Organizing for Continuous Improvement in Education

Education ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lora Cohen-Vogel ◽  
Christopher Harrison ◽  
Megan Rauch Griffard
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Learning ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Continuous Improvement ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Organizational Studies ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Double Loop Learning ◽  
Problems Of Practice

In education, the organization of continuous improvement refers to the structure of social relations between subgroups and institutions working to integrate quality improvement into the daily lives of individuals within the PreK-16 education system. On its own, the term social organization generally refers to patterns of relationships both among and between individuals and groups that persist over time, are interrelated, and affect the operations of the entity as well as the actions of its individual members. In a broad sense, organizations engaged in continuous improvement draw from two theories of organizational learning: Englebart’s stratified model of organizational improvement and Argyris’s single- and double-loop learning. These organizations engage in improvement work with regularity, infusing it into the day-to-day activities of members, and situating problems of practice as the naturally occurring outputs of a system as its currently designed. This article provides an overview of the research on the social organization of continuous improvement in education, highlighting selections that inform how the structures through which people interact enhance or inhibit organizational learning. Organized into nine sections, the article begins with a general overview with key selections from organizational studies and closely related fields that inform today’s understanding of improvement-focused organizations. The second section covers early, seminal texts that apply ideas about organizational learning to educational systems. Next are sections related to the organizational forms in which improvement work in education is occurring: research-practice partnerships; research alliances; networked improvement communities; designed-based research collaboratives; interagency restructuring; and individual schools as improvement organizations. The final section focuses on what’s known about how to lead organizations engaged in continuous improvement. The citations, though not exhaustive, provide a comprehensive overview of the topic and provide an entry point for those looking build or study improvement-focused organizations in education. Citations have been included because of their significance in the field and the lessons they hold for their readers.

scholarly journals Co-Housing Response to Social Isolation of COVID-19 Outbreak, with a Focus on Gender Implications

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7203
Author(s):  
Emanuele Giorgi ◽  
Lucía Martín Martín López ◽  
Rubén Garnica-Monroy ◽  
Aleksandra Krstikj ◽  
Carlos Cobreros ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Isolation ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Social Impacts ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Design Considerations ◽  
Social Habits

COVID-19 forced billions of people to restructure their daily lives and social habits. Several research projects have focused on social impacts, approaching the phenomenon on the basis of different issues and scales. This work studies the changes in social relations within the well-defined urban-territorial elements of co-housing communities. The peculiarity of this research lies in the essence of these communities, which base their existence on the spirit of sharing spaces and activities. As social distancing represented the only effective way to control the outbreak, the research studied how the rules of social distancing impacted these communities. For this reason, a questionnaire was sent to 60 communities asking them to highlight the changes that the emergency imposed on the members in their daily life and in the organization of common activities and spaces. A total of 147 responses were received and some relevant design considerations emerged: (1) the importance of feeling part of a “safe” community, with members who were known and deemed reliable, when facing a health emergency; and (2) the importance of open spaces to carry out shared activities. Overall, living in co-housing communities was evaluated as an “extremely positive circumstance” despite the fact that the emergency worsened socialization.

A learning culture for strategic partnering in construction

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eddie W.L. Cheng ◽  
Heng Li ◽  
Peter Love ◽  
Zahir Irani
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Learning ◽  
Continuous Improvement ◽  
Learning Culture ◽  
Learning Climate ◽  
Learning From Experience ◽  
Strategic Partnering

This paper highlights the importance of creating a learning culture for strategic partnering in construction. Theories of organizational learning and strategic partnering are interpolated to identify the related attributes that help to relate and intertwine the two concepts. With the emergence of a learning culture, organizations are able to undergo the transition from no organizational learning to integrated organizational learning, which in turn reinforces the embedded culture. Since learning from experience, continuous improvement and a learning climate are pre‐conditions for a learning culture, three models are presented respectively in dealing with issues relating to these conditions. These models help to attain strategic partnering.

Data Lives

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Kitchin
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Human Values ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Digital Devices ◽  
Digital Ethics ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Scientific Principles ◽  
Generate Process ◽  
The Many

How can we begin to grasp the scope and scale of our new data-rich world, and can we truly comprehend what is at stake? This book explores the intricacies of data creation and charts how data-driven technologies have become essential to how society, government and the economy work. Creatively blending scholarly analysis, biography and fiction, the book demonstrates how data are shaped by social and political forces, and the extent to which they influence our daily lives. The book begins with an overview of the sociality of data. Data-driven endeavours are as much a result of human values, desires, and social relations as they are scientific principles and technologies. The data revolution has been transforming work and the economy, the nature of consumption, the management and governance of society, how we communicate and interact with media and each other, and forms of play and leisure. Indeed, our lives are saturated with digital devices and services that generate, process, and share vast quantities of data. The book reveals the many, complex, contested ways in which data are produced and circulated, as well as the consequences of living in a data-driven world. The book concludes with an exploration as to what kind of data future we want to create and strategies for realizing our visions. It highlights the need to enact 'a digital ethics of care', and to claim and assert 'data sovereignty'. Ultimately, the book reveals our data world to be one of potential danger, but also of hope.

