive and Affective Basis of Learning through Constructing," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

⁴² Class Central, " Analysis of 450 MOOC-Based Microcredentials Reveals Many Options But Little Consistency," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

⁴³ Campus Technology, " Survey: Blended Learning on the Rise," website last visited on November 13, 2018.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Here Are 20 Major Issues Affecting Schools Across America

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Get the facts about current issues in education. Explore both sides of the debates regarding school safety, standardized testing, disciplinary policies, teacher tenure, trigger warnings, and much more. Also, learn about emerging trends that are taking hold in the American education system!