Organizational Learning and Change

2021 ◽  
pp. 723-741
Author(s):  
Jieun You ◽  
Junghwan Kim ◽  
Doo Hun Lim
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Change ◽  
Organizational Learning ◽  
Learning Organization ◽  
Resistance To Change ◽  
Learning Theories ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Uncertain Environments ◽  
Double Loop Learning ◽  
Structural Inertia ◽  
Learning And Change

This chapter discusses organizational learning as a strategic approach for organizational change. In the face of turbulent and uncertain environments, continuous involvement in organizational change is necessary. However, most organizations encounter resistance to change, thus fail to accomplish organizational change despite change efforts. Previous literature explains that resistance to change results from cognitive and psychological processes, social and power relationships, and organizational structural inertia. Given the findings from the previous research, organizational learning theories can provide strategic interventions to effectively deal with resistance and to achieve organizational change goals. The learning organization embrace learning activities – unlearning, experimentation, exploration, double-loop learning, and action learning - to develop the adaptability to environmental changes. This chapter suggests that HR/HRD should play a role in building the learning organization and facilitating organizational learning for change as a change agent.

Computer Agent Technologies in Collaborative Assessments

2016 ◽  
pp. 319-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yigal Rosen ◽  
Maryam Mosharraf
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Collaborative Problem Solving ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Virtual Agents ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Large Scale Assessment ◽  
Collaborative Problem ◽  
Scalable Learning

Often in our daily lives we learn and work in groups. In recognition of the importance of collaborative and problem solving skills, educators are realizing the need for effective and scalable learning and assessment solutions to promote the skillset in educational systems. In the settings of a comprehensive collaborative problem solving assessment, each student should be matched with various types of group members and must apply the skills in varied contexts and tasks. One solution to these assessment demands is to use computer-based (virtual) agents to serve as the collaborators in the interactions with students. The chapter presents the premises and challenges in the use of computer agents in the assessment of collaborative problem solving. Directions for future research are discussed in terms of their implications to large-scale assessment programs.

Those Who Can't, Teach: The Disabling History of American Educators

2013 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Rousmaniere
Keyword(s):  
Disability Studies ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
History Of Education ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Analytic Framework ◽  
School Teachers ◽  
Cultural Concepts ◽  
Professional Norms ◽  
History Of ◽  
Over Time

This essay is an exploratory history of American educators as viewed through the lens of disability studies. By this I mean that I am looking at the history of school teachers with disability as the primary marker of social relations, in much the same way that I and others have looked at the history of education through the primary lens of race, gender, ethnicity, age, religion, and sexuality. Looking at the history of teachers through the analytic framework of disability studies allows us to see first, how educational systems, practices, values, and professional norms have developed in a way that excludes people with disabilities from educational employment, or assigned them to parallel and marginalized institutions of special education and second, how notions of normality have defined the work and identity of all educators. It is this latter point that is my greatest interest here: how cultural concepts of ability and disability have shaped all educators' occupational identity and experience over time.

Youthful socialities in Australia’s urban multiculture

Urban Studies ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 605-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Harris
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Capital Cities ◽  
Friendship Relations ◽  
Harmonious Community ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Very High ◽  
High Diversity

This article considers the function of friendship as a form of urban relation for young people living in working class areas of Australia’s multicultural capital cities. These neighbourhoods are characterised by very high diversity, significant socioeconomic disadvantage and large youth populations, and over the last five years many have received the largest influx of refugees and migrants of any Australian municipality. Against this backdrop, this article investigates the ways that sociality is produced amongst young people of many backgrounds who must constantly negotiate interethnic propinquity in their daily lives. It explores how young people create ways of being together beyond and beneath the imperatives of formal social cohesion initiatives to participate in harmonious community-making. It argues that everyday forms of convivial co-habitation are produced and regulated through friendship relations and networks that embed mix in daily life, and these can serve to recognise and manage, rather than eliminate, intensity, conflict and ambivalence. It suggests that such practices of sociality complicate mainstream policy endeavours, and can offer some important and hopeful ways to expand theorisation of social relations in the multicultural city.

scholarly journals Peculiarities of Transformation of the Original Religious Beliefs of Australian Indigenous Societies in Modern Conditions

2008 ◽  
pp. 60-68
Author(s):  
Dmytro V. Bazyk
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Traditional Beliefs ◽  
Distant Region

Indigenous beliefs of Australia have attracted the attention of numerous generations of researchers of the XIX - XX centuries. The reasons for this interest were not limited by the exotic beliefs of the traditional beliefs of the distant region of the planet. Anthropologists, ethnographers, sociologists, historians and religious scholars, considering the preservation of one of the most archaic systems of economy and social organization among the tribes of Australia, respectively, considered the aboriginal beliefs as a spiritual result, reflecting the most archaic system of social relations, referring to them as a kind , "The standard of primordial religion." So, the Soviet researcher S. Tokarev notes that the beliefs of Australians are the most archaic religious phenomenon that has remained to this day and a classic, typical example of totemism.

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